And, FWIW, I dispute the findings of Masters and Johnson. Mr. D. is on the large side—both coming and going. Women who maintain that they don’t enjoy this are (usually) just being nice.

Many of the men who display exorbitant enthusiasm about big boobs, affect revulsion at the sight of a woman breastfeeding in public.

What about the idea that big breasts are not so much about sex as food—as an infant, you sought out a (to you) enormous breast in order to survive. Maybe the sight of a large breast triggers an infantile instinct.

This was before the lines had hardened. Marot wasn’t completely happy in Geneva, and he didn’t stay long.

The Determinants and Consequences of Male Unattractiveness and Sexual Aggression: Realistic Tests with Restaurant Waitresses

Anytime soon?

I’ve heard this claimed a few times recently – probably derived from this – but, while my reproductive endocrinology is a little rusty, oestrogen is hardly the main determinant of female fertility (once it is in the normal range obviously). The above study refers to a paper finding mid-follicular levels of oestrogen correlate with cycles which lead to conception, but the above paper does not measure mid-follicular oestrogen and finds that luteal but not other oestrogen measures correlates (rather weakly, ~.2) with breast size. Unfortunately it gives no data on whether women with low levels of oestrogen are less fertile since it concentrates on cycles, not women (pooling the data together), and the data from the luteal phase is obviously uninterpretable in this context because of the hormonal effects of pregnancy.

Given the length of human gestation, the adverse effects of pregnancy and multiparity, and the relative ease with which women without fertility problems conceive I’d be surprised if the putative weak relationship between breast size and the effect of higher oestrogen levels on fertility was a significant determinant of female fertility versus say the significant effect of anovulation and problems with tubal patency.

There is a persistent cultural meme that black men have larger cocks and asian men smaller with white guys coming (pun intended) in between. Well Masters and Johnson seemed to debunk that idea in their sexual survey as published in their 1966 study. When you actually measured erect cocks the differences became statistically meaningless. But heterosexual men by and large don’t measure themselves against other men by erect size, they don’t see it and mostly don’t want to see it. What they do know is the ratio between their own cock in flaccid stage and what it looks like erect and it is only natural to think that ratio is true for everyone. So when you are showering next to a guy whose flaccid member is inches longer than yours the logical assumption is that when pumped up it will be proportionally larger. This turns out on scientific examination to not be true, but then again in centuries past who was checking?

Because people who insist that black guys on average don’t have larger flaccid cocks have simply not been in the military or engaged in team sports. An amazing amount of history can be reinterpreted in terms of men not understanding the actual ratio of flaccid/erect across races and cultures.

34, maybe the French aren’t all that different, when you think of the career of John Donne.

69, well, you have to consider that cultures with arranged marriages do have a certain amount of adultery, so sexual attractiveness still has some value in maximizing your offspring, even if much attenuated relative to those cultures where you can choose your own spouse.