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JulieU
New Member
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 Posted - 09/18/2008 : 06:38:36 AM
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Have you ever wondered why you have breasts?
We are Researchers from the University of Portsmouth who are investigating the variation and evolution of female body shape. Human breasts are unusual as other primates have swollen breasts only when breastfeeding. Studying this unique characteristic is very difficult, as no one knows what the ‘average’ breast looks like. It is surprising that we know very little about the natural variation present among women. We want to change this.
We would like to create a database of images to test different theories relating to the appearance of breasts. We need images that look as natural as possible and this means that the images need to be based on real breast measurements.
We are looking for female volunteers who would be willing to take photographs of their breasts and then upload the photographs onto a specially designed website for us to collect them (there are guidance instructions on the website). The only people who need to see the photographs are the Researchers on the project and confidentiality will be upheld at all times. If you are interested in participating in this research then please follow the link below:
www.port.ac.uk/breastsurvey
We would like to thank you in advance for your help. If you have any questions at all please contact us via the link on the webpage.
Dr Bridget Waller and Julie Udell
Department of Psychology
University of Portsmouth
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Country: United Kingdom
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Diger
Forum Member
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Posted - 09/18/2008 : 08:42:13 AM
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If I might suggest contacting a Naturist organization such as the TNS for help. They can varify your intent then relay your need to boards like this one through trusted members. You will get a much better responce and no Troll alarms will be going off.
Diger
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Cheri
Forum Member
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Posted - 09/18/2008 : 12:22:12 PM
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Diger, Ms. Udell and Dr. Waller are listed on the University's pages. I've not found anything there regarding this particular study though.
Cheri
Doing what I can to positively promote nudism
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http://pages.prodigy/cheridonna
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Country: USA
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FlCpl4NewdFun
Forum Member
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Posted - 09/18/2008 : 7:32:17 PM
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I'm doing research as well. Anyone who wants to send their pics to that website should also send me $10.00 as I am studying the old cliche about the direct correlation between fools and decreasing bank account balances.
Admin - you should seriously remove this trashy post. I could have done a better job faking academic research in grade school than this idiot!
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Edited by - FlCpl4NewdFun on 09/18/2008 7:32:57 PM |
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pilot
Forum Member
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Posted - 09/18/2008 : 10:44:45 PM
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I'm not sure ... this might be authentic. There is a cross posting describing the same study at a professional web site. It's a fairly legitimate question given the enormous amounts of resource expended on aesthetic breast surgery.
pilot
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FlCpl4NewdFun
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Posted - 09/19/2008 : 12:31:21 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by pilot
I'm not sure ... this might be authentic. There is a cross posting describing the same study at a professional web site. It's a fairly legitimate question given the enormous amounts of resource expended on aesthetic breast surgery.
pilot
Well Pilot, I dare say you know quite a bit more about the field of academic research than I so maybe I was a bit hasty in my dismissal.
However, it would seem to me one would not be able to test different theories relating to the appearance of breasts if there is no way to verify the subjects responses to the questions or whether or not the one answering the questions is even the same person as the pictures (or even a women). I guess it's possible none of that matters for this particular research.
Also, the questions asked when following the link provided deal with menstruation, pregnancy, and breast-feeding. Even if the picture is legit, the respondent may be purposely deceitful. When I clicked on the "do you need assistance with this form" it opened a page that said "that information has not been provided by owner"
I would think to validate their research and legitimize the request the researchers would have a link to the university department webpage, a list of past articles in professional publications, and verified academic credentials etc...
It's just a little strange in that it's essentially an anonymous post, with the request to post nude photographs to an anonymous website, with no way to verify the owner of the website. There's not even a link to a university email address to ask questions.
If JulieU provided that info I may be able to retract my request for the $10.00.
Cheers!
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rooftopwilly
Forum Member
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Posted - 09/19/2008 : 12:59:57 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by FlCpl4NewdFun
I'm doing research as well. Anyone who wants to send their pics to that website should also send me $10.00 as I am studying the old cliche about the direct correlation between fools and decreasing bank account balances.
AWESOME!!! pm me your address so i can send you the $10
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emwavehunter
$ Supporter
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Posted - 09/19/2008 : 01:28:35 AM
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I would expect the site to which the link brings you to be a bit more professional than what I saw. I've written enough HTML to know how easily and quickly a good site can be written.
That site just looks too poorly written to be legitimate. It has the appearance of a scam. My Troll Meter is pegged...
Just my $0.02!
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Country: USA
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JulieU
New Member
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Posted - 09/19/2008 : 05:05:49 AM
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Dear all,
Thanks for all the feedback. I can assure you that this is a legitimate research study, and has passed University ethics procedures. The site is linked to via the University server, but has been constructed using a survey programme, which might explain why you feel it looks a bit amateur! I apologise for that, and hope it doesn't discourage some of you from participating if you are interested in the topic.
I fully understand that this is a sensitive issue (which is exactly why it is so difficult to study), and if you have any specific questions about our hypotheses or the method we will be employing then don't hesitate to ask. Information is posted on the survey website, or you can email the lead researcher via her homepage at http://www.port.ac.uk/departments/academic/psychology/staff/title,50528,en.html
I will add this to the survey website to avoid any further confusion.
Again, thanks for all the feedback.
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Country: United Kingdom
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bornnude
Forum Member
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Posted - 09/19/2008 : 07:46:01 AM
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Julie,
Another place you my want to contact is GoingBraless.net
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pilot
Forum Member
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Posted - 09/19/2008 : 10:17:52 PM
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Reviewing the various sites with the additional information provided by JulieU, the project appears legitimate to me.
While it's fair to say that humans are the only primates to have breasts enlarged throughout their lifetimes, we are certainly not the only mammals (e.g. cows).
Speaking from a medical standpoint, breasts perform their primary functions well, irrespective of size. Breast mass is certainly responsive to diet, bodyfat content, hormonal influences (including monthly cycling) and so on.
Ideals about breast size and appearance are of course cultural. As with so many things in western medicine, we have 'medicalized' many appearance variants including asymmetry, ptosis, nipple inversion, small, large...the list goes on. Such medicalization is hardly confined to breasts--"nose jobs" in search of the ideal nose have a long history.
The problem lies not with cultural ideals---all cultures develop icons and ideals about all sorts of things---but rather with fueling the mindless pursuit of ideals.What message are we sending when parents give their daughters aesthetic breast surgery as an 18th birthday present?
It seems to me that there is merit in accumulating and publishing a compendium of images and data, if only to persuade the world that whatever ideals exist, the reality is much more complex and more interesting.
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emwavehunter
$ Supporter
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Posted - 09/20/2008 : 01:20:44 AM
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My apologies for being overly negative about what I saw when viewing the site. I contantly deal with the prevention of spoofing and phishing for a living, so when I see a site that doesn't appear very well written I assume the worst. My negative response was a reaction based upon many years of being a System Engineer, Web Developer and security professional. My profession made me a professional cynic, I guess.
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Country: USA
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JulieU
New Member
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Posted - 09/20/2008 : 10:59:33 AM
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All feedback is helpful, we appreciate you taking the time to have a look at the website.
We are having more technical difficulties with the survey, so the main text is not currently visible. I hope we can get this resolved over the weekend, and will add more background information on current theories on the evolution of breasts for those of you who are interested.
Thank you for the suggestions for other contacts, we will certainly explore these options.
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Country: United Kingdom
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Admin
Forum Admin
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Posted - 09/24/2008 : 1:50:51 PM
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We had made this thread invisible while we confirmed the identity of the researchers. It is now restored.
Ladies, get ready your cameras!
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Country: USA
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thornapplebison
Forum Member
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Posted - 10/02/2008 : 11:36:50 PM
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No. This makes no sense.
The website linked makes no sense. First, how is it that this sort of information hasn't already been collected by the bra industry?
Second, how would having a picture of the average breast help explain the evolutionary function of human breasts?
Third, wasn't all this investigated and reasonably explained by Desmond Morris? What reasons would there be to consider his explanation false? What would be gained by developing another idea based on the appearance of the average breast, assuming it is not already known?
The site map link and the link to take the survey take you away from port.ac.uk. Why is this?
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agde
Forum Member
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Posted - 10/06/2008 : 4:01:23 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by JulieU
I fully understand that this is a sensitive issue (which is exactly why it is so difficult to study), and if you have any specific questions about our hypotheses or the method we will be employing then don't hesitate to ask.
I keep waiting for Ms Udell to engage us a bit more in a conversation about the goal of her study. After all, we naturists are nearly ideal interlocutors, since we don't view breasts or having them as a particularly "sensitive issue" and certainly not at all taboo.
Does she have a hypothesis about the "unique function" of breasts beyond breastfeeding? To a non-academic, "a computer generated image of the 'average' breast" seems as unlikely to indicate much important as a computer generated image of the 'average' tree, so maybe the research actually seeks to create various categories? Again, a non-academic could suspect that a similar study of the 'average' nose might have something to do with a better understanding of hayfever or of pheromones in evolution. To be significant, wouldn't "average breast sizes" have to be corrolated with other information, like maybe fertility, marriage age, career choice, life span, body type, social status, political affiliation, successful children, athletic achievement, happiness, psychoses, bingo scores or something of particular interest?
Naturists of course welcome any research that helps dispel sexualized stereotypes of "the 'ideal' breast shape and size", but it is unclear how "a set of computer generated images of 'average' breasts" would practically help "women to feel more comfortable with the way they are."
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Edited by - agde on 10/06/2008 4:24:28 PM |
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Have you ever wondered why you have breasts?
