Ah, breasts. Has ever a body part been so celebrated in art, in literature and in daily life? We've got hundreds of words to describe them; people have composed songs about them (some better than others); and for better or worse, an entire industry has even cropped up around their augmentation.
But for all the adoration and attention heaped on breasts (pun intended), how much do we truly know about them? We strap them into bras (or don't) and then get on with our days, seldom thinking about why they're there, how they work and what's typical about them or not.
That's why we put together this list of 20 facts about breasts -- some amazing, others simply interesting, but all of which can give us a better understanding of our twin peaks. Anything fascinating about breasts we overlooked? Let us know in the comments below.
- The most common cup size world wide is B
- There is a 73% higher rate of suicide amongst women with breast implants than those without
- Bras have existed since around the 7th century - they were probably extremely unsexy back then
- On average a Breast weighs just over one pound
- 1% of woman are able to orgasm as a result of nothing but breast manipulation
- There were 307,180 breast enhancement procedures performed in the US in 2011
- In the early 1900s, breasts were injected with paraffin to enlarge them, a method that rarely if ever turned out very well
- Other zany things injected into breasts include ox cartilage, ivory balls, Teflon, ground rubber, goat’s milk and epoxy resin - all of these were terrible ideas, too
- The largest natural breasts in the world belong to Annie Hawkins-Turner who wears a 102ZZZ bra and whose breasts weigh 85lbs - her chest measures 70 inches, or almost 6 feet.
- The world’s largest breast implants belong to Chelsea Charms who has polypropylene string implants and wears a 164 XXX bra. Her Breasts weigh 26lbs each
- British women have the largest breasts in Europe. More than 50% of British women wear a D cup bra. Italians have the smallest
- Nearly 20,000 men per year get breast reduction surgery in the US
- Nearly everyone, men and women, has nipple hair
- A Texas mother holds the world record for donating breast milk – 86 gallons
- The condition of having more than two breasts is called polymastia, supernumerary breasts or multiple breast syndrome. They are also called accessory breasts. They generally don’t look like they did in Total Recall
- After looking at breasts, men tend to perform more poorly on cognitive tests
- 4 out of 5 women wear the wrong sized bra for some reason
- About 3 in 100 nipples are inverted
- Smokers are more apt to have saggy breasts
- Getting stressed out makes breasts sag, too
