Wider hips/big butt makes the waist appear smaller, I guess …
Posted on 12/28/2022 12:32:41 PM PST by algore
After almost a decade of our cultural obsession with twerking, peach emojis and Brazilian butt lifts, 2022 apparently marked the end of the era of the big booty.
But this cultural obsession with the derriere, both large and small, actually goes back much further than that — centuries, in fact. And it can tell us a lot about our relationship with gender, race and bodies, according to journalist Heather Radke, whose book, Butts: A Backstory, details the cultural history of the bottom.
"For me, butts became a sort of lens through which you can see the world and just kind of start to understand how we think about bodies," Radke told The Sunday Magazine host Piya Chattopadhyay.
Sarah Baartman, an 18th-century Black woman from South Africa, was "foundational to our obsession with butts," according to Radke. Nicknamed the "Hottentot Venus," she was brought to Europe and put on display for people to marvel at her large backside — at least larger than what Europeans at the time were used to. Black women and big butts started to become associated with hypersexuality.
Kim Kardashian's infamous Paper magazine cover from 2014 that "broke the internet" was compared to images of Baartman and accused by critics of culturally appropriating and sexually exploiting the Black female body.
"It shows how this really pernicious stereotype about Black women formed, and it formed in the performance halls of London," Radke said.
Bustles — padded or metal undergarments that were worn under skirts to add fullness to their backsides, popular during the Victorian era — are also thought to be inspired by Baartman's silhouette. For Radke, this propensity to turn Black women's bodies into fashion statements was an early example of what was to come throughout the next 150 years.
After the heroin chic era of the late '80s and '90s, when waif-like models like Kate Moss were upheld as the ideal, there was another cultural shift — again toward bigger butts.
This was partly due to the rise of hip hop in popular culture, says Kyra Gaunt, an ethnomusicologist and social media researcher at the University of Albany. She says that when hip hop artists started catering to a more commercialized audience in the '90s, Black women's bodies became more commonly seen in MTV music videos.
Then in 1992, Sir Mix-a-Lot released his song Baby Got Back. Although it faced some controversy at the time for its overtly sexual lyrics, it became a de facto hit, spending five weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart and becoming the second best-selling song in the U.S. that year.
"Although it might be the year of the butt for white women or for non-Black women, actually all of the celebration of the butt hasn't really been that helpful to Black women," said Radke.
And now this new cultural shift away from big butts is just as problematic, Gaunt said.
"Women whose bodies are naturally like that are not getting rid of them. It's not a trend," said Gaunt. "That's not going to change what happens with the … Black and brown female bodies for which this is their natural inheritance."
I predict a Sir Mix-a-Lot appearance on this thread
You really sure about that?
Then what will make the rockin’ world go ‘round?
I like my women round and voluptuous. Don’t care about popular culture. I liked them that when I was young, and I like them like that today and will like them that way tomorrow.
I thought is was called ‘ba-donka-donk’ in certain cultures?
.. or am I culturally appropriating?
Small Butts are bad because they discriminate against black women who have big butts.
Got it.
Fat acceptance culture going away? Not from what I’ve seen at the local stores.
Wider hips/big butt makes the waist appear smaller, I guess …
Not my culture. Big butts are a big turn-off, same with excessively large breasts, fat lips, and blonds.
Wan' tell you a story
'Bout a woman I know
Ah, come to loving
She steals the show
She ain't exactly pretty
Ain't exactly small
Forty-two, thirty-nine, fifty-six
You could say she's got it all
Never had a woman
Never had a woman like you
Doin' all the things
Doin' all the things you do
Ain't no fairy story
Ain't no skin and bones
But you give it all you got
Weighing in at nineteen stone
You're a whole lotta woman
A whole lotta woman
Whole lotta Rosie
Whole lotta Rosie
Whole lotta Rosie
And you're a whole lotta woman
Oh, honey, you can do it
Do it to me all night long
Only one that turn me
Only one that turn me on
All through the night time
And right around the clock
Woo, to my surprise, Rosie never stopped
She was a whole lotta woman
Whole lotta woman
Whole lotta Rosie
Whole lotta Rosie
Whole lotta Rosie
A whole lotta woman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAOwDZoWXRI
I see what you did there. My local BBQ joint has a sign that says "I like pig butts and I cannot lie!"
but but but what are the losers who cant woo a slender backside to their corner gonna do!!?? twerking celulite is all they know because the black guys told em it’s cool!!
We have a winner. I don’t understand the fascination with huge breasts that will be hanging down to their bellies in a few years, and butts to big for the chairs.
I like big bustles and I cannot lie. The other founders can't deny...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.