There is something powerful about the pause between musical notes, the silence between each tick of a clock, and a magnetic pull to the space between two breasts.

Cleavage has long been a focal point of women’s fashion. We push those magical squishy orbs up and together with all manner of undergarments, and that space between them becomes a dark alley, a shadowed crevice leading straight to…straight to…

…our belly…our navel…our treasure line…our pearl…and a cave full of sweet gold…

But I’m really not certain what it is about this place on the human female body that elicits such attention. Even I find it hard to look away when I am presented with a plunging neckline and the obvious curve of two breast coming together in a valley of soft flesh.

But there is much debate over the reasons cleavage attracts many (I read a 2016 study published in The Journal of Culture, Society and Development that found 49% of its male respondents found cleavage to be alluring and sexy) and turns others off (32% of the men in this same study found cleavage to be indecent and irritating).

I wonder how the study results would have turned out in a different population, culture, or if women were allowed to respond.

Maybe it’s the promise of softness, the sensualness of the curves and naked skin. It is overtly sexual and feminine, and while some may feel they have the right to show it and not draw what they deem to be uninvited attention, I think that’s an unfair and unrealistic expectation. When you show it, people will look. In fact, if they’re like me, they probably won’t have any control over it.

It will turn some people on, whether you intend it or not. It will offend others.

Regardless, there can be no argument against the power of cleavage. It beckons our basest desires.