tl;dr Women have sexualized their breasts many times to their advantage. It is completely unfair to blame only men for sexualizing breasts. Hooters, Twin Peaks, and Tilted Kilt boast combined sales of up to $2.5 billion annually. 20% of all magazine and web ads currently feature sexualized images. Cardi B and the Kardashians make matters worse. Female pop stars and TV personalities use their breasts to be sexier and gain views. If these women believe that women are for feeding, not sexualizing, they should stop using them for their advantage. Women profit from sexualizing their breasts. They choose to sexualize them by making songs and videos like Anaconda and WAP. The Kardashians rose to fame by sexualizing their body. Wearing clothes that are figure-hugging or skimpy is not wrong. Intentionally sexualizing breasts and then blaming this sexualization solely on men is wrong. Modern Family in a Christmas episode features Haley, the outgoing Dunphy daughter. She intentionally unties the knot on her top, displaying her breasts. This is to entice a man who is carrying an out of stock product Haley needs. Such examples of women sexualizing their breasts should not be ignored. Women often get out of running red lights by sexualizing their breasts. Women often ask their friends if they look “sexy” if their cleavage is out there enough. In an episode of “Say Yes to the Dress,” a woman desperately wants her cleavage out to look sexy and hot. She believes that her breasts are a huge sex appeal. This is a woman who is sexualizing her breasts. Men do sexualize breasts. Women sexualize them just as much. Both sexualize them for different reasons, but one gender is not more at fault than the other. Women have as much to gain from sexualizing breasts as men.

Men sexualise breasts, women use it to their advantage. As 78% of men visit porn sites once a month and only 1/3 of porn users are women, showing how the sexualisation stems predominantly from men as they consume most content featuring women’s naked breasts. [1] Hooters for example sees women who know men will enjoy their bodies and instead of letting them enjoy it for free it puts the power back in women’s hands by charging them for it. [1] https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/process-addiction/porn-addiction/related/pornography-statistics/

**TL;DR** - **While there are many women that sexualise their breasts and promote the objectification of their own bodies, I believe that they incorporate centuries of female objectification and sexualisation, which has been ingrained and promoted in the form of self-sexualisation. Self-sexualisation can also be a matter of choice**. The argument that women 'go for it' by sexualising their selves and therefore provoking sexualisation and reaction is one that many people use when they talk about who is at fault. In my view, while women do have a choice, the fact that many women choose to sexualise their bodies (breasts, for example) shows how deep-seated patriarchal sexualisation really is. It actually goes way back and becomes fully established during the Victorian times, but the effects of centuries of sexualisation is what defines how women's bodies are viewed today. According to Laura Bates in The Guardian, this is a 'classic chicken-and-egg situation': We raise them [women] in a society that bombards them with images of thin, blonde, long-legged, smooth-skinned, tanned, large-breasted women, and implies at every turn that a woman’s value lies primarily in her looks. Then we deride them for buying magazines that promise to teach them how to lose weight, smooth their skin and perfect their looks. In reality, it is a vicious circle that projects man-made images of sexualised women, which then condition how women project themselves in the outside world. You know where it started, but now it has become a classic case of oppression vs. empowerment, two sides of the same coin. Indeed, for many women, self-sexualisation can be a source of empowerment, which is what Amber L. Horan studied in relation to women posting sexualised photos on social media. In order to conduct the study, Horan recognised that a possible reason behind women's self-sexualisation on social media relates to having control over how they represent their own bodies, which is really important in discussions of the motives behind the projection of the sexualised body by the woman herself. Nevertheless, we cannot really tell the source, and we should recognise that objectification is harmful in any case. According to Dax J. Kellie, objectification 'becomes especially harmful if women internalize these judgements and self-objectify, or consider themselves first as bodies over other personal characteristics', which takes a lot from the fact that there is so much more to being a woman. Works Cited Bates, Laura, '10 myths that blame women for sexism' (2014) <https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2014/aug/07/10-myths-that-blame-women-for-sexism> [accessed 03 February 2021]. Dax J. Kellie, 'What drives female objectification? An investigation of appearance-based interpersonal perceptions and the objectification of women', PloS One, 14.8 (2019) <doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0221388> [accessed 03 February 2021]. Horan, Amber L., 'Picture This! Objectification Versus Empowerment in Women's Photos on Social Media', BSU Honors Program Theses and Projects, 155 (2016), pp. 1-29 <https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1155&context=honors_proj&httpsredir=1&referer=> [accessed 02 February 2021].

Others in this thread have already addressed specific points I've thought of (@Oliviabooth9 and @ellikara91) so instead I'll counter the arguments @sanjana makes in their original post. **tldr; TV and advertising are male dominated, male targeted fields and sexualization of and by women is done in this domain. Women and men sexualize for different reasons because of their different relationships with sex, especially sex in the public domain.** *1) 20% of advertisements feature sexualized images.* - the statistic that I found was from a study done on an variety of magazines done for the years 1983, 1993, and 2003 which is not current. - The statistic you cite is in regard to all sexualized images, not specifically breasts, but even then the industry around using sex for advertising is male dominated and male targeted. In an article from 2020, researcher Cindy Gallop is quoted saying "Our industry is male-dominated, and men don’t see the huge potential in leveraging sex through the female lens to engage and communicate with the female consumer who is the primary target of everything our industry does." [1] mini-tldr: Women's bodies are sexualized by those who direct tv shows and advertisements, usually for the consumption of men. *2) Celebrities like Niki Minaj and Megan Thee Stallion sexualize themselves for profit.* - In Megan Thee Stallion's words ""WAP" is a celebration of how fine all women around the world are. Why wouldn’t anyone want to celebrate positive female sexuality? I think that’s a more pertinent question to ask." [2] mini-tldr: Talking about sexed up songs like WAP in isolation is harmful to the effort women, specifically black women rappers, are making to talk about sex in a way that is directed by women. *Not all sexualization is for the same audience or the same purpose.* *3) Women show their breasts to get out of traffic tickets.* - This one seems to be something one hears and assumes is wide spread. I'm not going to claim I know all the data on this issue but a cursory google search shows that more often than not the police officers are accused of coercing women to show their breasts [3][4] or groping women [5]. There were two cases where women showed their breasts to get out of tickets but in both cases it resulted in worse charges for the women [6] [7]. mini-tldr: women have been told that their bodies are sexually exploitable and men are told that they can assert their power over that. (also most of these arguments have to do with sexualization in general, not specifically breasts) [1] Does sex still sell in 2021? https://www.bandt.com.au/does-sex-still-sell-in-2020/ [2] Megan Thee Stallion Wants More Women to Celebrate Positive Female Sexuality https://www.oprahmag.com/beauty/skin-makeup/a33980855/megan-thee-stallion-wap-controversy-interview/ [3] Lawsuit: Cops made women shake breasts in traffic stop https://amp.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/09/13/lawsuit-cops-made-women-shake-breasts-traffic-stop/90294702/ [4] Show Cops Your Tits To Avoid Traffic Tickets https://chicagoist.com/2005/08/22/show_cops_your_tits_to_avoid_traffic_tickets.php [5] A police officer in Texas appeared to grope a woman's breast during a traffic stop https://www.businessinsider.in/international/news/an-austin-police-officer-appeared-to-grope-a-womans-breast-after-pulling-her-over-for-a-traffic-violation/articleshow/76882889.cms [6] Woman Avoids Traffic Ticket By Flashing Breasts https://nytrafficticket.com/woman-avoids-traffic-ticket-by-flashing-breasts/ [7] Woman 'flashes boobs at cop during traffic stop but gets busted when CRACK PIPE falls out' https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/woman-flashes-boobs-cop-during-7598790

The sexualization of breasts is not a social construct. It can be emphasized or de-emphasized, but in and of itself, it is not socially-constructed. I have heard "indigenous tribes who are primarily topless do not sexualize them". However it is also well-known that such tribes are much more sexually-active. Whether or not we sexualize each other should not be something to concern ourselves over. Sexualization is not immoral. Sexual objectification is. Demonizing sexualization is, if anything, a carry-over from the Victorian era.