A study on female breast size attractiveness just published in the Archives of Sexual Behaviour highlights the remarkable gap between academic discourse and everyday language.
Female Breast Size Attractiveness for Men as a Function of Sociosexual Orientation (Restricted vs. Unrestricted)
Arch Sex Behav. 2011 Oct 6.
Zelazniewicz AM, Pawlowski B.
Mate preferences are context-dependent and may vary with different ecological conditions and raters. The present study investigated whether sociosexual orientation influenced men’s rating of attractiveness of female breast size. Participants (N = 128) rated female breast attractiveness as a function of size (five levels) and viewing angles (front view, oblique view, and side view). Men were divided into two groups (restricted and unrestricted), based on their responses to the Revised Sociosexual Orientation Inventory (SOI-R). As predicted, men with higher SOI-R scores (unrestricted) generally gave higher ratings than did men who scored lower on the SOI-R (restricted), but the difference was significant only at larger breast sizes. We also found that medium to large sizes were rated as the most attractive by both male groups and that viewing angle changed rating of female attractiveness and breast presented in oblique view were rated generally higher than in side view. The results of the study indicate that sociosexuality influences male perception of female breast attractiveness and confirm that accentuation of female-specific physical traits produces a stronger response in unrestricted than in restricted men.
Translation: Guys who want to shag around prefer bigger tits.
Obviously, you can’t use the word tits in a scientific article so you’d have to say ‘Gentleman who want to woo more ladies prefer larger hooters’.
And they say science isn’t relevant to the man in the street.
Link to full text of open-access study.
Mind Hacks 
Actually, unrestricted SOI-R means that people are willing to have sex in the absence of ‘love’ — without a long-term ‘love’-based relationship. Not the same as promiscuity, at all.
Dr. Rhawn Joseph has an awesome female breast article — he’s a psychiatrist but the article was published and then censored he claims. Maybe it’s all the photos in his evolution analysis comparing female humans to hominids and other primates and other parts of the body compared to the breasts, etc. Still a must read in my opinion, at least for the amazing images. haha. O.K. I realize he’s dismissed as a crank in many ways but I wonder if is Brain Research Laboratory had any credibility — he has had some well-reviewed science books and some articles in good journals (besides the crank stuff).
http://brainmind.com/sexevolution.html
Rhawn Joseph is a quack. He claims to be an expert on everything, from breasts to the Big Bang. Sadly, on every topic I’ve been qualified to review his writing (astronomy), he’s shown that he likes nothing more than to spout off about things on which he’s completely ignorant.
His breasts article was reviewed by PZ Myers and dismissed similarly as well. Little more than smut dressed up as science.
Haha. Sounds like a hit a nerve with Rhawn Joseph. In all fairness PZ Myers has been “dismissed” by writers for Discover magazine as well http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2009/07/15/pz-myers-vs-unscientific-america-part-iii/
Rhawn Joseph is a psychiatrist and understandable is attempt to delve into biology and astronomy and “ancient civilizations” is obviously soft-headed.
But his psychiatry research appears to have been taken seriously and this is a psychiatry blog. I just don’t think PZ Myers should just dismiss people as a whole — although I can empathize with Myers since he’s stuck in a small farm town. haha.
The Joseph piece is utter tripe. It’s not that he is wrong – although he is, in all likelihood, in most of his speculations. It’s that the article is a mix of his speculations and assertions about facts not supported by evidence with a trivia bank of citations which – considering the lack of discipline in the rest of the article – would each have to be checked in detail to verify that the material in the cited paper came anywhere near saying what Joseph claims it says.
While superficially interesting if offers nothing new, replays a lot of old stuff that is in bad need of reevaluation in the light of newer research, and adds layers of speculation not objectively supported by the supposed evidence he offers but to which the trivia collection lends a spurious subjective appearance of credibility.
Other than as a source of names and terms to research using more credible tools – even Wikipedia qualifies – the Joseph paper is worse than worthless.
Yeah I mean I personally don’t agree with Rhawn Joseph and obviously the article is offensive on a couple of levels. But it is still hilarious for the most part.
For example the Bushmen culture is not discussed and their sexual practices, as the “original” human culture, would skew the whole issue in radical ways. The males live with the future wife’s family for three years before consummating the marriage — with the male providing the family’s food. Then the males go off for a month of celibacy sexual sublimation training away from the females every year. Before the males go hunting there is three days of no sexual contact with females. That was the original human culture from 100,000 BCE to 10,000 BCE and a lot of the early cultures around the world are very similar to the Bushmen culture.
Locked?
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Thanks for noticing that. Post now amended.
And if you are not a boob man, but a perineum man? Then what? I have reason to be curious.