1) I’ve heard some people say that it involves ability to produce milk for the baby, and others say that it’s a signal of health (ie evolution wouldn’t concentrate resources there unless all the other organs were already healthy). I only mentioned the first possibility in this post, which on second thought was overly simplistic.
2) You mean in relation to the evo psych of lust? Yes, I suppose that’s true; as I said, a lot of this post is based on introspection, and when I introspect about the sex drive I tend to think about the straight male sex drive for obvious reasons. I don’t really know what kind of footnote I could include besides “And females also exist and also fall in love for stupid reasons sometimes”, but if there’s something specific which you think needs to be said I’ll add it in.
(AFAIK, there’s no good research or theorizing on the evolutionary psychology of how homosexuals select partners, and the evolution of homosexuality is still a confusing and controversial field. Would be interested if you know of anything.)
1) Women with small breasts have no problem breastfeeding, although they do have to do it more frequently—it’s possible that in some environments infrequent nursing was an advantage, although I’m skeptical that this alone could be responsible for the male fixation on breasts over other indicators.
2) A footnote or parenthetical saying something like “Note: The word “you” actually refers to you only if you are a straight or bisexual male” would be fine.
I have no special knowledge on how same-sex partners are generally selected, just my data point from being bi myself.
Gah. I understand now. Second-person writing strikes again. Edited to third person, and all references to breasts removed and replaced with references to wide hips, which as far as I know everyone agrees have a clear evolutionary benefit.
The appearance of wide hips also signals hip fat deposits, which help with offspring development. Not everyone has a C-section—and the operation has risks. Also, with sexually-selected traits, there is little point in bucking the trend—if you choose to mate with narrow-hipped girls, they will tend to produce narrow-hipped offspring which then no-one else finds attractive. My assessment would be that apparent hip width is still quite a useful heuristic.
1) I’ve heard some people say that it involves ability to produce milk for the baby, and others say that it’s a signal of health (ie evolution wouldn’t concentrate resources there unless all the other organs were already healthy). I only mentioned the first possibility in this post, which on second thought was overly simplistic.
1) I’ve heard some people say that it involves ability to produce milk for the baby, and others say that it’s a signal of health (ie evolution wouldn’t concentrate resources there unless all the other organs were already healthy). I only mentioned the first possibility in this post, which on second thought was overly simplistic.
2) You mean in relation to the evo psych of lust? Yes, I suppose that’s true; as I said, a lot of this post is based on introspection, and when I introspect about the sex drive I tend to think about the straight male sex drive for obvious reasons. I don’t really know what kind of footnote I could include besides “And females also exist and also fall in love for stupid reasons sometimes”, but if there’s something specific which you think needs to be said I’ll add it in.
(AFAIK, there’s no good research or theorizing on the evolutionary psychology of how homosexuals select partners, and the evolution of homosexuality is still a confusing and controversial field. Would be interested if you know of anything.)
1) Women with small breasts have no problem breastfeeding, although they do have to do it more frequently—it’s possible that in some environments infrequent nursing was an advantage, although I’m skeptical that this alone could be responsible for the male fixation on breasts over other indicators.
2) A footnote or parenthetical saying something like “Note: The word “you” actually refers to you only if you are a straight or bisexual male” would be fine.
I have no special knowledge on how same-sex partners are generally selected, just my data point from being bi myself.
Gah. I understand now. Second-person writing strikes again. Edited to third person, and all references to breasts removed and replaced with references to wide hips, which as far as I know everyone agrees have a clear evolutionary benefit.
The appearance of wide hips also signals hip fat deposits, which help with offspring development. Not everyone has a C-section—and the operation has risks. Also, with sexually-selected traits, there is little point in bucking the trend—if you choose to mate with narrow-hipped girls, they will tend to produce narrow-hipped offspring which then no-one else finds attractive. My assessment would be that apparent hip width is still quite a useful heuristic.
Here’s a somewhat more plausible explanation for how the breast-selection cycle got started in humans.
Edit: fixed link