Body intimates: Manipulation

Thru the ages there have been different visions on the female breasts. From something to be proud of to something that had to be hidden.


Images found of one of the first corsets date from Crete 2000-1700 BC. This corset was open on the front to accentuate the breast of the women.



Long before biologist established that breast had there shape to send out sexual signs people viewed them as a part of sexuality. Actions of people thru the ages support this. Like the puritans who forced women to wear tight corsets to make there chest look flat. And in Spain young girls and woman had to wear lead plates on there chest to prevent the breast from growing. And when in the 16th century an androgynous look was in fashion women would wear corsets that would flatten there breast so there was no sign of the female body.



In the 18th century the attention to the breasts was back. There where special corsets to make the breasts look bigger an push them up.




The bra is a piece of underwear that has changed the appearance of breasts in many ways. The first pictures of a bra like garment is from the Romans, female slaves used to wear a tight piece of clothe around their breasts so they wouldn’t be in the way during labour. Bra’s have been used to make the breast look flat (to accentuate the belly) to make breast look bigger, look pointy, look round, push them apart, push them together. push them up and support them during exercise. By far the bra is the garment that tried to manipulate the female body the most.




Clothing has a lot of affect on the way a body looks. And also on the breast of a woman. For every size of breast there are different do’s and don’t in clothing. Like a shirt with a turtle neck can make big breast look even more massive, or a low V neck shirt can create a “in your face” cleavage. No matter the size or shape of your breast, clothing affect the way they appear.



When you take of your cloths it there is nothing left that can keep up an illusion. To keep up an illusion of a young and firm breast, plastic surgery on the breast was introduced in the 60s. In the 70’s and 80’s it became more and more popular and in the 90’s there was an explosion on of woman surgically modifying there breasts. 100.000 woman a year got there breast “modified”. And this trend continued into the 21st century. In 2002 over a million American woman had plastic surgery done on their breast.