Breast fetishism (also known as: mastofact, or breast partialism^[1][2]) is a type of psychiatric disorder of sexual preference.^[3][4] The term is used to describe the reliance on breasts as a stimulus for sexual arousal.^[5] Although the sexual arousal from female breasts (mammagymnophilia) is far from uncommon or problematic in men or women, the affect of a persistent fetish (or partialism) may cause subjective distress and problems of social performance.^[6][7]

The phrase Breast fetishism is also used within ethnographic and feminist contexts to describe a society which displays an irrational devotion to breasts^[8][9]. Breast fetishism in this sense is a predominant feature of sexuality in the USA^[10][11][12], the critic Molly Haskell goes as far as to say that “The mammary fixation is the most infantile and the most American, of the sex fetishes”^[13]. However, the American author Elizabeth Gould Davis in The First Sex attempts to reveal this fetish through a history dating back to the neolithic era and the goddess shrines of Catal Huyuk (in modern Turkey). Archaeological excavations of the town c.1960 revealed that the walls of the shrine(s) were adorned with disembodied pairs of "mam-maries" that appeared to have "an existence of their own". The breasts and (along with phalluses) were revered by the women of Catal Huyuk as instruments of motherhood, but it was after the patriarchal revolution -when men had appropriated both phallus worship and "the breast fetish" for themselves- that these organs "acquired the erotic significance with which they are now endowed". The reverence and theorising shown to breasts also appears in the science of modern society, as claimed in an ill-conceived proposal that "breast fetishism" is an example of a contagious thought (or meme) spreading throughout society^[14], or perhaps more reasonably but none more patriarchal than the British zoologist and ethologist Desmond Morris, who in the 1960s proposed in The Naked Ape that the evolution and design of breasts is primarily for influencing human sexuality through signalling (see Biosemiotics), rather than serving an exclusive maternal function.

Notes and references

• Elizabeth Gould Davis. 1971. The First Sex. Penguin Books. p.105 "The Breast Fetish".
• Desmond Morris. 1967. The Naked Ape. Jonathan Cape.

Further Reading

• Serpents in the Garden: Liaisons with Culture and Sex. 2004. (ed. Alexander Cockburn, Jeffrey St. Clair). Dr. Susan Block "Covering Justice: Ashcroft's Breast Fetish".
• Yalom, Marilyn. 1997. A History of the Breast. pub. Knopf. ISBN 0679434593.

•  • [ e] Paraphilias and fetishes

Abasiophilia Amaurophilia Amputee fetishism Anaclitism Andromimetophilia Anesthesia fetishism Autogynephilia Biastophilia Blood fetish Bondage fetishism Breast expansion fetish Breast fetishism Chronophilia Coprophilia Crush fetish Dacryphilia Diaper fetishism Doll fetish Emetophilia Erotic asphyxiation Erotic lactation Exhibitionism Fat fetishism Food play Foot fetishism Frotteurism Garment fetishism Hand fetishism Homeovestism Human animal roleplay Hybristophilia Hypnofetishism Impregnation fetish Katoptronophilia Klismaphilia Macrophilia Medical fetishism Mysophilia Navel fetishism Necrophilia Nose fetishism Nyotaimori Omorashi Panty fetishism Paraphilic infantilism Pedophilia Pregnancy fetishism Pyrophilia Robot fetishism Sadism and masochism Salirophila Shoe fetishism Silk/Satin fetishism Smoking fetishism Sneezing fetishism Somnophilia Spandex fetishism Spitting fetishism Statuephilia Sthenolagnia Tamakeri Teratophilia Tickling fetishism Tightlacing Total enclosure fetishism Transformation fetish Transvestic fetishism Trichophilia Troilism Uniform fetish Urolagnia Vorarephilia Voyeurism Wakamezake Wet and messy fetishism Xenophily Zoophilia