Cardio health

Here is an interesting post over at 4&20. Some women made a statement by baring their breasts in a gathering on the Clark’s Fork River near Missoula. The comment thread isn’t particularly useful – it’s just an exhibition of two ugly features of American life: Victorian prudishness, and Rosie the Riveter feminism.

The women are demanding “equality” in a stupid manner – they want to be able to display their chests in public in the same manner that men can. They forget one poignant feature about women: breasts. Men find them extremely attractive. Men are stimulated by looking at them. *

Breasts are really neat things. They are just globules of flesh designed to deliver milk to infants through a nipple on the front, and yet evolution has set them aside for another purpose – to attract and stimulate men. Our bodies, like women themselves, are complicated products of long evolutionary selection processes. The curves on the female body for instance, are there to allow her to bear children, and yet that 70% waist-to-hip ratio drives men nuts. Female features are soft – the hair, the faces … don’t get me going here.

The Clark’s Fork brigade – are they really that stupid? I suggested in the comments something I’ve noted about nude beaches and nude pumpkin runs and bike rides and such – that the women (and men) putting their wares on display in public are usually those who don’t enjoy much demand in private. A woman with a really attractive rack knows only to titillate (pardon the expression) without going on full display. The male imagination does the rest.

Is it discrimination that men can show their wares while women can’t? I suppose. It ought not to be illegal, but that is a Victorian hangover. If it were legal, it would be no more prevalent than it is now. Attractive women would not be walking down the sidewalk or into work with their mammary units in full bounce mode. The research on this issue was best explained by Elaine Benes on Seinfeld (paraphrased): Women’s bodies are works of art. Men’s bodies are functional. Women don’t get the same jolt at seeing a naked man as men do with women. When women go on display, men get aroused. That could be dangerous. Women want to filter potential mates, and public advertising of racks is a poor choice of media.

Woody Allen also chimed in on this issue, regarding the male organ – it is, he said, both an object of revulsion and attraction on the part of women. Once attracted to the other qualities of a potential mate, a woman will enjoy his giblets, but before that time, she has no interest in seeing them. It’s just not the same.

We’re different, Clark’s Fork cadre. We’re just different.

By the way, I know I will be accused of sexism and misogyny for writing this. I know that form of posturing well. Here are two things to consider: As we age, we become less attractive. I am sixty. If I show myself in public without proper cover, I would rightly be arrested for genuine indecency. Secondly, the positive outcomes from the hard and courageous work of feminists – greater opportunity and equality in the workplace, sexual liberation and more avenues to enjoy life and freedom – none of that is affected in the least by what is written above. Men still like looking at women.
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*Better yet, looking a breasts is good for men. There was a bizarre study in Germany that compared two groups of men – one group was asked to look at breasts for ten minutes daily, the other, poor schmucks, not. The results: The ogling group exhibited longer life expectancy, lower blood pressure, better blood circulation, and less chance of coronary heart disease. Further, the study said, the ten-minutes of admiration had the same effect as a 30 minute cardio workout.