Breast fetishism (also known as: mastofact, breast partialism, or mazophilia) is a type of sexual fetish which involves a sexual interest in female breasts.

Debate exists on whether the modern widespread sexual attraction to breasts among heterosexual males of western society constitutes a sexual fetish.


In clinical literature of the 19th century, the focus on breasts was considered a form of paraphillia; but in modern times this interest is considered normal except when the interest overshadows the relationship with the partner.

The clothing rituals of tight clothing and the display of cleavage have been attributed to breast fetishism in males. The phrase is also used within ethnographic and feminist contexts to describe a society with a culture devoted to breasts, usually as sexual objects.

Feminists have argued that examples of breast fetishism have been found going back to the neolithic era, with the goddess shrines of Catal Huyuk (in modern Turkey).

The archaeological excavations of the town in c. 1960 revealed that the walls of the shrine(s) were adorned with disembodied pairs of breasts that appeared to have "an existence of their own".

Elizabeth Gould Davis argues that the breasts (along with phalluses) were revered by the women of Catal Huyuk as instruments of motherhood, but it was after what she describes as a patriarchal revolution – when men had appropriated both phallus worship and "the breast fetish" for themselves – that these organs "acquired the erotic significance with which they are now endowed".

The reverence and theorizing shown to breasts also appears in the science of modern civilization. Breast fetishism is claimed to be an example of a contagious thought (or meme) spreading throughout society, and that breasts are primarily biosemiotic features that have evolved to influence human sexuality rather than serve an exclusive maternal function.