Cleavage (breasts)

This MedLibrary.org supplementary page on Cleavage (breasts) is provided directly from the open source Wikipedia as a service to our readers. Please see the note below on authorship of this content, as well as the Wikipedia usage guidelines. To search for other content from our encyclopedia supplement, please use the form below:

Related Sponsors

BM Pharmacy Generic pharmaceuticals at unbeatable prices. Insomnia, men's health, hair health, pain control. bmpharmacy.com
Online Pharmacy Carisoprodol, tadalafil, sildenafil, vardenafil and more... xlpharmacy.com
MedBasket.com Discreet. Inexpensive. Fast shipping. Great selection. What more can we say? medbasket.com
Frugalmed 2000 reasons to shop with us first. frugalmed.com
Ads by Tiva

For other uses, see Cleavage.
An example of breast cleavage.
An example of breast cleavage.
Example of cleavage from a German lingerie advertisement, early 20th century.
Example of cleavage from a German lingerie advertisement, early 20th century.

Cleavage is the cleft created by the partial exposure of a woman's breasts, especially when exposed by low-cut clothing. It is associated with evening gowns, swimwear, and other fashions that emphasize display of the breasts. Décolletage (or décolleté, its adjectival form, in current French) is cleavage produced by a low-cut neckline that exposes the neck, shoulders and parts of the breasts.

Intermammary sulcus or intermammary cleft are the terms adopted by the International Federation of Associations of Anatomists (IFAA) for the area of cleavage between the breasts not including the breasts.

Contents

Theories of cleavage

Evolutionary psychologists theorize that humans' permanently enlarged breasts, in contrast to other primates' breasts, which only enlarge during ovulation, allowed females to "solicit male attention and investment even when they are not really fertile."[1] British zoologist and ethologist Desmond Morris theorizes that cleavage is a sexual signal that imitates the image of the cleft between the buttocks[2], which according to Morris in The Naked Ape is also unique to humans, other primates as a rule having much flatter buttocks.

Décolletage evolved in the late Middle Ages and developed further during the Victorian period. It is a feature of the evening gown, leotard, and bikini, among other fashions.

Controversy

There are differences of opinion as to how much cleavage exposure is acceptable in public.[3] In the French Enlightenment, there was a debate as to whether a woman's breasts were merely a sensual enticement or rather a natural gift to be offered from mother to child. In Moissy's play The True Mother, the title character rebukes her husband for treating her merely an object for his sexual gratification: "Are your senses so gross as to look mon these breasts - the respectable treasures of nature - as merely an embellishment, destined to ornament the chest of women?"[4]

Nearly a century later, also in France, a man from the provinces who attended a Court ball at the Tuilleries in Paris in 1855 was deeply shocked by the décolleté dresses and is said to have exclaimed in disgust: "I haven't seen anything like that since I was weaned!"[5]

For ordinary wear, high collars were, however, the norm for many years. When it became fashionable, around 1913, for dresses to be worn with a modest round or V-shaped neckline, this nonetheless deeply shocked clergymen all over the world. In the German Empire, all of the Roman Catholic bishops joined in issuing a pastoral letter attacking modern fashions. [6]

Fashions became more restrained in terms of décolletage during World War I and remained so for nearly half a century. From the 1960s onward, however, changing social mores allowed a greater display of cleavage in films, on television, and in everyday life.

In the United States, in two separate incidents in 2007 Southwest Airlines crews asked travelers to modify their clothing, to wear sweaters, or to leave a plane because they did not consider the amount of cleavage displayed to be acceptable.[7]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel created controversy when she wore an extremely low-cut dress to the opening of the Oslo Opera on April 12, 2008.[8][9][10][11]

Related slang

Exposure of the underside of the breast, such as below an extremely short crop top, is known as neathage, Australian cleavage, reverse cleavage, sleevage or underboob. When the lateral aspects of the breasts are uncovered, it is known as side cleavage or sideboob.

Lingerie

Lingerie has long been designed to emphasize cleavage. The tight lacing of corsets worn in the 19th and early 20th centuries emphasized both cleavage and the size of the bust and hips. Ball or evening gowns especially were designed to display and emphasize the décolletage.[12][13]

More recently, after corsets became unfashionable, brassieres and padding have served to project, display and emphasize the breasts, as has breast augmentation surgery. (Morris notes that in recent years there has been a trend toward reversing breast augmentations.)[14][15] Several brassiere manufacturers, among them Wonderbra and Victoria's Secret, have become known for marketing products that enhance the décolletage.

On the first Friday of every April in South Africa, Wonderbra sponsors a National Cleavage Day.[16]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Charles B. Crawford and Dennis Krebs (eds.), "How Mate Choice Shaped Human Nature", Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology: Ideas, Issues, and Applications, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates (1998).
  2. ^ Desmond Morris, Manwatching. A Field Guide to Human Behavior.. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1977. ISBN 0-8109-1310-0
  3. ^ Karen Salmansohn, "The Power of Cleavage", The Huffington Post, October 29, 2007. [1]
  4. ^ Simon Schama, Citizens. A Chronicle of the French Revolution, p. 147. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1989. ISBN 0-394-559-48-7
  5. ^ Alison Gernsheim, Victorian and Edwardian Fashion. A Photographic Survey, p. 43. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, Inc., 1981. Reprint of 1963 edition. ISBN 0-486-24205-6
  6. ^ Gernsheim, p. 94.
  7. ^ "Woman Told She Was Too Hot To Fly" NBC News, http://www.11alive.com/news/article_news.aspx?storyid=102968
  8. ^ "Merkel 'Surprised' by Attention to Low-cut Dress", Spiegel Online, 4/15/2008. [2]
  9. ^ "Angela Merkel Raises Eyebrows with Cleavage Display", Deutsche Welle, 4/15/2008. [3]
  10. ^ Ada Calhoun, "Angela Merkel: Now That's Cleavage", News Bloggers, 4/16/2008. [4]
  11. ^ Greg Milam, "Dress Fuss Plunges Merkel into Shock", Sky News, 4/16/2008. [5]
  12. ^ Gernsheim, pp. 25-26, 43, 53, 63.
  13. ^ Desmond Morris, The Naked Woman. A Study of the Female Body, p. 156. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2004. ISBN 0-312-33853-8.
  14. ^ Morris, Manwatching, pp. 236, 240.
  15. ^ Morris, Naked Woman, pp. 156-159.
  16. ^ National Cleavage Day - Wonderbra

References

  • Alison Gernsheim, Victorian and Edwardian Fashion. A Photographic Survey. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, Inc., 1981. Reprint of 1963 edition. ISBN 0-486-24205-6
  • Desmond Morris, Manwatching. A Field Guide to Human Behavior. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1977. ISBN 0-8109-1310-0
  • Desmond Morris, The Naked Woman. A Study of the Female Body. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2004. ISBN 0-312-33853-8

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Wikipedia content modification information:

  • This page was last modified on 13 October 2008, at 08:26.

Wikipedia Authorship and Review

Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.

Wikipedia Usage Guidelines

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Cleavage (breasts)".

The URL for this specific entry is:

All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.