BREAST OF THE WOMAN

Although the breasts are not reproductive organs, they are clearly part of the sexual anatomy. In American society, the female breasts have a special erotic allure and symbolize sexuality, femininity, and attractiveness. Prominent attention is devoted to the breasts in clothing styles, men's magazines, advertising, television, and cinema. This attitude is not universal by any means, and in some cultures, little or no erotic importance is attached to the breasts. For example, in Japan women traditionally bound their breasts to make them inconspicuous. Today, however, the westernization process has brought about changes in Japan and the breasts have become rather fully eroticized.

As the big-breasted female has become an almost universal sex symbol the image used to promote everything from car sales to X-rated films men and women have been bombarded on a daily basis with the not very subtle suggestion that a woman with large breasts has a definite sexual advantage. This has led to a number of harmful misconceptions. For example, men and women alike have come to believe that the larger a woman's breasts are, the more sexually excitable she is or can become. Another fallacy, still firmly subscribed to by many men, holds that the relatively flat-chested woman is less able to respond sexually and actually has little, if any, interest in sex.

The fact is that there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that breast size bears any relation to a woman's level of sexual interest, to her capacity for sexual response, or to the ease with which she attains orgasm. Actually, many women experience very little sexual sensation when their breasts are fondled or caressed, and this is as true of those with large breasts as it is of those with small ones. Furthermore, the woman who does become sexually excited when her breasts are stimulated does so regardless of their size.

For all their erotic significance, breasts are actually just modified sweat glands. The female breasts undergo changes in size and shape during puberty, gradually becoming conical or

hemispherical with the left breast usually slightly larger than the right. Each breast contains fifteen to twenty subdivided lobes of glandular tissue arranged in a grapelike cluster, with each lobe drained by a duct opening on the surface of the nipple. The glandular lobes are surrounded by fatty and fibrous tissue, giving a soft consistency to the breast.

The nipple is located at the tip of the breast and mostly consists of smooth muscle fibers and a network of nerve endings that make it highly sensitive to touch and temperature. The dark wrinkled skin of the nipple extends 1 or 2 centimeters onto the surface of the breast to form the areola, a circular area of dark skin with many nerve fibers and with muscle fibers that cause the nipple to stiffen and become erect.

The sexual sensitivity of the breast, areola, and nipple do not depend upon breast size or shape. Personal preference, learned habit, and biology all contribute to their responsiveness. Nevertheless, the American male's fascination with female breasts leads many women who consider themselves "flat-chested" or "underdeveloped" to seek to improve their sexual attractiveness and self-esteem by the use of exercises, lotions, or mechanical devices such as suction machines to enlarge the breasts. These methods, though widely advertised, do not work. For this reason, so-called breast augmentation surgery has become popular. In the past, liquid silicone was injected directly into the breasts to increase their size, but this technique proved to be highly unsatisfactory since it led to many medical complications. Today, soft thin plastic pouches filled with silicone gel are implanted through a simple breast incision to increase breast size while retaining a natural-appearing and soft-feeling breast.

Conversely, some women are troubled by breasts that are too large. This condition, called mammary hyperplasia or macromastia, can be treated by reduction mammaplasty, a fairly simple operation to reduce breast size and weight. Other common breast problems include inverted nipples (the nipples are pushed inward), a harmless anatomical variation that does not interfere with nursing, and extra nipples, which are minor errors of development that have no adverse health consequences but may be a source of embarrassment.

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Men's Health Erectyle Dysfunction