A notion that physical preferences can be a manifestation of sexism

Microscopic image of a breast tissue [ euthman/flickr

"It wasn't funny when her boss shook her boob as though he were shaking her hand, it was sexual harassment," reads a report of a California lawsuit yesterday. "[The plaintiff] claims he harassed her repeatedly with comments such as, 'God, your boobs look big today.'"

These things happen in 2013, despite mandatory corporate seminars and decades of lawsuits in the news, in a culture where people must by now know that what they're doing is wrong. These things happen between otherwise functional human men and women who stand upright and have mothers and can tie their own shoes. How?

Viren Swami and Martin Tovée at the Universities of Manchester and Newcastle, respectively, look into the intricate world of why physical ideals are ideals, and in turn why they drive people beyond reason and morality in the current Archives of Sexual Behavior.

The problem is primal, so the research methods are not to be outdone. 361 white British men were "taken to a quiet private location" to look at women. Not real women; 3D computer renderings. The men were allowed to rotate them 360 degrees. The only difference among the women was breast size.

The men were then asked to "make their ratings on a paper-and-pencil survey."