The authoress considers breasts as sex symbols, as the objects of changing fashions and ornamentation, and as an erogenous zone. Breast cancer is covered in detail, with sections on risk, prevention, detection, and treatment, among others. Alluring symbols of womanhood, breasts have fascinated generations of image makers. That depends on who's asking, says Marilyn Yalom, author of this scholarly, illustrated treatise on the breast in Western society. Babies see food.
Men see sex.
Doctors see disease. Businesspeople see dollar signs. Psychologists, religious leaders, advertisers, and pornographers have rhapsodized over, vilified, and used breasts to sell everything from war to Cadillacs. And, finally, women have seen in them pleasure, power, sustenance, fear, or failure to measure up.