At face value, asking the question, “Are breasts even sexy?” feels almost sarcastic because the answer seems so obvious. “Of course they are!” you might be thinking. And who could blame you? The general consensus in Western society is that boobs play a huge part in determining a woman’s sexual value – the bigger and perkier the better. 

It’s a notion that often completely overshadows the actual purpose of breasts, which is to produce milk that feeds our young. To put it simply, breasts have been sexualised to such an extreme that we’ve been convinced this is solely due to some sort of biological hardwiring that’s totally outside of our control. 

History, however, tells us a very different story. “In terms of their sexualisation, breasts really only started to be seen as erotic by the 15th and 16th centuries,” explains historian Dr Agnes Arnold-Forster. “And in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, it was quite common for women, especially high society women, to expose their breasts and not necessarily be censored or condemned for it.” This is evident when you look at Western art from the Renaissance period, which often featured topless women from a noticeably non-sexualised gaze.