There was a post not too long ago discussing boobs and how people react to them. One of the responses was from a foreign aid worker in Haiti after the earthquake. In Haiti, it’s not uncommon for women to walk around with uncovered breasts. At first, the poster said, they found it extremely distracting, because boobs were everywhere. After a few days uncovered boobs stopped being novel and sexy, because they were everywhere.
Once their assignment in Haiti ended and they returned to their home country, boobs started being sexy again… all that to say that while they are a secondary sexual characteristic, it is a cultural construction whether or not they are seen as overtly sexual.
That shows that exposure causes an overall reduction in response, but doesn’t support the conclusion that it’s a cultural construction in the first place, nor that at a population level that it trends towards zero. It’d be interesting to quantify the reduction, though I’d bet it’s a smaller effect overall than one might think.
Why does it matter that it’s a cultural construction or not? The important part is that he was, just like I said, desensitized to parts people in western societies consider sexual. He no longer had that sexual response to boobs for a while.
Because it’s just one anecdote and the reason for the result is important. If it’s cultural, then we can generalize the reduction possibly to zero… If it’s not then we cannot expect that. I don’t believe it’s mostly cultural and don’t believe we should expect significant extinction in a general population.
There was a post not too long ago discussing boobs and how people react to them. One of the responses was from a foreign aid worker in Haiti after the earthquake. In Haiti, it’s not uncommon for women to walk around with uncovered breasts. At first, the poster said, they found it extremely distracting, because boobs were everywhere. After a few days uncovered boobs stopped being novel and sexy, because they were everywhere.
Once their assignment in Haiti ended and they returned to their home country, boobs started being sexy again… all that to say that while they are a secondary sexual characteristic, it is a cultural construction whether or not they are seen as overtly sexual.
That shows that exposure causes an overall reduction in response, but doesn’t support the conclusion that it’s a cultural construction in the first place, nor that at a population level that it trends towards zero. It’d be interesting to quantify the reduction, though I’d bet it’s a smaller effect overall than one might think.
Why does it matter that it’s a cultural construction or not? The important part is that he was, just like I said, desensitized to parts people in western societies consider sexual. He no longer had that sexual response to boobs for a while.
Because it’s just one anecdote and the reason for the result is important. If it’s cultural, then we can generalize the reduction possibly to zero… If it’s not then we cannot expect that. I don’t believe it’s mostly cultural and don’t believe we should expect significant extinction in a general population.