Breasts: women have them, men love them, but clearly women and men don’t think about them in the same way.
To you (ladies), they’re obviously part of your body, for better or worse. Sometimes you’re proud of them, sometimes unhappy and most of you know how to use them to your advantage (at least a little).
To us guys, however, your breasts are the object of something between strong interest and out-and-out obsession, depending upon the guy (and the set). They make us fixate, double-take and lose our trains of thought. They make our eye contact stray during conversation. They make us sigh involuntarily. They make us gawk.
The thing is, most women don’t realize that our borderline mania isn’t very complicated: we simply like boobs—a lot. And we like them in pretty much all shapes and sizes. Women are constantly asking me whether large breasts are better, why fake breasts are appealing to so many men and what the big deal is, as if there’s a giant mystery surrounding why men are obsessed with boobs. I don’t think there’s much mystery, though, and all these questions are pretty easy to answer.
The most obvious reason they’re a big deal is biological. To me, and to probably almost every other hetero man on the planet, breasts (and lips, and legs, and eyes, and hair, and all forms of women’s beauty) are simply naturally appealing—we’re born to like them. We see them, we appreciate them, they arouse us and maybe we ogle a little (if we’re not well-mannered).
That said, to most men there is something even more magical about breasts than our biological imperative to love them. I once heard a woman say that if you wanted to distract a man, simply don’t wear a bra—regardless of whether your boobs are large or small. And it’s true! There’s an enormous thrill in spotting the outline of someone’s areola or the push against the clothing that reveals a breast’s shape. It’s partly because in America—and many other places—showing breasts publicly is taboo. But it’s also because breasts are a constant tease. We can see them there beneath your clothes. We don’t know exactly what they look like, but we can gather enough data to have a pretty good sense of what’s there. (And for more on this, come back for my next Male Take: Breasts, Part II—Do you know what you show?)
As for what men prefer in terms of chest size, women need to understand is that there’s an enormously wide range of breasts that men like. Whatever you happen to have is probably pretty great to the eyes (and hands and lips) of most of us.
So no, they don’t have to be big to be appealing, though I do think a lot of guys feel that the bigger they are, the better—including fake ones. I personally think size is overrated; I judge breasts not on size but on firmness: the more stuffed, the more I like them, and if they can stay stuffed and be larger, that’s just amazing (and rare).
And to be perfectly honest, I’m really confused by the appeal of fake breasts. I’ve touched some, and they do not feel normal. In fact, they feel pretty much like what they are: often overlarge bags of goo just below the skin. Ever sleep with a plastic cover over your pillow (my grandmother used to put these on her husband’s pillows to protect them from his oily skin)? Even under the pillowcase, it just doesn’t feel right. Same with fake boobs.
And they look odd, too, don’t they? They’re always too high and too perky, even if they’re not of biologically impossible size (though they often are). So unless you’re in real need, I’d advise against fake ones—especially if you’re considering a pair larger than a C-cup, at least if you ever want men to look you in the eye again. You don’t need them—there are plenty of guys who will love your itty-bitties, who won’t mind if one is bigger than the other (which is pretty normal) and will still find them sexy even after three kids