An old joke tells of four women who interview for a job with a male boss. All four are clearly qualified, making the choice difficult. Who gets the job? The one with the largest breasts.
Men typically smile at the punch line, but women often cringe, feeling tyrannized by breast size the way many men feel oppressed by the size of something else—except that penises are usually hidden, while women’s chests are routinely visible and clothing often draws the eye to them.
Personally, I’ve never understood men’s supposed preference for big boobs. In my relationships, the women’s breasts have ranged from small to large, and I never cared. When I found women who were smart, kind, and fun—and who could put up with me and were willing to remove their bras—I felt so grateful that I thoroughly enjoyed whatever fell out of them. To my way of thinking, when women are desirable, their breasts are a marvelous gift, no matter what their size.
The Conventional Wisdom: Men Prefer Large Breasts
But apparently, I’m in the minority. Two studies support the notion that men prefer big boobs:
French researchers fitted women with various size padded bras and then sent them to cafés where they sat alone. As bra size increased, so did the number of men who approached them.
New Zealand researchers used eye-tracking technology to assess how men view women with various size breasts. While small breasts attracted and held some men’s attention, most men gazed at the women with medium to large breasts. (Many women complain that men talk to their breasts, not to their faces.)
In addition, the bra industry supports the idea that bigger is better. Soon after the first modern bra design was patented n 1914—two handkerchiefs sewn together with straps made of ribbon—padded bras appeared to make women look larger. In 1948, Frederick Mellinger, founder of Frederick’s of Hollywood, introduced the push-up bra that made breast look even larger. And in 1994 the Wonderbra became a sensation. A refinement of the push-up concept that accented cleavage, Wonderbra increased sales of push-up bras from less than 3 percent of the market to 10 percent.
Finally, since 1990, the average American bra size has increased from 34B to 36C. Ditto for England. Part of the reason is breast augmentation. Surgeons now perform 317,000 boob jobs annually (vs. around 100,000 breast reductions). But more importantly, over the past few decades, women have gained weight. As weight increases, so does breast size, and with one-third of the adult population now considered overweight, many women’s breasts have grown heftier.
Plenty of Men Love Them Smaller
Meanwhile, flat-chested models dominate the fashion runways of Paris, Milan, and New York. And because top models often wed celebrities, some of the world’s richest, most visible women are small of chest.
I googled “women’s breast size men’s preference,” and found several discussions. Participants were self-selected and not representative, but the comments were all over the map. A few said they could feel attracted only to women with a specific endowment. (The leading preference was large, followed by medium then small.) But like me, many men insisted that they when they fell in love with women, they fell in love with their breasts, whatever the size.
This dovetails with the visual evidence displayed in that major window into men’s erotic desires, pornography. Back in the days before the Internet, all the girls in Playboy had huge breasts because that’s what Hugh Hefner likes. But visit any of the zillion free porn-sampler sites (lobstertube.com, cliti.com, etc.) and you can view men enthusiastically having sex with women of every imaginable size from utterly flat to zeppelins.
Finally, English and Malaysian researchers showed full-body photos of women to 361 men, who rated their attractiveness. The women with large breasts were not considered the most attractive. The honor when to the women with medium-size endowment.
Breast Size and Evolutionary Psychology
Paleolithic cave art dating back 35,000 years portrays naked women with enormous hips and breasts. Perhaps that’s pre-historic porn, or maybe it has to do with reproductive fitness. Just as any size penis can cause a pregnancy, any size breast can swell with milk and nurture an infant. But evolution seems to have primed men to believe that women with larger breasts are a better reproductive bet.
Most breast tissue is fatty. Long before the contemporary obesity epidemic, when food was scarce and starvation a real threat, large breasts suggested ample fat reserves, which in turn suggested that the women had reliable access to food, which increased their offsprings’ (and men’s) chances of survival. English and Malaysian researchers showed photographs of women with varying breast size to 266 Malaysian men whose socioeconomic status ranged from poor to wealthy. Poor men showed a significantly greater preference for large breasts than middle-class men, who in turn were more likely to prefer larger breasts than the wealthy men who had plenty of resources and didn’t “need” women with substantial fat reserves. (This may explain why the wealthiest men often fall for skinny models.)
Then the researchers showed the photos to 66 Englishmen men who were hungry and 58 others who’d just eaten. Compared with the satiated men, those who felt hungry rated larger breasts significantly more attractive. Taken together, these studies suggest that resource security may play a role in men’s breast size preferences.
Breast Size and Sexism
Some evidence also suggests that oppressive attitudes toward women may play a role in men’s size preference. Recall the 361 Englishmen who considered women with medium-size breasts the most attractive. The researchers also asked them to complete a survey that explored their feelings about women in society. The most sexist showed a strong preference for large breasts, while the more egalitarian men preferred smaller breasts.
So do men really want women with big boobs? Many do, at least in fantasies, hence the joke about the woman who gets the job. But many prefer medium or small breasts, and many others don’t care. Turns out that men’s feelings about women’s breasts are more complex than the stereotype would have us believe.
More great, useful sex information from Michael Castleman, the world’s most popular sexuality writer.
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I think this is a terrible article. I hate when people try to down-grade women with large breasts or over emphasis large breasts. Each woman is her own. Breast size and development is also linked to hormones along with adipose tissue. There are some women like me with naturally large breasts (cup size) without augmentation. Clothes models are flat chested for the reason to have the clothes lay flat. I agree that as far as inital attraction most men like the shape of women in the traditional sense to be an hourglass, just as women prefer a man to look strong and have a muscular upper body. This is all built into women’s survival systems for protection. However, with that said it doesn’t mean that both genders do not look for more than inital attraction if they’re interested in a relationship. Hef was pig in my opinion.
My article simply presents research findings regarding men’s feelings about women’s breasts. As I mention in the piece, I’ve never understood men’s general preference for larger breasts. I’ve always become very fond of whatever the breast size of women I’ve been involved with. Nonetheless, many men have breast-size preferences, just as many women prefer men of a certain height, build, race, ethnicity, religion, and income. Life isn’t fair, and one demonstration of that is that many people judge other people based on traits that are out of their control.