Author Description

The Eternal Gaze: An Exploration of Breasts, Bonding, and the Male Psyche By Benedict Urlaub What does a curve mean? For millennia the female breast has been at once life-giving, erotic, sacred, and scandalized. In The Eternal Gaze, Benedict Urlaub offers the first sustained, multidisciplinary account of why breasts hold such enduring power in the human imagination-and what that power does to the men who experience it and the relationships that form around it. Drawing on evolutionary theory, neuroscience, developmental psychology, and cultural history, Urlaub argues that the breast is both an evolutionary signal of fitness and a primal prototype of comfort forged in infancy-and that these two dimensions explain much of its exceptional status in human life. Inside you'll find: A clear explanation of the evolutionary hypotheses for permanent human breasts and how those traits shaped pair-bonding. Neuroscience of attraction-how the amygdala, VTA/nucleus accumbens, and oxytocin interact to produce both wanting and bonding. Intimate case narratives and psychological analysis that trace how desire transforms across relationships and lifespans. A frank, practical chapter on avoiding objectification and cultivating an "integrated gaze" that honors the person as well as the body. Scholarly yet accessible, critical yet compassionate, The Eternal Gaze is for readers curious about human sexuality, attachment, and the cultural meanings we build around the body. It's essential reading for psychologists, anthropologists, relationship counselors, and any thoughtful reader who wants to understand how biology, culture, and personal history shape the most intimate parts of life.