TheWaterRat

The buttocks have quite unfairly become the joke region of the human body. They make people laugh; they are a popular subject for dirty jokes. The behind, the back side, the bum, the buns, the arse, the rump, the bottom – whatever name they are given, the buttocks are looked upon as either ridiculous or obscene. Even when they are cosidered an erotic zone, because of their proximity with the genitals, they are more likely to be pinched or slapped than caressed.

It’s easy to see how this negative attitude has come about. The buttocks are not alone. Between them lurks the anus, through which must pass, day after day, all our solid waste matter and - even more notoriously – the occasional emission of gas. Futhermore, when we bend down the genitals swing into view, also framed by the twin curves of the butocks. So there is no excaping excretory and sexual associations.

It follows from this that to display the buttocks is interpreted either as a gross insult – a symbolic act of defecation on an enemy – or as a gross obscenity – a shamelesss presentation of sexual organs.

The buttocks display is sometimes made more abusive by the addition of the phrase ‘kiss my arse’. Taken at face value this is insulting because it demands a humiliating act of subordination. But there is more to it than that: the Greeks believed that the buttocks were the most beautiful part of the human anatomy. The human emispheres were so different from the tough patches of hardened skin on the lean-bottomed apes that the Greeks saw them, quite correctly, as supremely human and non-bestial. The curvacious Goddess of Love, Aphrodite Kallipygos – letterally the ‘Goddess with Beautiful Buttocks’ – was said to have a behind more aesthetically pleasing than any other part of her anatomy.

It was argued that if rounded buttocks were the hallmark distinguishing mankind from the beasts, then the monsters of darkenss must lack this particular anatomical feature. Early Europeans believed that the devil, even though he could assume human form, could never complete the transformation because he could never manage to simulate the rounded human buttocks. Historically, the devil was depicted as having another face instead of the buttocks. This second face is the one which was supposed to be kissed by witches as part of the ritual of the Sabbath.  The concept of arse-kissing survived and the popular phrase was incorporated in the modern insult.

The females of apes have brightly coloured rumps. Their hind quarters become increasingly conspicuous and swollen as the time of ovulation approaches, then recede again as it passes. This means that a male can tell at a glance whether a female is sexually active.

Human females are different. Their rumps do not rise and fall with their menstrual cycles. Their buttocks remain protuberant throughout. Matching this, sexuality also remains high. As part of her pair-bonding system, the human female has extended her sexiness so that she’s always potentially responsive to the male (mhhhh…).  The female’s sex signal is accentuated by two other properties: the backword rotation of the pelvis and the sway of the hips in walking. The typical female has a more arched back than the male. When she walks, the differnt leg and hip design of the female skeleton produces a greater undulation in the buttock region. She wiggles as she walks.

The females of our early ancestors were much bigger-buttocked than their modern counterparts as evidence from ancient skeltons points out. One possible explanation of this is that our ancestors mated from behind. As we evolved into erect posture and our rump muscles bulged into buttocks, the swallen shape became the main sex signal. Females with larger rumps sent the stronger sex signals so that this condition started to increase until the buttocks became huge. The huge buttocks started however to interfere with the sexual act. The males solved the problem by switching to frontal copulation. As part of this new approach, the female breasts became permanently swollen as mimics of the large emispherical buttocks. This later version of the human female, better balanced and more agile, was at a considerable advantage over the fat-laden earlier model, which was gradually replaced.

The presentation of the buttocks in a humble bent-over posturehas had an enduring role as an appeasament gesture. In this respect tre is no difference between the ape and human individual. In all cases the ‘presenter’ is saying “I offer myself in the passive female role. Please show your dominance by mounting me instead of attacking me”. The dominant individuals rarely attack such a subordinate, either ignoring it, or else mounting it briefly and making a few formalized pelvic thrusts.

Between lovers, buttock claspig is common in both courtship and copulation itself. It is this sexual linkage, again, that causes the occasional furore over the notorious Italian pursuit of bottom-pinching. Any attractive girl walking the streets of an italian city is liable to have her buttocks pinched by admiring strangers.