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Is it racist to like big butts? The derriere discourse guilt-trips white women

Is Kim Kardashian guilty of cultural appropriation? (TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images)

Is Kim Kardashian guilty of cultural appropriation? (TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images)


January 5, 2023   6 mins

The human butt has long been the object of all manner of obsessions. We worry over it: its size, its shape, whether or not it has cellulite on it, how it looks in a pair of jeans. But now, a new source of concern emerges: the alarming possibility that one’s butt — or at least, one’s relationship to butts generally — is racist.

For this we may thank the existence of Butts: A Backstory, a new book by journalist Heather Radke. To be fair, it surely is not Radke’s intention to inculcate racial anxiety in her reader: Butts feels like a passion project, deeply researched and fun to read, offering a deep dive into the history and culture of the human rear end, from the Venus Callipyge (from whose name the word “callipygian” is derived) to Buns of Steel to Sir Mix-A-Lot’s seminal rap celebrating all things gluteal. It is a topic ripe for well-rounded analysis, so to speak. But having been written in the very particular milieu of 2020s America, Butts unfortunately falls victim to the contemporary vogue for viewing all matters of culture through a racial lens. The result is a work that not only flattens the butt, figuratively, but makes the book feel ultimately less like an anthropological study and more like an entry into the crowded genre of works which serve to stoke the white liberal guilt of the NPR tote bag set.

The concept of cultural appropriation has always struck me as both fundamentally misguided and historically illiterate, arising from a studied incuriosity about both the inherent contagiousness of culture and the mimetic nature of human beings. But when it comes to the remixing of thing such as textiles, hairdos or fashion trends across cultures, the appropriation complaints seem at least understandable, if not persuasive: there’s a conscious element there, a choice to take what looked interesting on someone else and adorn your own body in the same way. Here, though, the appropriated item is literally a body part — the size and shape of which we rather notoriously have no control over. And yet Radke employs more or less the same argument to stigmatise the appropriation of butts as is often made about dreadlocks or bindis.

The book is insistent on this front: butts are a black thing, and liking them is a black male thing, and the appreciation of butts by non-black folks represents a moral error: cultural theft or stolen valour or some potent mix of the two. Among the scholars and experts quoted by Radke on this front is one who asserts that the contemporary appreciation of butts by the wider male population is “coming from Black male desire. Straight-up, point-blank. It’s only through Black males and their gaze that white men are starting to take notice”. To paraphrase a popular meme: “Fellas, is it racist to like butts?”

Perhaps needless to say, a wealth of cultural artefacts — from the aforementioned Venus sculpture to the works of Peter Paul Rubens to certain showtunes of the Seventies —  belie the notion that white guys were oblivious to the existence of butts until black men made it cool to notice them. But the cultural legacy of the butt is undeniably entangled with the legacy of racism and eugenics, including a sordid and repellent history wherein certain anthropologists of the white male variety both fetishised the physiques of black women with ample backsides and conflated their peculiarities with savagery and promiscuity.

Most prominent in this history is the case of Sarah Baartman, to whom Radke devotes an entire chapter plus countless references: Baartman was a member of the Khoekhoe tribe in South Africa, who in the early 1800s was coerced into travelling to Europe and participating in a freak show-style exhibition in which onlookers gawked at — and sometimes poked or grabbed — her buttocks. If Baartman’s feelings about this remain somewhat mysterious (the records of the time are ambiguous as to how voluntary her participation was), the motivations of the men who trafficked her are less so: anthropologists of the time were obsessed with categorising humans into a racial hierarchy. It wasn’t just Baartman’s butt that fascinated them but her entire body, including the shape of her skull and her elongated labia, which were held up as evidence that she (and hence all black women) were a lower order of human being.

Certainly, it is impossible to do justice to the history of butts without devoting ample space to Baartman. But it’s one thing to give due scrutiny to the fact that some 19th century anthropologists indulged in the repugnant racial stereotyping of black women’s bodies and body parts; it’s another to replicate it ourselves — or to assume that other people are.

Radke does assume, though — repeatedly, persistently, and sometimes in spite of alternative theories or evidence to the contrary. This includes advancing the argument that bustles, the Victorian-era fashion that trended more than 50 years after Sarah Baartman’s death, were inspired by her singular figure — and that white women were coyly, perhaps even consciously, appropriating Baartman’s silhouette in an act of racist fetishisation. Notably, Radke is the first to acknowledge the obvious flaw in her argument: “There is also a question of why a late-19th-century woman would have wanted to look like Sarah Baartman, whose silhouette had been used as the quintessential example of African as subhuman,” she writes. Why, indeed? But Radke answers this question with some crude stereotyping of her own: “White culture and fashion have both proved relentlessly adept at cherry-picking throughout the centuries, finding a way to poach the parts of other people’s culture, histories, and bodies that suit them and leave behind the rest.”

Why would 19th century women have aspired to the silhouette of a sexually promiscuous savage? Because they were a bunch of Karens, that’s why (and here the self-loathing contemporary white woman reader is surely nodding along).

By the time Butts comes around to analysing the contemporary derriere discourse, its conclusions are all but foregone: the political is not just personal, but anatomical. The book calls multiple women, including Jennifer Lopez, Kim Kardashian, and Miley Cyrus, to account for their appropriation of butts, which are understood to belong metaphorically if not literally to black women. The most scathing critique is directed at the then-21-year-old Cyrus, whose twerking at the VMAs is described as “adopting and exploiting a form of dance that had long been popular in poor and working-class Black communities and simultaneously playing into the stereotype of the hypersexual Black woman”. The mainstreaming of butts as a thing to be admired, then, is the ultimate act of Columbusing: “The butt had always been there, even if white people failed to notice for decades.”

There is also the curious wrinkle in Radke’s section on the history of twerking, which credits its popularisation to a male drag queen named Big Freedia. The implicit suggestion is that this movement style is less offensive when performed by a man dressed as a woman than by a white woman with a tiny butt.

Butts doesn’t claim to be a story with a moral, but one nevertheless emerges: everyone may have a butt, but butts are not for everyone. And it is worth noting that however much baggage it assigns the white men who like butts, its implications are even more fraught for the white women to whom the butts are attached. One gets the sense that non-black women are not supposed to have big butts — that those who do have accomplished something unnatural if not outright suspicious. And if you insist on having a butt (and, really, do you have to?), then you must under no circumstances be proud of it, or accept positive attention for it, or — heaven forfend — make it part of your brand.

Ironically, the author of this book is herself a white woman with a large backside, a fact of which she periodically reminds the reader. And yet, Butts thoroughly subsumes its subject matter into the cultural appropriation discourse in a way that implicitly impugns all the non-black women who look — at least from behind — a hell of a lot more like Nicki Minaj than Kate Moss, women who perhaps hoped that their own big butts might be counted among those Sir Mix-a-Lot cannot lie about liking. It is worth noting, too, that the women hung out to dry by this argument are the same ones who other progressive identitarian rhetoric almost invariably fails to account for: the more it indulges in the archetype of the assless willowy white woman, the more Butts excludes from its imagination the poor and working class — whose butts, along with everything else, tend to be bigger. It fails to account, too, for those from ethnic backgrounds where a bigger butt — or, as one of my Jewish great-grandmothers might have said, a nice round tuchus — is the norm.

All told, Butts offers an interesting if somewhat monomaniacal look back at the cultural history of the derriere. But as for how to view our backsides moving forward — especially if you happen to be a woman in possession of a big butt yourself — the book finds itself at something of a loss. Those in search of body positivity will not find it here; Radke is firm on this front, that white women who embrace their big butts are guilty of what Toni Morrison called “playing in the dark”, dabbling thoughtlessly with a culture, an aesthetic, a physique that doesn’t really belong to them. The best these women can hope for, it seems, is to look at their bodies the way Radke does in the final pages, with a sort of resigned acceptance: her butt, she says, is “just a fact”. On the one hand, this is better than explicitly instructing women to feel ashamed of their bodies (although implicitly, one gets the sense that shame is preferable to the confident, twerking alternative). But after some 200 pages of narrative about the political, sexual, cultural, historical baggage with which the butt is laden, it feels a bit empty, a bit like a cop-out. It could even be said — not by me, but by someone — that Butts has a hole in it.


Kat Rosenfield is an UnHerd columnist and co-host of the Feminine Chaos podcast. Her latest novel is You Must Remember This.

katrosenfield

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Tom Watson
Tom Watson
1 year ago

Jesus Christ. No wonder they’re all on anxiety medication.

Suzanne C.
Suzanne C.
1 year ago
Reply to  Tom Watson

This says it all! Great article though.

Mark M Breza
Mark M Breza
1 year ago
Reply to  Suzanne C.

Does not matter the size.
It’s all in how they move the package !!

Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
1 year ago
Reply to  Mark M Breza

Little did Queen know they were supporting racist attitudes with their ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’ and the video featuring a lot of white girls.

Andrew Boughton
Andrew Boughton
1 year ago
Reply to  Ian Stewart

Ha! And let’s not speak of Freddie Mercury satirically singing “I want to be free” dressed as a moustachioed housewife pushing a Hoover.

Andrew Boughton
Andrew Boughton
1 year ago
Reply to  Ian Stewart

Ha! And let’s not speak of Freddie Mercury satirically singing “I want to be free” dressed as a moustachioed housewife pushing a Hoover.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
1 year ago
Reply to  Mark M Breza

A big butt is not attractive without a thinner waist. I can understand the attraction but it is off limits to me as I am happily married to my flat bottomed wife so concentrate and enjoy looking at her lovely legs.

2A Solution
2A Solution
1 year ago
Reply to  Mark M Breza

Some of these packages are moved with a forklift.

Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
1 year ago
Reply to  Mark M Breza

Little did Queen know they were supporting racist attitudes with their ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’ and the video featuring a lot of white girls.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
1 year ago
Reply to  Mark M Breza

A big butt is not attractive without a thinner waist. I can understand the attraction but it is off limits to me as I am happily married to my flat bottomed wife so concentrate and enjoy looking at her lovely legs.

2A Solution
2A Solution
1 year ago
Reply to  Mark M Breza

Some of these packages are moved with a forklift.

Mark M Breza
Mark M Breza
1 year ago
Reply to  Suzanne C.

Does not matter the size.
It’s all in how they move the package !!

Paddy Taylor
Paddy Taylor
1 year ago
Reply to  Tom Watson

Is it racist to like big butts?
Two words: ….
Betteridge’s Law.

John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago
Reply to  Paddy Taylor

Exactly. It’s a way of making a baseless claim without any danger of having to justify it.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
1 year ago
Reply to  Paddy Taylor

I don’t know if it racist but I’ll always admire one. Can’t help it. It speaks of fitness and athleticism sometimes.

2A Solution
2A Solution
1 year ago
Reply to  Tony Conrad

The butt in that pic isn’t a fitness butt. It’s cushion for the pushin’…

2A Solution
2A Solution
1 year ago
Reply to  Tony Conrad

The butt in that pic isn’t a fitness butt. It’s cushion for the pushin’…

John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago
Reply to  Paddy Taylor

Exactly. It’s a way of making a baseless claim without any danger of having to justify it.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
1 year ago
Reply to  Paddy Taylor

I don’t know if it racist but I’ll always admire one. Can’t help it. It speaks of fitness and athleticism sometimes.

Gluteal Expert
Gluteal Expert
1 year ago
Reply to  Tom Watson

Yes. And in fact, this whole discussion is predicated on a false assumption: namely, that the “size” of the female behind is what matters. At least, it is not of any concern to me. What matters to me are how it stacks up on the following: Is it plump and pert? Does it have firm cushioning? Does it stick out provocatively? Is it shapely? If the answers to these questions is “Yes”, then I’m in, regardless of “size”. And so, I suspect. are most who admire female posteriors. If, conversely, it is fat, flat, flabby, dumpy, and/or oddly shaped, then it tells me the woman is either not taking care of herself or is genetically unlucky.
And yes, the conception that “White” males learned to admire female asses from their “Black” male counterparts is completely ludicrous, and insulting to all involved. I (who am White, if race is even a valid concept), was barely 14 when I suddenly noticed how inexplicably drawn I was to the bottom on the girl who sat in front of me in school. This came to me as a revelation: the idea that the human behind could be sexy had never occurred to me before this moment.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
1 year ago
Reply to  Gluteal Expert

Fourteen is about the right age for a boy to notice these things.

James Allen
James Allen
1 year ago
Reply to  Tony Conrad

I would have thought it was odd for a boy not to be noticing bums at this age, male or female depending on ones preference.

James Allen
James Allen
1 year ago
Reply to  Tony Conrad

I would have thought it was odd for a boy not to be noticing bums at this age, male or female depending on ones preference.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
1 year ago
Reply to  Gluteal Expert

Fourteen is about the right age for a boy to notice these things.

2A Solution
2A Solution
1 year ago
Reply to  Tom Watson

Can we lace that with fentanyl?

Ed Carden
Ed Carden
1 year ago
Reply to  Tom Watson

The whole thing is just non-sense. There’s nothing racist about what a man or a woman finds attractive in another. Biology is not racist. Additionally not every man likes a woman with a large butt. There are butt men and there are breast men and there are bitt & breast men. There is no singular shape of a woman that is ideal to every man. Arguments about men’s preferences with regards to how women look is just a preference, same as how women have preferences with regards to men. For some reason (probably feminism) men’s preferences are called everything from misogynists to perverted whereas women’s preferences are praised for making them strong and independent boss babes.

Suzanne C.
Suzanne C.
1 year ago
Reply to  Tom Watson

This says it all! Great article though.

Paddy Taylor
Paddy Taylor
1 year ago
Reply to  Tom Watson

Is it racist to like big butts?
Two words: ….
Betteridge’s Law.

Gluteal Expert
Gluteal Expert
1 year ago
Reply to  Tom Watson

Yes. And in fact, this whole discussion is predicated on a false assumption: namely, that the “size” of the female behind is what matters. At least, it is not of any concern to me. What matters to me are how it stacks up on the following: Is it plump and pert? Does it have firm cushioning? Does it stick out provocatively? Is it shapely? If the answers to these questions is “Yes”, then I’m in, regardless of “size”. And so, I suspect. are most who admire female posteriors. If, conversely, it is fat, flat, flabby, dumpy, and/or oddly shaped, then it tells me the woman is either not taking care of herself or is genetically unlucky.
And yes, the conception that “White” males learned to admire female asses from their “Black” male counterparts is completely ludicrous, and insulting to all involved. I (who am White, if race is even a valid concept), was barely 14 when I suddenly noticed how inexplicably drawn I was to the bottom on the girl who sat in front of me in school. This came to me as a revelation: the idea that the human behind could be sexy had never occurred to me before this moment.

2A Solution
2A Solution
1 year ago
Reply to  Tom Watson

Can we lace that with fentanyl?

Ed Carden
Ed Carden
1 year ago
Reply to  Tom Watson

The whole thing is just non-sense. There’s nothing racist about what a man or a woman finds attractive in another. Biology is not racist. Additionally not every man likes a woman with a large butt. There are butt men and there are breast men and there are bitt & breast men. There is no singular shape of a woman that is ideal to every man. Arguments about men’s preferences with regards to how women look is just a preference, same as how women have preferences with regards to men. For some reason (probably feminism) men’s preferences are called everything from misogynists to perverted whereas women’s preferences are praised for making them strong and independent boss babes.

Tom Watson
Tom Watson
1 year ago

Jesus Christ. No wonder they’re all on anxiety medication.

Anthony Michaels
Anthony Michaels
1 year ago

The racial discourse is making everyone more racist. Good work

Andrew Boughton
Andrew Boughton
1 year ago

When I was working in New York in the early 90s, a CUNY professor condemned blackboards as racist because the white chalk written on the black board was emblematic of white privilege founded on working blacks. His colleague noted as evidence that white golfers were self-hating racists their frenzied attempts to whack a small white ball with a long stick into a small black hole. It’s no enigma where the genuine racial hatred lies. When it was suggested these people were “inverse racists” they angrily retorted “We’re not inverse, we’re just as entitled to be racist as whites. Dont you dare call us inverted racists, we’re racists.” This and countless examples show how embittered Baby Boomer Civil Rights leaders, having won the war, spawned a new generation of racists where there were virtually none left. Equality is never enough. Revenge!

Andrew Boughton
Andrew Boughton
1 year ago

When I was working in New York in the early 90s, a CUNY professor condemned blackboards as racist because the white chalk written on the black board was emblematic of white privilege founded on working blacks. His colleague noted as evidence that white golfers were self-hating racists their frenzied attempts to whack a small white ball with a long stick into a small black hole. It’s no enigma where the genuine racial hatred lies. When it was suggested these people were “inverse racists” they angrily retorted “We’re not inverse, we’re just as entitled to be racist as whites. Dont you dare call us inverted racists, we’re racists.” This and countless examples show how embittered Baby Boomer Civil Rights leaders, having won the war, spawned a new generation of racists where there were virtually none left. Equality is never enough. Revenge!

Anthony Michaels
Anthony Michaels
1 year ago

The racial discourse is making everyone more racist. Good work

Jeremy Bray
Jeremy Bray
1 year ago

An arch and artful review of a singularly stupid sounding and narrowly focused book about woman’s bottoms from a hyper-racialised US perspective. Bonkers.

Mark M Breza
Mark M Breza
1 year ago
Reply to  Jeremy Bray

Is it not all about the triangle anyway ?

Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
1 year ago
Reply to  Jeremy Bray

It’s not just butts either. News item today about a white girl being chastised online for ‘appropriation’ because she used a hair oil designed for the hair of black people.

Mark M Breza
Mark M Breza
1 year ago
Reply to  Jeremy Bray

Is it not all about the triangle anyway ?

Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
1 year ago
Reply to  Jeremy Bray

It’s not just butts either. News item today about a white girl being chastised online for ‘appropriation’ because she used a hair oil designed for the hair of black people.

Jeremy Bray
Jeremy Bray
1 year ago

An arch and artful review of a singularly stupid sounding and narrowly focused book about woman’s bottoms from a hyper-racialised US perspective. Bonkers.

R Wright
R Wright
1 year ago

I tend ignore the anxious racist white progressive woman that capitalises ‘black’ while viewing whiteness as akin to toxic waste. I doubly ignore them if they self-identify as a journalist. I congratulate the author on managing to wade through such neurotic, self-hating bilge. Hopefully one day soon we will return to a time where ‘thickness’ (i.e. a sign of obesity) is no longer considered high prestige through association with supposedly universally sinless African-Americans.

Last edited 1 year ago by robertdkwright
R Wright
R Wright
1 year ago

I tend ignore the anxious racist white progressive woman that capitalises ‘black’ while viewing whiteness as akin to toxic waste. I doubly ignore them if they self-identify as a journalist. I congratulate the author on managing to wade through such neurotic, self-hating bilge. Hopefully one day soon we will return to a time where ‘thickness’ (i.e. a sign of obesity) is no longer considered high prestige through association with supposedly universally sinless African-Americans.

Last edited 1 year ago by robertdkwright
Max Price
Max Price
1 year ago

I think these critical theorists are getting dumber.

Linda Hutchinson
Linda Hutchinson
1 year ago
Reply to  Max Price

Sorry, but is that even possible?

John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago

You realise that as soon as they read this, they’ll interpret it as a challenge?

John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago

You realise that as soon as they read this, they’ll interpret it as a challenge?

Kate S
Kate S
1 year ago
Reply to  Max Price

They’re also historically illiterate in their own supposed journalistic fields, to attribute the current fashion for large bottoms as an ‘african/black’ cultural import that Westerners are appropriating would be to completely ignore things like the fashion during Victorian and Edwardian era in West for women to wear huge bustles that emphasised both the waist and the bottom to exaggerated proportions. It’s just so tediously lazy.

Linda Hutchinson
Linda Hutchinson
1 year ago
Reply to  Max Price

Sorry, but is that even possible?

Kate S
Kate S
1 year ago
Reply to  Max Price

They’re also historically illiterate in their own supposed journalistic fields, to attribute the current fashion for large bottoms as an ‘african/black’ cultural import that Westerners are appropriating would be to completely ignore things like the fashion during Victorian and Edwardian era in West for women to wear huge bustles that emphasised both the waist and the bottom to exaggerated proportions. It’s just so tediously lazy.

Max Price
Max Price
1 year ago

I think these critical theorists are getting dumber.

John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago

“Among the scholars and experts quoted by Radke on this front is one who asserts that the contemporary appreciation of butts by the wider male population is “coming from Black male desire. Straight-up, point-blank. It’s only through Black males and their gaze that white men are starting to take notice”.”

The fallacy is pretty obvious surely? The argument presupposes that white men never possessed such an appreciation until they realised that black men possessed it. Leaving aside the fair point that even if this were true there would be nothing wrong with it, surely the presumption is clearly idiotic?

How can anyone imagine they know this about all white men? That white men can be “deemed” never to include any individuals who have that particular aesthetic or sexual preference? Anyone taking this idea seriously is so stupid that they disqualify themselves from inclusion in civilised debate, not merely because the generalisation is so obviously ridiculous, but because it is also racist. And by that I mean racist in the real sense, not that daft only-white-people-can-be-racist sense that is lazily trotted out by the usual suspects on a routine basis.

Speaking from personal preference, I do say that a nicely shaped bottom on a woman is considerably more important than, say, breast size, from an aesthetic perspective. (b**b size is the least important aspect of a woman’s appearance as far as I’m concerned, pretty much everything else makes more of a difference). While that’s not quite the same as saying I like a big booty in the specific sense referred to in the article, it is nonetheless true that this is a preference I’ve had for far longer than the recent emergence of a general preference amongst black guys. But even if it wasn’t and I’d never thought about it until watching R&B videos, why would that be a problem?

Either way thought the truth is almost certainly this: loads of white guys have had such a preference for all of time, it’s just that it never became the centre of yet another identity politics circus, that’s all. What is also true about the idiotic nature of public debate these days is that if it had actually emerged as a white guy preference, the social justice agenda wouldn’t be talking about cultural appropriation at this point, it’d be boring on about rape culture, objectification and the apparent aggression and threat that supposedly constitutes the male gaze.

Last edited 11 months ago by John Riordan
Adam Bartlett
Adam Bartlett
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

Hmm, a man after my own heart. I shared your reaction, but then struggled to think of any ancient evidence that we white men have indeed had such an eternal preference. Another point to consider is that in the colonial era white men allegedly tried to universalise the missionary position to rest of world. Sounds like both you and me are grateful that the black counter evangelists were more successful!
(Ok the missionary position story is probably largely false, based on erroreous asserstions by Alfred Kinsey etc, but still ..)

John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago
Reply to  Adam Bartlett

If it really does turn out that black men have legitimised a previously-inadmissible preference for the female behind amongst straight white men, then I’ll happily thank them all. It is vanishingly unlikely that this is actually true though. It hasn’t come up before simply because polite society has excluded for many years the general subject of what men find attractive in women. The issue has emerged now because the intersectional hierarchical analysis to which every social issue must be subject these days has deemed it unacceptable that black men’s preferences should be forced into hiding in the manner that was just fine when it was men generally.

One personal anecdote is that I knew an Irish publican many years ago who was entirely unapologetic about the fact that he liked an arse at least three feet wide on a woman. I’d also cite the reference to the Queen song Fat Bottomed Girls as some sort of evidence, but I’m not sure we can be confident that Freddie Mercury’s heart was really in it. 😉

Last edited 1 year ago by John Riordan
Adam Bartlett
Adam Bartlett
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

Yeah, I still partly stand behind what I’ve said, but on reflection your statements are almost certainly much closer to the truth. Btw, in my limited experience, black culture tends to be inclusive, and in as much as white folks appreciate & even imitate it (perhaps you’d agree that happens in some cases, even if not relevant to butt appreciation)  I’d say few regular black folks would decry that as cultural appropriation. (Except maybe in extreme cases)

John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago
Reply to  Adam Bartlett

I do very much agree that parts of black culture are often copied by the white majority, but I also of course maintain that calling it appropriation is dimwitted nonsense.

There are certain times though where there can be other reasons why it might be a good idea for white people not to, for example, wear dreadlocks or to adopt a Jafaican accent: it’s simply that doing so makes a white person look and sound ridiculous.

Last edited 1 year ago by John Riordan
John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago
Reply to  Adam Bartlett

I do very much agree that parts of black culture are often copied by the white majority, but I also of course maintain that calling it appropriation is dimwitted nonsense.

There are certain times though where there can be other reasons why it might be a good idea for white people not to, for example, wear dreadlocks or to adopt a Jafaican accent: it’s simply that doing so makes a white person look and sound ridiculous.

Last edited 1 year ago by John Riordan
Pat Rowles
Pat Rowles
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

Much as I hate to be “that guy”, it’s worth pointing out that FBG was one of Brian May’s.

John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago
Reply to  Pat Rowles

Actually I did wonder about that after I’d written the comment.

Last edited 1 year ago by John Riordan
John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago
Reply to  Pat Rowles

Actually I did wonder about that after I’d written the comment.

Last edited 1 year ago by John Riordan
Jerry Carroll
Jerry Carroll
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

Even black men believe big bottoms can go too far. They refer to this as “junk in the trunk.”

Adam Bartlett
Adam Bartlett
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

Yeah, I still partly stand behind what I’ve said, but on reflection your statements are almost certainly much closer to the truth. Btw, in my limited experience, black culture tends to be inclusive, and in as much as white folks appreciate & even imitate it (perhaps you’d agree that happens in some cases, even if not relevant to butt appreciation)  I’d say few regular black folks would decry that as cultural appropriation. (Except maybe in extreme cases)

Pat Rowles
Pat Rowles
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

Much as I hate to be “that guy”, it’s worth pointing out that FBG was one of Brian May’s.

Jerry Carroll
Jerry Carroll
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

Even black men believe big bottoms can go too far. They refer to this as “junk in the trunk.”

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
1 year ago
Reply to  Adam Bartlett

While hardly evidence enough to establish an eternal preference for curviness, ancient fertility statues like the so-called Venus of Willendorf do show a longstanding appreciate for a fuller, or in that case obese, womanly figure. As one more example, there’s also some lewd art from the 18th century–largely anonymous, comic-erotic stuff–that gets cheeky in a big way.

Adam Bartlett
Adam Bartlett
1 year ago
Reply to  AJ Mac

Thanks, left brained of me to only consider textual evidence. Yup, agree there’s much evidence for the eternal preference from fertility statues & other visual arts. Still, when I think of ancient ‘white men’ examples, what first comes to mind is Aphrodite of Knidos , a statue that was innovative both for being of a naked woman, and for being prominently displayed in such a way that viewers could easily see the back as well as the front. It sparked a viral trend for dozens of statues in the ancient world having naked females butts, including ‘Aphrodite Kallipygos’ – literally meaning ‘Aprhodite of the beautiful butt’ . But heres the kicker, as far as I know all those ancient Greek beautiful butts were rather small (Google image some of the names I mentioned to see). So not sure we have disproved black culture being a major reason why big butt appreciation is now such a thing in the anglo-sphere.

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
1 year ago
Reply to  Adam Bartlett

I think black culture (and physiology) has contributed–a major reason? Perhaps, but not the reason. Have you looked at any statues of females from ancient India? Many are very curvy, top and bottom.

Andre Lower
Andre Lower
1 year ago
Reply to  AJ Mac

Exactly, Mac. If you visit Brazil (my country of birth) you’ll realize that irresistible butts were never an exclusively black “property”. There is a long list of ethnical backgrounds (pun intended) featuring rather voluptuous “bundas” – yeah, that is the Brazilian word for this iconic element of human anatomy. So not only the discussion is idiotic – the premise that good asses are found exclusively in black people is laughable.

Andre Lower
Andre Lower
1 year ago
Reply to  AJ Mac

Exactly, Mac. If you visit Brazil (my country of birth) you’ll realize that irresistible butts were never an exclusively black “property”. There is a long list of ethnical backgrounds (pun intended) featuring rather voluptuous “bundas” – yeah, that is the Brazilian word for this iconic element of human anatomy. So not only the discussion is idiotic – the premise that good asses are found exclusively in black people is laughable.

Jon Barrow
Jon Barrow
1 year ago
Reply to  Adam Bartlett

Have a look at ‘saucy’ British seaside postcards from the early 20th century.

Alan Osband
Alan Osband
1 year ago
Reply to  Adam Bartlett

What about the 1950s fashion for pencil skirts worn with high heels . Was that an import from Lagos or Biafra ? Yes huge arses are prominent feature of black music videos of the last ten years , a period that just happened to see the rise of BLM and black identity politics . Asinine to imagine white men needed the example of Gangsta Rap to look at the female arse .The white female author is surely just having a laugh while trying to keep the Woolf from the door .
If you’re looking for earlier artistic arse representations , check out the Boucher painting of Louis XV’s mistress or , indeed , the Rokeby Venus by Velasquez .

Last edited 1 year ago by Alan Osband
AJ Mac
AJ Mac
1 year ago
Reply to  Adam Bartlett

I think black culture (and physiology) has contributed–a major reason? Perhaps, but not the reason. Have you looked at any statues of females from ancient India? Many are very curvy, top and bottom.

Jon Barrow
Jon Barrow
1 year ago
Reply to  Adam Bartlett

Have a look at ‘saucy’ British seaside postcards from the early 20th century.

Alan Osband
Alan Osband
1 year ago
Reply to  Adam Bartlett

What about the 1950s fashion for pencil skirts worn with high heels . Was that an import from Lagos or Biafra ? Yes huge arses are prominent feature of black music videos of the last ten years , a period that just happened to see the rise of BLM and black identity politics . Asinine to imagine white men needed the example of Gangsta Rap to look at the female arse .The white female author is surely just having a laugh while trying to keep the Woolf from the door .
If you’re looking for earlier artistic arse representations , check out the Boucher painting of Louis XV’s mistress or , indeed , the Rokeby Venus by Velasquez .

Last edited 1 year ago by Alan Osband
Adam Bartlett
Adam Bartlett
1 year ago
Reply to  AJ Mac

Thanks, left brained of me to only consider textual evidence. Yup, agree there’s much evidence for the eternal preference from fertility statues & other visual arts. Still, when I think of ancient ‘white men’ examples, what first comes to mind is Aphrodite of Knidos , a statue that was innovative both for being of a naked woman, and for being prominently displayed in such a way that viewers could easily see the back as well as the front. It sparked a viral trend for dozens of statues in the ancient world having naked females butts, including ‘Aphrodite Kallipygos’ – literally meaning ‘Aprhodite of the beautiful butt’ . But heres the kicker, as far as I know all those ancient Greek beautiful butts were rather small (Google image some of the names I mentioned to see). So not sure we have disproved black culture being a major reason why big butt appreciation is now such a thing in the anglo-sphere.

John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago
Reply to  Adam Bartlett

If it really does turn out that black men have legitimised a previously-inadmissible preference for the female behind amongst straight white men, then I’ll happily thank them all. It is vanishingly unlikely that this is actually true though. It hasn’t come up before simply because polite society has excluded for many years the general subject of what men find attractive in women. The issue has emerged now because the intersectional hierarchical analysis to which every social issue must be subject these days has deemed it unacceptable that black men’s preferences should be forced into hiding in the manner that was just fine when it was men generally.

One personal anecdote is that I knew an Irish publican many years ago who was entirely unapologetic about the fact that he liked an arse at least three feet wide on a woman. I’d also cite the reference to the Queen song Fat Bottomed Girls as some sort of evidence, but I’m not sure we can be confident that Freddie Mercury’s heart was really in it. 😉

Last edited 1 year ago by John Riordan
AJ Mac
AJ Mac
1 year ago
Reply to  Adam Bartlett

While hardly evidence enough to establish an eternal preference for curviness, ancient fertility statues like the so-called Venus of Willendorf do show a longstanding appreciate for a fuller, or in that case obese, womanly figure. As one more example, there’s also some lewd art from the 18th century–largely anonymous, comic-erotic stuff–that gets cheeky in a big way.

Stephen Quilley
Stephen Quilley
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

Yep. The problem is that exactly this kind of argument is made by academics in every single English, Sociology, Black Studies, Anthropology, Women’s Studies department in the Anglosphere, every single day of the year. Humanities and social science students get a drip feed rolling version of this story…..and I’m sure the BBC will pick up the book, round up some ‘experts’ and present an even more ‘digested’ version….. It makes me want to weep.

Steve Murray
Steve Murray
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

Great summary. I’d only ‘deviate’ slightly in saying that whilst i agree about breast size, it’s more about proportionality for me. I find nothing more off-putting than hugely oversized (and often false) breasts on a slim woman. If a similar woman has proportionate breasts, she wins every time.
On the general theme, the book in question reminds me of one of those spoof scientific papers submitted by naughty researchers with a risible thesis to see if the journal will be taken in by it enough to publish it.

John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago
Reply to  Steve Murray

I hear what you’re saying, though I don’t mind huge fake tits on a woman simply because they are usually also well shaped. It’s when gravity gets hold of them after a certain age that they start to be a issue, and I understand why so many women opt to have that problem sorted out surgically when the need arises.

On the second part yes, it sounds as if this book could have been bashed out by an automatic postmodernism generator.

Last edited 1 year ago by John Riordan
John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago
Reply to  Steve Murray

I hear what you’re saying, though I don’t mind huge fake tits on a woman simply because they are usually also well shaped. It’s when gravity gets hold of them after a certain age that they start to be a issue, and I understand why so many women opt to have that problem sorted out surgically when the need arises.

On the second part yes, it sounds as if this book could have been bashed out by an automatic postmodernism generator.

Last edited 1 year ago by John Riordan
Dougie Undersub
Dougie Undersub
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

Clearly, Radke has never heard the term Rubenesque.

Last edited 1 year ago by Dougie Undersub
Alphonse Pfarti
Alphonse Pfarti
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

It seems to me that according to this logic if, as a white guy, you like a big bum, you’re a racist for appropriating the black male gaze. Prefer a smaller bot, such as those in Carry On films and 70s UK sitcoms, then you’re reinforcing ideas of white beauty … and guess what that makes you?

Jeremy Bray
Jeremy Bray
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

“What is also true about the idiotic nature of public debate these days is that if it had actually emerged as a white guy preference, the social justice agenda wouldn’t be talking about cultural appropriation at this point, it’d be boring on about rape culture, objectification and the apparent aggression and threat that supposedly constitutes the male gaze.”

You are quite right that the liberal attitude is to give anything regarded as black culture a free pass. I well remember my wife turning off the car radio when some misogynistic black rap was broadcast including the n word to the disgruntlement of my youngest son. The equivalent would not have been acceptable to broadcasters from a white singer.

What is particularly ironic is that according to Dr Thomas Sowell as set out in Black Rednecks and White Liberals US black culture is in fact derived from the cracker culture of Southern whites. In fact a wholesale appropriation of a culture that has done blacks no good at all.

John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago
Reply to  Jeremy Bray

Ah, you’ve read that book too. I’m a great fan of Tom Sowell, but I must say I am not much persuaded by the hypothesis that modern urban black culture derives from an archaic ango-saxon/celtic tradition that, for some odd reason, has died out everywhere else. That said, it is obviously correct that the phrase “black culture” in this context doesn’t include Africans generally or many south American and Caribbean groups. It is specific to the blacks of the USA, so there is clearly something in the argument.

I was amazed and entertained though by the stories in the book that gave examples of what that culture was really like in the pre-modern British Isles – that part I found both plausible and horrifying in equal measure. I think many people today could do with understanding the extent of casual brutality that applied to life back then, because way too many people seem to think everyone was a well-fed, rosy-cheeked peasant in possession of a set of social attitudes that would get them a job in the BBC’s HR department today.

The truth would shock them.

Last edited 1 year ago by John Riordan
Jeremy Bray
Jeremy Bray
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

Yes, I took it as an interesting and plausible theory rather than settled truth. Unfortunately, those with the ethnographic skill-set to investigate further are likely to be primed by their ideological preconceptions to look the other way from any confirmatory evidence. It does seem likely that Southern black culture would be influenced by southern white culture even if the origin of that southern white culture’s own origin in the peripheral peoples of the UK might be more difficult to establish.

Jeremy Bray
Jeremy Bray
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

Yes, I took it as an interesting and plausible theory rather than settled truth. Unfortunately, those with the ethnographic skill-set to investigate further are likely to be primed by their ideological preconceptions to look the other way from any confirmatory evidence. It does seem likely that Southern black culture would be influenced by southern white culture even if the origin of that southern white culture’s own origin in the peripheral peoples of the UK might be more difficult to establish.

John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago
Reply to  Jeremy Bray

Ah, you’ve read that book too. I’m a great fan of Tom Sowell, but I must say I am not much persuaded by the hypothesis that modern urban black culture derives from an archaic ango-saxon/celtic tradition that, for some odd reason, has died out everywhere else. That said, it is obviously correct that the phrase “black culture” in this context doesn’t include Africans generally or many south American and Caribbean groups. It is specific to the blacks of the USA, so there is clearly something in the argument.

I was amazed and entertained though by the stories in the book that gave examples of what that culture was really like in the pre-modern British Isles – that part I found both plausible and horrifying in equal measure. I think many people today could do with understanding the extent of casual brutality that applied to life back then, because way too many people seem to think everyone was a well-fed, rosy-cheeked peasant in possession of a set of social attitudes that would get them a job in the BBC’s HR department today.

The truth would shock them.

Last edited 1 year ago by John Riordan
Adam Bartlett
Adam Bartlett
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

Hmm, a man after my own heart. I shared your reaction, but then struggled to think of any ancient evidence that we white men have indeed had such an eternal preference. Another point to consider is that in the colonial era white men allegedly tried to universalise the missionary position to rest of world. Sounds like both you and me are grateful that the black counter evangelists were more successful!
(Ok the missionary position story is probably largely false, based on erroreous asserstions by Alfred Kinsey etc, but still ..)

Stephen Quilley
Stephen Quilley
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

Yep. The problem is that exactly this kind of argument is made by academics in every single English, Sociology, Black Studies, Anthropology, Women’s Studies department in the Anglosphere, every single day of the year. Humanities and social science students get a drip feed rolling version of this story…..and I’m sure the BBC will pick up the book, round up some ‘experts’ and present an even more ‘digested’ version….. It makes me want to weep.

Steve Murray
Steve Murray
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

Great summary. I’d only ‘deviate’ slightly in saying that whilst i agree about breast size, it’s more about proportionality for me. I find nothing more off-putting than hugely oversized (and often false) breasts on a slim woman. If a similar woman has proportionate breasts, she wins every time.
On the general theme, the book in question reminds me of one of those spoof scientific papers submitted by naughty researchers with a risible thesis to see if the journal will be taken in by it enough to publish it.

Dougie Undersub
Dougie Undersub
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

Clearly, Radke has never heard the term Rubenesque.

Last edited 1 year ago by Dougie Undersub
Alphonse Pfarti
Alphonse Pfarti
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

It seems to me that according to this logic if, as a white guy, you like a big bum, you’re a racist for appropriating the black male gaze. Prefer a smaller bot, such as those in Carry On films and 70s UK sitcoms, then you’re reinforcing ideas of white beauty … and guess what that makes you?

Jeremy Bray
Jeremy Bray
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

“What is also true about the idiotic nature of public debate these days is that if it had actually emerged as a white guy preference, the social justice agenda wouldn’t be talking about cultural appropriation at this point, it’d be boring on about rape culture, objectification and the apparent aggression and threat that supposedly constitutes the male gaze.”

You are quite right that the liberal attitude is to give anything regarded as black culture a free pass. I well remember my wife turning off the car radio when some misogynistic black rap was broadcast including the n word to the disgruntlement of my youngest son. The equivalent would not have been acceptable to broadcasters from a white singer.

What is particularly ironic is that according to Dr Thomas Sowell as set out in Black Rednecks and White Liberals US black culture is in fact derived from the cracker culture of Southern whites. In fact a wholesale appropriation of a culture that has done blacks no good at all.

John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago

“Among the scholars and experts quoted by Radke on this front is one who asserts that the contemporary appreciation of butts by the wider male population is “coming from Black male desire. Straight-up, point-blank. It’s only through Black males and their gaze that white men are starting to take notice”.”

The fallacy is pretty obvious surely? The argument presupposes that white men never possessed such an appreciation until they realised that black men possessed it. Leaving aside the fair point that even if this were true there would be nothing wrong with it, surely the presumption is clearly idiotic?

How can anyone imagine they know this about all white men? That white men can be “deemed” never to include any individuals who have that particular aesthetic or sexual preference? Anyone taking this idea seriously is so stupid that they disqualify themselves from inclusion in civilised debate, not merely because the generalisation is so obviously ridiculous, but because it is also racist. And by that I mean racist in the real sense, not that daft only-white-people-can-be-racist sense that is lazily trotted out by the usual suspects on a routine basis.

Speaking from personal preference, I do say that a nicely shaped bottom on a woman is considerably more important than, say, breast size, from an aesthetic perspective. (b**b size is the least important aspect of a woman’s appearance as far as I’m concerned, pretty much everything else makes more of a difference). While that’s not quite the same as saying I like a big booty in the specific sense referred to in the article, it is nonetheless true that this is a preference I’ve had for far longer than the recent emergence of a general preference amongst black guys. But even if it wasn’t and I’d never thought about it until watching R&B videos, why would that be a problem?

Either way thought the truth is almost certainly this: loads of white guys have had such a preference for all of time, it’s just that it never became the centre of yet another identity politics circus, that’s all. What is also true about the idiotic nature of public debate these days is that if it had actually emerged as a white guy preference, the social justice agenda wouldn’t be talking about cultural appropriation at this point, it’d be boring on about rape culture, objectification and the apparent aggression and threat that supposedly constitutes the male gaze.

Last edited 11 months ago by John Riordan
Steve Elliott
Steve Elliott
1 year ago

Remember the Queen song – Fat bottomed Girls ?
Butts are fun. Let’s keep them that way.

Peter Lucey
Peter Lucey
1 year ago
Reply to  Steve Elliott

Or Spinal Tap’s seminal “Big Bottoms”?

Warren Trees
Warren Trees
1 year ago
Reply to  Steve Elliott

“If the shoe fits…”

Arnold Grutt
Arnold Grutt
1 year ago
Reply to  Steve Elliott

So are breasts ‘fun’. All the nicknames for them in English are comical. ‘Bazookas’, ‘Wanfers’ (one for each hand – Glasgow argot), norks, ‘wallopers’, ‘wobblers’, ‘boobies’, ‘jugs’ and various others I’ve now forgotten.
What used to intrigue me, though, was the seeming white, male American preference for ‘shapely ankles’. Well, each to his/her own, I suppose.
A chap I once knew explained his prolonged interest in a passing middle-aged woman on the grounds of her ‘attractively matronly bottom’. Lots of deep currents there, I thought.

Last edited 1 year ago by Arnold Grutt
Peter Lucey
Peter Lucey
1 year ago
Reply to  Steve Elliott

Or Spinal Tap’s seminal “Big Bottoms”?

Warren Trees
Warren Trees
1 year ago
Reply to  Steve Elliott

“If the shoe fits…”

Arnold Grutt
Arnold Grutt
1 year ago
Reply to  Steve Elliott

So are breasts ‘fun’. All the nicknames for them in English are comical. ‘Bazookas’, ‘Wanfers’ (one for each hand – Glasgow argot), norks, ‘wallopers’, ‘wobblers’, ‘boobies’, ‘jugs’ and various others I’ve now forgotten.
What used to intrigue me, though, was the seeming white, male American preference for ‘shapely ankles’. Well, each to his/her own, I suppose.
A chap I once knew explained his prolonged interest in a passing middle-aged woman on the grounds of her ‘attractively matronly bottom’. Lots of deep currents there, I thought.

Last edited 1 year ago by Arnold Grutt
Steve Elliott
Steve Elliott
1 year ago

Remember the Queen song – Fat bottomed Girls ?
Butts are fun. Let’s keep them that way.

ben arnulfssen
ben arnulfssen
1 year ago

I’d like to propose a New Year’s Resolution for the Unherd editorial team; that any article asking “is this racist” goes STRAIGHT in the “circular file”, never to be heard of again.

Jack Martin Leith
Jack Martin Leith
1 year ago
Reply to  ben arnulfssen

I’m pretty sure the Unherd editorial team writes the headlines, not the authors themselves.

Jeff Cunningham
Jeff Cunningham
1 year ago

Then maybe it’s those editors who should file themselves. I left the question mark off to avoid a Betteridge’s Law violation

Jeff Cunningham
Jeff Cunningham
1 year ago

Then maybe it’s those editors who should file themselves. I left the question mark off to avoid a Betteridge’s Law violation

John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago
Reply to  ben arnulfssen

In fairness, the article clearly argues for a conclusion along those lines anyway.

Linda Hutchinson
Linda Hutchinson
1 year ago
Reply to  ben arnulfssen

Actually, I’ve got passed the “Dear God!!” stage and I’m actually enjoying them now. I look forward to the next thing, but I did have b”ms on my list of things that would eventually be appropriated for black people only. I think large lips will be the next thing, although, I must confess, some of these collagen enhanced monstrosities do deserve to be mocked.

Jack Martin Leith
Jack Martin Leith
1 year ago
Reply to  ben arnulfssen

I’m pretty sure the Unherd editorial team writes the headlines, not the authors themselves.

John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago
Reply to  ben arnulfssen

In fairness, the article clearly argues for a conclusion along those lines anyway.

Linda Hutchinson
Linda Hutchinson
1 year ago
Reply to  ben arnulfssen

Actually, I’ve got passed the “Dear God!!” stage and I’m actually enjoying them now. I look forward to the next thing, but I did have b”ms on my list of things that would eventually be appropriated for black people only. I think large lips will be the next thing, although, I must confess, some of these collagen enhanced monstrosities do deserve to be mocked.

ben arnulfssen
ben arnulfssen
1 year ago

I’d like to propose a New Year’s Resolution for the Unherd editorial team; that any article asking “is this racist” goes STRAIGHT in the “circular file”, never to be heard of again.

Daniel P
Daniel P
1 year ago

Ok…50 yr old white guy here. For the sake of setting the record straight, I am gonna take the risk of being crude.
I have NEVER known ANY man of ANY race at ANY time that did not appreciate a nice butt. Been out with guys of all races at different stages of my life, from my teen years until today. Never have I ever heard any man of any race and any time not appreciate a nice butt that walked by.
Men like women’s bodies, we just do. But rear ends are like boobs, they have to fit the whole package. Huge boobs are not always appealing and neither are big round butts. On the other hand, if they are proportional and fit the type of figure that a woman has, then that can be fine. Nobody wants to see Marlyn Monroe’s boobs or butt on Emma Watson. Then again, Beyonce would not be Beyonce if she had Twiggy’s boobs and butt.
Given that I was a teen in the late 70’s and 80’s, and my friends and I, who were largely, though not exclusively, white, made more than a few observations on butts of butts of women of all races while sitting at the mall or driving along the beach, I hardly think that the capacity to appreciate a nice backside, from cute heart shaped ones to bodacious ones, was ever distinguished by race.

polidori redux
polidori redux
1 year ago
Reply to  Daniel P

“Nobody wants to see Marlyn Monroe’s boobs or butt on Emma Watson.”
No?

John Snowball
John Snowball
1 year ago
Reply to  polidori redux

No!
I’m not even sure I want to see Emma Watson’s boobs and butt on Emma Watson.

polidori redux
polidori redux
1 year ago
Reply to  John Snowball

Ungallant sir!

John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago
Reply to  John Snowball

Agreed. She is quite tedious and seems to exist to take the fun out of everything.

polidori redux
polidori redux
1 year ago
Reply to  John Snowball

Ungallant sir!

John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago
Reply to  John Snowball

Agreed. She is quite tedious and seems to exist to take the fun out of everything.

John Snowball
John Snowball
1 year ago
Reply to  polidori redux

No!
I’m not even sure I want to see Emma Watson’s boobs and butt on Emma Watson.

Jeff Cunningham
Jeff Cunningham
1 year ago
Reply to  Daniel P

I dont think that’s the point. I think it is that black men own the copyright on that appreciation. Maybe this prefatory to some patent troll sueing big media .

Patrick Paget
Patrick Paget
1 year ago
Reply to  Daniel P

Not wanting to be pedantic, but I will anyway ! I’m curious how a 50 year old ( born 1973/4) could be a teenager in the late 70s
Only curious because I was born in 1969 ( 53 years old) and I wasn’t a teenager then

polidori redux
polidori redux
1 year ago
Reply to  Daniel P

“Nobody wants to see Marlyn Monroe’s boobs or butt on Emma Watson.”
No?

Jeff Cunningham
Jeff Cunningham
1 year ago
Reply to  Daniel P

I dont think that’s the point. I think it is that black men own the copyright on that appreciation. Maybe this prefatory to some patent troll sueing big media .

Patrick Paget
Patrick Paget
1 year ago
Reply to  Daniel P

Not wanting to be pedantic, but I will anyway ! I’m curious how a 50 year old ( born 1973/4) could be a teenager in the late 70s
Only curious because I was born in 1969 ( 53 years old) and I wasn’t a teenager then

Daniel P
Daniel P
1 year ago

Ok…50 yr old white guy here. For the sake of setting the record straight, I am gonna take the risk of being crude.
I have NEVER known ANY man of ANY race at ANY time that did not appreciate a nice butt. Been out with guys of all races at different stages of my life, from my teen years until today. Never have I ever heard any man of any race and any time not appreciate a nice butt that walked by.
Men like women’s bodies, we just do. But rear ends are like boobs, they have to fit the whole package. Huge boobs are not always appealing and neither are big round butts. On the other hand, if they are proportional and fit the type of figure that a woman has, then that can be fine. Nobody wants to see Marlyn Monroe’s boobs or butt on Emma Watson. Then again, Beyonce would not be Beyonce if she had Twiggy’s boobs and butt.
Given that I was a teen in the late 70’s and 80’s, and my friends and I, who were largely, though not exclusively, white, made more than a few observations on butts of butts of women of all races while sitting at the mall or driving along the beach, I hardly think that the capacity to appreciate a nice backside, from cute heart shaped ones to bodacious ones, was ever distinguished by race.

Kate S
Kate S
1 year ago

Hot take. Pear shaped women existed in the West since the dawn of time too, this is not an exclusively ‘black’ thing. It’s just that Western men’s historical (and general) preference was boobs (sorry to be crass but taking a woman from the front) instead of bottoms (take a woman from behind) which is why up until we were colonised by black rap culture the Western mainstream we didn’t obsess about it in the same way as we do now.
Also, it’s interesting how we ‘never’ talk about the incessant cultural appropriation of Western culture by other nations. To name a few, African women chemically straighten their hair, regularly dye it blonde and bleaching agents for the skin have been used for decades. Nose surgery for a more desired ‘western’ nose is hugely popular and when not available where do you think the obsession with makeup contouring to slimline heavier or wider features came from? Eyelid widening, jaw reduction and rhinoplasty surgery are all the top selling surgeries in Asian countries to this day – and guess who they all want their features to look more like?
Even the dreadlocks cultural appropriation myth has been thoroughly debunked multiple times as we have graves of Vikings and Eastern Europeans who wore them for centuries, and Indian tribes who have always worn dreadlocks and still do to this day. It’s just what happens to hair if you don’t wash it and twiddle it around a bit.
I’m so tired of this rubbish.

Last edited 1 year ago by Kate S
Katja Sipple
Katja Sipple
1 year ago
Reply to  Kate S

I share your fatigue with this utter nonsense as well as your assertions that Western (European) culture has been appropriated by others. Look at clothing! I have seen Adidas trainers, a German company, worn in Sub-Saharan Africa and India. Indians and Pakistanis love cricket, an English sport and the whole world seems to go gaga over football, another English invention. Virtually all the modern technology that we use today was invented in the West: trains, cars, aeroplanes, washing machines, radio, television, computers, telephones, air conditioning etc. which in turn were based on previous Western developments that have been taken to every corner of the world. A few days ago, I reread a short story by Rudyard Kipling, and he wrote about the British bringing the railroad to India. That system of tracks is still used today, no matter what the “writers” at “The Guardian” claim in their revisionist and hateful outpourings.
I had never considered the creeping influence of black rap culture a form of colonisation, but that’s really what it is, and it’s important to call it out!

Alphonse Pfarti
Alphonse Pfarti
1 year ago
Reply to  Katja Sipple

Didn’t you know that Indians playing cricket is because of colonialism? Even if they’re good at it. And golf balls are racist, at least according to some hopeless balloon at St Andrews University.

As for rap, and its dreadful offspring of modern R&B, it’s been unlistenable for over two decades. Why it has become so popular escapes me.

E. L. Herndon
E. L. Herndon
1 year ago

Does that mean that polo shows our successful colonisation (popularly equating to “subjugation”) by the Mideast?

Alphonse Pfarti
Alphonse Pfarti
1 year ago
Reply to  E. L. Herndon

Ha ha! Good example. Sadly, it means we must have appropriated it. Them’s the rules in critical theory world.

Alphonse Pfarti
Alphonse Pfarti
1 year ago
Reply to  E. L. Herndon

Ha ha! Good example. Sadly, it means we must have appropriated it. Them’s the rules in critical theory world.

E. L. Herndon
E. L. Herndon
1 year ago

Does that mean that polo shows our successful colonisation (popularly equating to “subjugation”) by the Mideast?

Alphonse Pfarti
Alphonse Pfarti
1 year ago
Reply to  Katja Sipple

Didn’t you know that Indians playing cricket is because of colonialism? Even if they’re good at it. And golf balls are racist, at least according to some hopeless balloon at St Andrews University.

As for rap, and its dreadful offspring of modern R&B, it’s been unlistenable for over two decades. Why it has become so popular escapes me.

Linda Hutchinson
Linda Hutchinson
1 year ago
Reply to  Kate S

the incessant cultural appropriation of Western culture by other nations
Yes, but you must remember that the only reason that they do this is because they have been brain-washed into believing that the Western appearance is the highest standard of beauty. Of course, when Western people do this it is because they are stealing non-Western ideas. It easy to remember – whatever you do, if you are Western and white, you are wrong and racist. Simple.

Richard Parker
Richard Parker
1 year ago
Reply to  Kate S

Breath of fresh air, especially re. dreadlocks. Good on ya mate, keep on keeping on, they’ll have to get tired/bored eventually…

Last edited 1 year ago by Richard Parker
Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
1 year ago
Reply to  Kate S

Thanks for that – didn’t know about the dreadlocks thing.

Katja Sipple
Katja Sipple
1 year ago
Reply to  Kate S

I share your fatigue with this utter nonsense as well as your assertions that Western (European) culture has been appropriated by others. Look at clothing! I have seen Adidas trainers, a German company, worn in Sub-Saharan Africa and India. Indians and Pakistanis love cricket, an English sport and the whole world seems to go gaga over football, another English invention. Virtually all the modern technology that we use today was invented in the West: trains, cars, aeroplanes, washing machines, radio, television, computers, telephones, air conditioning etc. which in turn were based on previous Western developments that have been taken to every corner of the world. A few days ago, I reread a short story by Rudyard Kipling, and he wrote about the British bringing the railroad to India. That system of tracks is still used today, no matter what the “writers” at “The Guardian” claim in their revisionist and hateful outpourings.
I had never considered the creeping influence of black rap culture a form of colonisation, but that’s really what it is, and it’s important to call it out!

Linda Hutchinson
Linda Hutchinson
1 year ago
Reply to  Kate S

the incessant cultural appropriation of Western culture by other nations
Yes, but you must remember that the only reason that they do this is because they have been brain-washed into believing that the Western appearance is the highest standard of beauty. Of course, when Western people do this it is because they are stealing non-Western ideas. It easy to remember – whatever you do, if you are Western and white, you are wrong and racist. Simple.

Richard Parker
Richard Parker
1 year ago
Reply to  Kate S

Breath of fresh air, especially re. dreadlocks. Good on ya mate, keep on keeping on, they’ll have to get tired/bored eventually…

Last edited 1 year ago by Richard Parker
Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
1 year ago
Reply to  Kate S

Thanks for that – didn’t know about the dreadlocks thing.

Kate S
Kate S
1 year ago

Hot take. Pear shaped women existed in the West since the dawn of time too, this is not an exclusively ‘black’ thing. It’s just that Western men’s historical (and general) preference was boobs (sorry to be crass but taking a woman from the front) instead of bottoms (take a woman from behind) which is why up until we were colonised by black rap culture the Western mainstream we didn’t obsess about it in the same way as we do now.
Also, it’s interesting how we ‘never’ talk about the incessant cultural appropriation of Western culture by other nations. To name a few, African women chemically straighten their hair, regularly dye it blonde and bleaching agents for the skin have been used for decades. Nose surgery for a more desired ‘western’ nose is hugely popular and when not available where do you think the obsession with makeup contouring to slimline heavier or wider features came from? Eyelid widening, jaw reduction and rhinoplasty surgery are all the top selling surgeries in Asian countries to this day – and guess who they all want their features to look more like?
Even the dreadlocks cultural appropriation myth has been thoroughly debunked multiple times as we have graves of Vikings and Eastern Europeans who wore them for centuries, and Indian tribes who have always worn dreadlocks and still do to this day. It’s just what happens to hair if you don’t wash it and twiddle it around a bit.
I’m so tired of this rubbish.

Last edited 1 year ago by Kate S
Daniel Lee
Daniel Lee
1 year ago

One of those occasions when one wishes Unherd was better illustrated, purely to allow the matter to be considered from every angle, of course.

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
1 year ago
Reply to  Daniel Lee

Maybe a digital commons version of the 18th Century gawkers taking their measurements?

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
1 year ago
Reply to  Daniel Lee

Maybe a digital commons version of the 18th Century gawkers taking their measurements?

Daniel Lee
Daniel Lee
1 year ago

One of those occasions when one wishes Unherd was better illustrated, purely to allow the matter to be considered from every angle, of course.

Andrew Raiment
Andrew Raiment
1 year ago

There’s no end to “Theory” or projection which Theory essentially is, a mental illness.

Andrew Raiment
Andrew Raiment
1 year ago

There’s no end to “Theory” or projection which Theory essentially is, a mental illness.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
1 year ago

Ho hum. Problem is I just can’t get beyond the picture. A vanishingly small quantity of women have this smooth skinned, small waist, gently morphing into a a perfect pear shaped butt and slimmish legs. What they have are large lumpy, dimply, wobbly butts and thighs that are usually pretty unsightly and very likely unhealthy.

Brett H
Brett H
1 year ago

You’re going to get in trouble for saying that.

Nona Yubiz
Nona Yubiz
1 year ago

Unlike men, who tend to sport their lumpy, dimply, wobbly, fat junk right up front.

Jeff Cunningham
Jeff Cunningham
1 year ago
Reply to  Nona Yubiz

along with their manboobs.

Jeff Cunningham
Jeff Cunningham
1 year ago
Reply to  Nona Yubiz

along with their manboobs.

Mae West McHale
Mae West McHale
1 year ago

Unfortunately, because of Kim K. (who’s smallish butt has morphed into a big beautiful butt by whatever injection is popular in her crowd) became a fashion icon… thereby influencing many “females” (young and old) into not minding their big butts, or wanting a bigger butt. Now when we see big butts, some of which are only FAT butts, we wonder… how? It is difficult to see young kids with not only BIG butts, but also FAT bodies bulging out all over with their lycra holding it all in.
The question about the BUTT… is it natural big, fat or created?

Last edited 1 year ago by Mae West McHale
AJ Mac
AJ Mac
1 year ago

Aye. Far fewer of the plump, natural variety wielded by Monroe or West. The removal of spanx and other hold-it-together products can be far too revealing.

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
1 year ago

Aye. Far fewer of the plump, natural variety wielded by Monroe or West. The removal of spanx and other hold-it-together products can be far too revealing.

Andre Lower
Andre Lower
1 year ago

Numbers never affected preferences, Lesley. Likely never will.

Brett H
Brett H
1 year ago

You’re going to get in trouble for saying that.

Nona Yubiz
Nona Yubiz
1 year ago

Unlike men, who tend to sport their lumpy, dimply, wobbly, fat junk right up front.

Mae West McHale
Mae West McHale
1 year ago

Unfortunately, because of Kim K. (who’s smallish butt has morphed into a big beautiful butt by whatever injection is popular in her crowd) became a fashion icon… thereby influencing many “females” (young and old) into not minding their big butts, or wanting a bigger butt. Now when we see big butts, some of which are only FAT butts, we wonder… how? It is difficult to see young kids with not only BIG butts, but also FAT bodies bulging out all over with their lycra holding it all in.
The question about the BUTT… is it natural big, fat or created?

Last edited 1 year ago by Mae West McHale
Andre Lower
Andre Lower
1 year ago

Numbers never affected preferences, Lesley. Likely never will.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
1 year ago

Ho hum. Problem is I just can’t get beyond the picture. A vanishingly small quantity of women have this smooth skinned, small waist, gently morphing into a a perfect pear shaped butt and slimmish legs. What they have are large lumpy, dimply, wobbly butts and thighs that are usually pretty unsightly and very likely unhealthy.

Jorge Espinha
Jorge Espinha
1 year ago

If that’s true then Southern Europeans and Latin Americans are incredibly racist. Does that mean that the fixation on big breasts is a symptom of white supremacy? I’m asking for a friend. What if you like big breasts and big buts? Personally, I think men who like extremely skinny women should have their heads checked and should get out of the gene pool.

Jerry Carroll
Jerry Carroll
1 year ago
Reply to  Jorge Espinha

Deep down they like boys.

Jorge Espinha
Jorge Espinha
1 year ago
Reply to  Jerry Carroll

Yes! That’s what I think too!

Jorge Espinha
Jorge Espinha
1 year ago
Reply to  Jerry Carroll

Yes! That’s what I think too!

Jeff Cunningham
Jeff Cunningham
1 year ago
Reply to  Jorge Espinha

Historically at least, such a preference was genetically self correcting.

Jerry Carroll
Jerry Carroll
1 year ago
Reply to  Jorge Espinha

Deep down they like boys.

Jeff Cunningham
Jeff Cunningham
1 year ago
Reply to  Jorge Espinha

Historically at least, such a preference was genetically self correcting.

Jorge Espinha
Jorge Espinha
1 year ago

If that’s true then Southern Europeans and Latin Americans are incredibly racist. Does that mean that the fixation on big breasts is a symptom of white supremacy? I’m asking for a friend. What if you like big breasts and big buts? Personally, I think men who like extremely skinny women should have their heads checked and should get out of the gene pool.

Kat L
Kat L
1 year ago

big butts can be had artificially and it can be traced to kardashian who had a brazilin butt lift in which all body fat was transferred into her backside. photoshop makes it look somewhat okay but actual photos taken from behind look absolutely hideous. she has contributed nothing but trash to american culture.

Kat L
Kat L
1 year ago

big butts can be had artificially and it can be traced to kardashian who had a brazilin butt lift in which all body fat was transferred into her backside. photoshop makes it look somewhat okay but actual photos taken from behind look absolutely hideous. she has contributed nothing but trash to american culture.

Brett H
Brett H
1 year ago

Very tricky. Is it misogyny not to like them?

Brett H
Brett H
1 year ago

Very tricky. Is it misogyny not to like them?

Allison Barrows
Allison Barrows
1 year ago

Ah, racism. Is there anything it can’t do?

Katja Sipple
Katja Sipple
1 year ago

It’s the explanation and excuse for everything today from unemployment, drugs, poor school performance and other social ills to serious crime! Black on black murder? It’s the result of white racism, of course. Black on white murder? The oppressed are fighting back against their racist oppressors! We live in troubling times, and many of the troubles and difficulties are caused by virtue-signalling progressives who surely feel that they will never be personally affected. However, every revolution eats its children–sooner or later!

Linda Hutchinson
Linda Hutchinson
1 year ago

A gift taht keeps on giving.

Katja Sipple
Katja Sipple
1 year ago

It’s the explanation and excuse for everything today from unemployment, drugs, poor school performance and other social ills to serious crime! Black on black murder? It’s the result of white racism, of course. Black on white murder? The oppressed are fighting back against their racist oppressors! We live in troubling times, and many of the troubles and difficulties are caused by virtue-signalling progressives who surely feel that they will never be personally affected. However, every revolution eats its children–sooner or later!

Linda Hutchinson
Linda Hutchinson
1 year ago

A gift taht keeps on giving.

Allison Barrows
Allison Barrows
1 year ago

Ah, racism. Is there anything it can’t do?

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
1 year ago

“Butt for the Grace of God: Worshipping the Female Posterior in an Asinine Age”. Nowadays I think that could be a good satirical article, or even one that takes itself too seriously.
Incidentally: I like ’em, not gonna lie. However, what a flabby reductionism to assign ownership by race just because a more generous proportion of one group has greater physical and historical weight to drag. Should the less common, non-stereotypical black woman with a tiny heinie feel that she’s trespassed on a white woman’s backyard?
There’s probably something serious, perhaps even insightful that can be gleaned through a clever rear view, but maybe we should just remove our collective nose from the dankest cracks of our society, at least to breathe for a while before plunging back in. All half-assed jokes intended.

Richard Pearse
Richard Pearse
1 year ago
Reply to  AJ Mac

Clever 🙂

Richard Pearse
Richard Pearse
1 year ago
Reply to  AJ Mac

Clever 🙂

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
1 year ago

“Butt for the Grace of God: Worshipping the Female Posterior in an Asinine Age”. Nowadays I think that could be a good satirical article, or even one that takes itself too seriously.
Incidentally: I like ’em, not gonna lie. However, what a flabby reductionism to assign ownership by race just because a more generous proportion of one group has greater physical and historical weight to drag. Should the less common, non-stereotypical black woman with a tiny heinie feel that she’s trespassed on a white woman’s backyard?
There’s probably something serious, perhaps even insightful that can be gleaned through a clever rear view, but maybe we should just remove our collective nose from the dankest cracks of our society, at least to breathe for a while before plunging back in. All half-assed jokes intended.

Dominic A
Dominic A
1 year ago

Maybe framing the discourse in terms of white and black – ignoring Asians (60% of Worlds pop.) – is a bit racist.

Last edited 1 year ago by Dominic A
Dominic A
Dominic A
1 year ago

Maybe framing the discourse in terms of white and black – ignoring Asians (60% of Worlds pop.) – is a bit racist.

Last edited 1 year ago by Dominic A
Jonathan West
Jonathan West
1 year ago

….“coming from Black male desire. Straight-up, point-blank. It’s only through Black males and their gaze that white men are starting to take notice”. Yawn. Not I, you can keep the freakishly misshapen,
almost alien-like so-called ‘Black’ butt. But then we live in a world where things get coveted just because it’s Depeche Mode… You might “Just can’t get enough” but it’ll never be my Personal Jesus

Jonathan West
Jonathan West
1 year ago

….“coming from Black male desire. Straight-up, point-blank. It’s only through Black males and their gaze that white men are starting to take notice”. Yawn. Not I, you can keep the freakishly misshapen,
almost alien-like so-called ‘Black’ butt. But then we live in a world where things get coveted just because it’s Depeche Mode… You might “Just can’t get enough” but it’ll never be my Personal Jesus

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago

Brings to mind that famous Arab* song, “there is a boy across the river with a bottom like a peach, but ALAS I cannot swim”……

(* Some say British Army.)

Brett H
Brett H
1 year ago

Oh no! Not the British army? You swine.

Last edited 1 year ago by Brett H
John Snowball
John Snowball
1 year ago

Actually, I think the song originates in Afghanistan.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago
Reply to  John Snowball

Do you know the rest of it?

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago
Reply to  John Snowball

Yes, after the discovery of the under 12 year old boy legal abuse there, never of course mentioned as it is Islamophobic…

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago
Reply to  John Snowball

Not Snowball of Northern Ireland fame?

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago
Reply to  John Snowball

Do you know the rest of it?

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago
Reply to  John Snowball

Yes, after the discovery of the under 12 year old boy legal abuse there, never of course mentioned as it is Islamophobic…

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago
Reply to  John Snowball

Not Snowball of Northern Ireland fame?

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago

what? all yellow and furry?

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago

Sadly I can’t remember the rest of it, but seem to recall the words ‘smooth and tight’ whatever that might mean.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago

Sadly I can’t remember the rest of it, but seem to recall the words ‘smooth and tight’ whatever that might mean.

Brett H
Brett H
1 year ago

Oh no! Not the British army? You swine.

Last edited 1 year ago by Brett H
John Snowball
John Snowball
1 year ago

Actually, I think the song originates in Afghanistan.

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago

what? all yellow and furry?

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago

Brings to mind that famous Arab* song, “there is a boy across the river with a bottom like a peach, but ALAS I cannot swim”……

(* Some say British Army.)

Justin S
Justin S
1 year ago

Personally I cant abide great fat, orange peel, bulbous bums on women and the tree trunks for legs that inevitably sit under them.

It speaks of gluttony and a lack of self discipline and self care.

Justin S
Justin S
1 year ago

Personally I cant abide great fat, orange peel, bulbous bums on women and the tree trunks for legs that inevitably sit under them.

It speaks of gluttony and a lack of self discipline and self care.

JP Martin
JP Martin
1 year ago

Excellent. This was fun!

Brett H
Brett H
1 year ago
Reply to  JP Martin

Yes. “Do these jeans make my bum look big?”

Last edited 1 year ago by Brett H
Terry M
Terry M
1 year ago
Reply to  Brett H

“No, your bum looks big in anything”

….slap!

Linda Hutchinson
Linda Hutchinson
1 year ago
Reply to  Brett H

I think it was on the TV show Scrubs that the white doctor asks his black doctor friend for advice about dating a black woman; his answer was that it’s pretty much the same except when she asks “Do you think my butt looks big?” the correct answer is “Yes”.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago

Thank you for that ‘Pearl of wisdom’!

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago

Thank you for that ‘Pearl of wisdom’!

Terry M
Terry M
1 year ago
Reply to  Brett H

“No, your bum looks big in anything”

….slap!

Linda Hutchinson
Linda Hutchinson
1 year ago
Reply to  Brett H

I think it was on the TV show Scrubs that the white doctor asks his black doctor friend for advice about dating a black woman; his answer was that it’s pretty much the same except when she asks “Do you think my butt looks big?” the correct answer is “Yes”.

Brett H
Brett H
1 year ago
Reply to  JP Martin

Yes. “Do these jeans make my bum look big?”

Last edited 1 year ago by Brett H
JP Martin
JP Martin
1 year ago

Excellent. This was fun!

Frederick Dixon
Frederick Dixon
1 year ago

Oh gawd. Someone thought it worth spending money on publishing this thing by Radke?

Frederick Dixon
Frederick Dixon
1 year ago

Oh gawd. Someone thought it worth spending money on publishing this thing by Radke?

Alphonse Pfarti
Alphonse Pfarti
1 year ago

My own preference is for a well-turned calf and ankle. But then my moral compass and all that goes with it must be a hangover from the Victorian era, passed on down through my conservative family and schooling. Time to cancel myself, once more.

Alphonse Pfarti
Alphonse Pfarti
1 year ago

My own preference is for a well-turned calf and ankle. But then my moral compass and all that goes with it must be a hangover from the Victorian era, passed on down through my conservative family and schooling. Time to cancel myself, once more.

Davy Humerme
Davy Humerme
1 year ago

Coming soon; a faculty of Booty Studies at Goldsmiths.

Last edited 1 year ago by Davy Humerme
Davy Humerme
Davy Humerme
1 year ago

Coming soon; a faculty of Booty Studies at Goldsmiths.

Last edited 1 year ago by Davy Humerme
Jerry Carroll
Jerry Carroll
1 year ago

With a few changes, bigger words combined with a dense text to enhance obscurity, the article about big asses would be read in a scholarly journal by a dozen academic hermits scattered around the world. I’d like the writer to now turn to the cultural significance of whoopee cushions.

Last edited 1 year ago by Jerry Carroll
Jerry Carroll
Jerry Carroll
1 year ago

With a few changes, bigger words combined with a dense text to enhance obscurity, the article about big asses would be read in a scholarly journal by a dozen academic hermits scattered around the world. I’d like the writer to now turn to the cultural significance of whoopee cushions.

Last edited 1 year ago by Jerry Carroll
PB Storyman
PB Storyman
1 year ago

I consider myself to be a “red-blooded American male”. White, politically right-of-center, at least part southern redneck, and older than I care to admit. And I can say unequivocally that the admiration of the derriere is NOT a “black thing”, nor is it a new thing. I (and others like me) have long admired the “nice round tuchus”, having set this to be an essential physical characteristic throughout my forty-plus years of appreciating the female form, especially during my now-ancient dating days. Likewise, many of my friends are “arse men” rather than “b**b men”, visually inspecting a woman’s posterior first and anterior componentry second or third. All one need to do to prove the white male “love of the bum” is go back to the decades-old garage-calendar pin-up girls and erotically photographed Playboy centerfolds to see that a white female posterior has been and continues to be much appreciated. (And as for twerking, it was around long before Freddie Ross/Big Freedia wiggled his/her ass in into a diaper. We white folk didn’t have a cute name for it back then but we appreciated the movement “during intimacy” nonetheless).
As comedian Rodney Dangerfield famously stated, “I’m an ass man. I know because people keep telling me, “You’re an ass, man!”” Ditto, Rodney. But I, for one, have never been a fan of the BIG butt. Those 1950’s calendar girls had distinctly and proportionally small backsides. Round, tight, and partially exposed, yes. Huge? Not even close. As a white male admirer of derrieres of all creeds and colors (even recognizing and appreciating a nice, well-formed male one), I prefer my “tuchusi” smaller. While they are increasingly difficult to find in women over eighteen, if given a choice, I’ll admire one that is compact, tight, as round as is reasonable, and preferably attached to a lean’ish bodice. That’s personal preference, not racism. Renaissance paintings notwithstanding, the emphasis on bigness seems to be a newer taste, at least among the younger set. 
This, perhaps, is what Radke thinks of when she references the “black thing”, as that characteristic is undeniably part of the stereotypical modern young black male physical asset preference list.
Yet, at the end of the day, beauty is indeed in eye of the beholder. I don’t know who discovered the ancient female butt first, whether white, black, or other men. But I’m guessing that all men, of all creeds and races, came to admire the parts of the female body that most turned their respective cranks, butts included. 
Come to think of it, Adam was certainly an ass, man.

PB Storyman
PB Storyman
1 year ago

I consider myself to be a “red-blooded American male”. White, politically right-of-center, at least part southern redneck, and older than I care to admit. And I can say unequivocally that the admiration of the derriere is NOT a “black thing”, nor is it a new thing. I (and others like me) have long admired the “nice round tuchus”, having set this to be an essential physical characteristic throughout my forty-plus years of appreciating the female form, especially during my now-ancient dating days. Likewise, many of my friends are “arse men” rather than “b**b men”, visually inspecting a woman’s posterior first and anterior componentry second or third. All one need to do to prove the white male “love of the bum” is go back to the decades-old garage-calendar pin-up girls and erotically photographed Playboy centerfolds to see that a white female posterior has been and continues to be much appreciated. (And as for twerking, it was around long before Freddie Ross/Big Freedia wiggled his/her ass in into a diaper. We white folk didn’t have a cute name for it back then but we appreciated the movement “during intimacy” nonetheless).
As comedian Rodney Dangerfield famously stated, “I’m an ass man. I know because people keep telling me, “You’re an ass, man!”” Ditto, Rodney. But I, for one, have never been a fan of the BIG butt. Those 1950’s calendar girls had distinctly and proportionally small backsides. Round, tight, and partially exposed, yes. Huge? Not even close. As a white male admirer of derrieres of all creeds and colors (even recognizing and appreciating a nice, well-formed male one), I prefer my “tuchusi” smaller. While they are increasingly difficult to find in women over eighteen, if given a choice, I’ll admire one that is compact, tight, as round as is reasonable, and preferably attached to a lean’ish bodice. That’s personal preference, not racism. Renaissance paintings notwithstanding, the emphasis on bigness seems to be a newer taste, at least among the younger set. 
This, perhaps, is what Radke thinks of when she references the “black thing”, as that characteristic is undeniably part of the stereotypical modern young black male physical asset preference list.
Yet, at the end of the day, beauty is indeed in eye of the beholder. I don’t know who discovered the ancient female butt first, whether white, black, or other men. But I’m guessing that all men, of all creeds and races, came to admire the parts of the female body that most turned their respective cranks, butts included. 
Come to think of it, Adam was certainly an ass, man.

Will Rolf
Will Rolf
1 year ago

Studies show that the differential of waist to hip, tiny waist and big hips, is the universally acknowledged evidence of female desirability across all cultures. That large hips are usually accompanied by a large caboose is not a coincidence. The ‘boyish’ figure in fashion is not playing to heterosexual but rather homosexual tastes, gay men dominating fashion in the 20th century being the root of this phenomenon. To look at sex stars in the 20th century is to see a long list of mostly curvy women. Big curvy figures and the big butts they engender are not a black thing but a worldwide preference of heterosexual men.

Will Rolf
Will Rolf
1 year ago

Studies show that the differential of waist to hip, tiny waist and big hips, is the universally acknowledged evidence of female desirability across all cultures. That large hips are usually accompanied by a large caboose is not a coincidence. The ‘boyish’ figure in fashion is not playing to heterosexual but rather homosexual tastes, gay men dominating fashion in the 20th century being the root of this phenomenon. To look at sex stars in the 20th century is to see a long list of mostly curvy women. Big curvy figures and the big butts they engender are not a black thing but a worldwide preference of heterosexual men.

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
1 year ago

shouldn’t this article be in Cosmopolitan?

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
1 year ago

shouldn’t this article be in Cosmopolitan?

David Ryan
David Ryan
1 year ago

‘The book is insistent on this front: butts are a black thing, and liking them is a black male thing, and the appreciation of butts by non-black folks represents a moral error: cultural theft or stolen valour or some potent mix of the two.” What a load of absolute codswallop. The woman who wrote this book needs to have her head examined. But what’s worrying is how readily this garbage penetrates mainstream media

David Ryan
David Ryan
1 year ago

‘The book is insistent on this front: butts are a black thing, and liking them is a black male thing, and the appreciation of butts by non-black folks represents a moral error: cultural theft or stolen valour or some potent mix of the two.” What a load of absolute codswallop. The woman who wrote this book needs to have her head examined. But what’s worrying is how readily this garbage penetrates mainstream media

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago

“The book calls multiple women, including Jennifer Lopez, Kim Kardashian, and Miley Cyrus, to account for their appropriation of butts”
Surely this book is a spoof? Otherwise it’s definitely time to impose a cultural blockade on Americans. They really have lost it, haven’t they?

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago

“The book calls multiple women, including Jennifer Lopez, Kim Kardashian, and Miley Cyrus, to account for their appropriation of butts”
Surely this book is a spoof? Otherwise it’s definitely time to impose a cultural blockade on Americans. They really have lost it, haven’t they?

Martin Smith
Martin Smith
1 year ago

Can we please desist with “deep dive”? Thank you.

Martin Smith
Martin Smith
1 year ago

Can we please desist with “deep dive”? Thank you.

Paddy Taylor
Paddy Taylor
1 year ago

“Is it racist to like big butts?”
Two words:
Betteridge’s Law

Paddy Taylor
Paddy Taylor
1 year ago

“Is it racist to like big butts?”
Two words:
Betteridge’s Law

Dougie Undersub
Dougie Undersub
1 year ago

Do white men like big butts? Well, I don’t like scrawny butts but Kardashian-sized butts are a big turn-off. Does that make me a bad person? I’m confused now.

Dougie Undersub
Dougie Undersub
1 year ago

Do white men like big butts? Well, I don’t like scrawny butts but Kardashian-sized butts are a big turn-off. Does that make me a bad person? I’m confused now.

Jeff Cunningham
Jeff Cunningham
1 year ago

Its seems so obviously absurd a theory. Northern European exhibited obvious desire for such women most of whom had never even seen a black man or had any idea of their preferences. Think of Rubens and those artists and patrons.

Jeff Cunningham
Jeff Cunningham
1 year ago

Its seems so obviously absurd a theory. Northern European exhibited obvious desire for such women most of whom had never even seen a black man or had any idea of their preferences. Think of Rubens and those artists and patrons.

laura m
laura m
1 year ago

Butts/Boobs are sacks of fat.

Last edited 1 year ago by laura m
Frank McCusker
Frank McCusker
1 year ago
Reply to  laura m

Puritanical disgust. And, actually, no – gluteus maximus

Frank McCusker
Frank McCusker
1 year ago
Reply to  laura m

Puritanical disgust. And, actually, no – gluteus maximus

laura m
laura m
1 year ago

Butts/Boobs are sacks of fat.

Last edited 1 year ago by laura m
James Wills
James Wills
1 year ago

Oh, for God’s sake – can’t you find something serious to write about? Yes, black women – that is, before the Western diet kicks in – often have the most delicious backsides. Is is a racial thing? Yes, of course it is. So what?
And what the hell is “cultural appropriation?” I’ll tell you – it’s just One More Thing for the leftist soreheads to carp about in their neverending quest to bring down the West.
I’m having none of it. Get a life.
addendum: If the white Western women want something to worry about, it should be why Western men won’t marry them anymore. Hint: maybe Western gynocentric divorce laws and your attitudes have something to do with it.

Last edited 1 year ago by James Wills
James Wills
James Wills
1 year ago

Oh, for God’s sake – can’t you find something serious to write about? Yes, black women – that is, before the Western diet kicks in – often have the most delicious backsides. Is is a racial thing? Yes, of course it is. So what?
And what the hell is “cultural appropriation?” I’ll tell you – it’s just One More Thing for the leftist soreheads to carp about in their neverending quest to bring down the West.
I’m having none of it. Get a life.
addendum: If the white Western women want something to worry about, it should be why Western men won’t marry them anymore. Hint: maybe Western gynocentric divorce laws and your attitudes have something to do with it.

Last edited 1 year ago by James Wills
Jonathan Nash
Jonathan Nash
1 year ago

I think Ovid writes in the Amores of his preference for an ample female figure over a skinny bag of sticks. Just trying to raise the tone a bit.

Jonathan Nash
Jonathan Nash
1 year ago

I think Ovid writes in the Amores of his preference for an ample female figure over a skinny bag of sticks. Just trying to raise the tone a bit.

Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
1 year ago

Can we have less of this sort of trashy article Unherd? There’s been more and more of it recently and I’m beginning to reconsider my subscription.

Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
1 year ago

Can we have less of this sort of trashy article Unherd? There’s been more and more of it recently and I’m beginning to reconsider my subscription.

rob drummond
rob drummond
1 year ago

Everything is Racist – disnt you know?

rob drummond
rob drummond
1 year ago

Everything is Racist – disnt you know?

Adam Bartlett
Adam Bartlett
1 year ago

My first thought was that it’s ridiculous to imagine a white man would only appreciate a big butt due to influence from black culture. Seems like such an innate preference. But thinking about it, of the various ancient texts that partly celebrate a woman’s beauty (Song of Solomon, etc etc) I can’t think of any that mention butts until after the start of the Colonial era. The phrase most white men (IME) use to appreciate a big butt is PAWG, which is definitely from black culture. They’re a minority, but I’ve heard several white men say they prefer a small butt – but never a black man. Thanks for getting to the bottom of this issue for us Kat. Happy new year y’all!

Andrew D
Andrew D
1 year ago
Reply to  Adam Bartlett

‘Nigra sum, sed formosa’ from the Song of Solomon is often translated as ‘I am black, but beautiful’. Perhaps a better translation would be ‘I am black, butt beautiful’!

Last edited 1 year ago by Andrew D
Kat L
Kat L
1 year ago
Reply to  Adam Bartlett

it’s from the kardashian era, no self respecting gen x would use that stupid description.

Linda Hutchinson
Linda Hutchinson
1 year ago
Reply to  Adam Bartlett

The phrase most white men (IME) use to appreciate a big butt is PAWG
Never heard of this. I asked a sample of men (i.e. the two presently in my house) if they had heard the acronym before, and they hadn’t.

Andrew D
Andrew D
1 year ago
Reply to  Adam Bartlett

‘Nigra sum, sed formosa’ from the Song of Solomon is often translated as ‘I am black, but beautiful’. Perhaps a better translation would be ‘I am black, butt beautiful’!

Last edited 1 year ago by Andrew D
Kat L
Kat L
1 year ago
Reply to  Adam Bartlett

it’s from the kardashian era, no self respecting gen x would use that stupid description.

Linda Hutchinson
Linda Hutchinson
1 year ago
Reply to  Adam Bartlett

The phrase most white men (IME) use to appreciate a big butt is PAWG
Never heard of this. I asked a sample of men (i.e. the two presently in my house) if they had heard the acronym before, and they hadn’t.

Adam Bartlett
Adam Bartlett
1 year ago

My first thought was that it’s ridiculous to imagine a white man would only appreciate a big butt due to influence from black culture. Seems like such an innate preference. But thinking about it, of the various ancient texts that partly celebrate a woman’s beauty (Song of Solomon, etc etc) I can’t think of any that mention butts until after the start of the Colonial era. The phrase most white men (IME) use to appreciate a big butt is PAWG, which is definitely from black culture. They’re a minority, but I’ve heard several white men say they prefer a small butt – but never a black man. Thanks for getting to the bottom of this issue for us Kat. Happy new year y’all!

Gordon Black
Gordon Black
1 year ago

In this part of Scotland, the colloquialism for un gros derriere is a ‘fartan’giesaclue’.

Alphonse Pfarti
Alphonse Pfarti
1 year ago
Reply to  Gordon Black

That’s a new one on me, cheers. I’m rather fond of ‘bahookie’ myself!

Alphonse Pfarti
Alphonse Pfarti
1 year ago
Reply to  Gordon Black

That’s a new one on me, cheers. I’m rather fond of ‘bahookie’ myself!

Gordon Black
Gordon Black
1 year ago

In this part of Scotland, the colloquialism for un gros derriere is a ‘fartan’giesaclue’.

Gary Taylor
Gary Taylor
1 year ago

The radical left ain’t sending us their best.

R.D. ENO
R.D. ENO
1 year ago
Reply to  Gary Taylor

Well, of course, Kat Rosenfield plucked this book from the dumpster to twerk it at us. The “radical left” (please!) didn’t “send it”. But(t) Rosenfield’s contempt is well-merited, though, as an NPR fan, I could do without her snide asides. (Snideness: So repulsive, so Karenistic!) Missing, though, from her analysis (is there any way to avoid puns about buns?), as well as from Radke’s is the obvious fact that everyone has a pair of buttocks, and that they all resemble one another — more or less. The erotic appeal of the ass is sexually ambiguous and raises interesting questions about how desire (especially male? or could the same be said of any flavor of sexual identity?) may be distributed not to right or left (radical or otherwise) but along a bell curve. The suggestion that they might be aroused by other men mobilizes males’ gender anxiety and may account for why so many become infuriated to the point of violence by gay men. Are Black males who joyfully affirm their gluteophilia less anxious than White men about their virility? More comfortable with “the gay within”? Will we ever get to the bottom of this?

E. L. Herndon
E. L. Herndon
1 year ago
Reply to  R.D. ENO

“Each to his own said the old lady, as she kissed the cow.” Bottoms are like excuses, everyone has one and they come in handy at times. Fundamental. But prosaic.

E. L. Herndon
E. L. Herndon
1 year ago
Reply to  R.D. ENO

“Each to his own said the old lady, as she kissed the cow.” Bottoms are like excuses, everyone has one and they come in handy at times. Fundamental. But prosaic.

R.D. ENO
R.D. ENO
1 year ago
Reply to  Gary Taylor

Well, of course, Kat Rosenfield plucked this book from the dumpster to twerk it at us. The “radical left” (please!) didn’t “send it”. But(t) Rosenfield’s contempt is well-merited, though, as an NPR fan, I could do without her snide asides. (Snideness: So repulsive, so Karenistic!) Missing, though, from her analysis (is there any way to avoid puns about buns?), as well as from Radke’s is the obvious fact that everyone has a pair of buttocks, and that they all resemble one another — more or less. The erotic appeal of the ass is sexually ambiguous and raises interesting questions about how desire (especially male? or could the same be said of any flavor of sexual identity?) may be distributed not to right or left (radical or otherwise) but along a bell curve. The suggestion that they might be aroused by other men mobilizes males’ gender anxiety and may account for why so many become infuriated to the point of violence by gay men. Are Black males who joyfully affirm their gluteophilia less anxious than White men about their virility? More comfortable with “the gay within”? Will we ever get to the bottom of this?

Gary Taylor
Gary Taylor
1 year ago

The radical left ain’t sending us their best.

Dominic A
Dominic A
1 year ago

“There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.” Booker T Washington 1911

Still true today, though substantial changes are – massive strides have been made towards fairness & equality, no thanks to the aforementioned class, a large chunk of whom are now made up of white people acting out a variation of Muchausen’s By Proxy.

Last edited 1 year ago by Dominic A
Dominic A
Dominic A
1 year ago

“There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.” Booker T Washington 1911

Still true today, though substantial changes are – massive strides have been made towards fairness & equality, no thanks to the aforementioned class, a large chunk of whom are now made up of white people acting out a variation of Muchausen’s By Proxy.

Last edited 1 year ago by Dominic A
Michelle Johnston
Michelle Johnston
1 year ago

Emphasizing the hips and a woman’s bottom is well captured in portrayals of Elizabeth 1st. The aristocracy made it fashionable during her reign by wearing a wheeled farthingale.
One of the delights of the series “Outlander” is watching Caitriona Balfe wearing similar undergarments when the story moved to France in Season 2 what a performance that would be before getting off in the morning. Though the butt I found most distracting was her co-stars.
Of course, a serious cultural appropriation was under weigh during QE1’s reign. The potato. Apologies to Peru.

Michelle Johnston
Michelle Johnston
1 year ago

Emphasizing the hips and a woman’s bottom is well captured in portrayals of Elizabeth 1st. The aristocracy made it fashionable during her reign by wearing a wheeled farthingale.
One of the delights of the series “Outlander” is watching Caitriona Balfe wearing similar undergarments when the story moved to France in Season 2 what a performance that would be before getting off in the morning. Though the butt I found most distracting was her co-stars.
Of course, a serious cultural appropriation was under weigh during QE1’s reign. The potato. Apologies to Peru.

Frank McCusker
Frank McCusker
1 year ago

I never understood the former tabloid obsession with breasts. From my earliest age, I always had a keen eye for a toned female arse – but tbh only if I liked the whole package of the woman anyway – a cute face, a dazzling smile, a twinkle in the eyes, a confident athletic walk, a toned rear, shapely un-veiny hands with long fingers, elegant knees (so wonderfully unlike my big knobbly male ones), toned upper arms, and a certain ratio of rear to waist – well, all those *together* would knock me sideways, and I make no apologies for that. The Kardashians for instance, with their endless narcissism, and dead expressions, I find them repellent. Genuinely repellent.  And it’s less about size than about shape and muscular tone and ratio to waist. A straight bloke reacts primarily to a wider pelvis, it’s in the lizard part of our brains. Someone could have massive wobbly cellulite rear, and it’s nothing special tbh. And white women themselves have a wide spectrum of shapes, from small to large and from flabby to toned; and lots of African women are quite skinny, depending on which African country they’re from. The idea that all African women have big butts is itself racist nonsense.  If a white bloke said as much, there’d be uproar about that too. And the real turn on is how a woman walks, moves, carries herself – it’s an holistic thing, not an absurd blinkered obsession on body parts, for heaven’s sake. This is totally ridiculous. The woke idiots have run out of micro-aggressions to whine about. And the sheer intolerance of woke black people is instructive.

David Fawcett
David Fawcett
1 year ago
Reply to  Frank McCusker

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but in women’s athletics, all lady runners have nicely shaped rear ends. An appreciation of good butts is a good assessment of a woman’s physical fitness. It’s evolutionary. I knew there was a good reason.

Frank McCusker
Frank McCusker
1 year ago
Reply to  David Fawcett

Quite agree David – and if memory serves, fit women are better in the boudoir too!

Frank McCusker
Frank McCusker
1 year ago
Reply to  David Fawcett

Quite agree David – and if memory serves, fit women are better in the boudoir too!

David Fawcett
David Fawcett
1 year ago
Reply to  Frank McCusker

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but in women’s athletics, all lady runners have nicely shaped rear ends. An appreciation of good butts is a good assessment of a woman’s physical fitness. It’s evolutionary. I knew there was a good reason.

Frank McCusker
Frank McCusker
1 year ago

I never understood the former tabloid obsession with breasts. From my earliest age, I always had a keen eye for a toned female arse – but tbh only if I liked the whole package of the woman anyway – a cute face, a dazzling smile, a twinkle in the eyes, a confident athletic walk, a toned rear, shapely un-veiny hands with long fingers, elegant knees (so wonderfully unlike my big knobbly male ones), toned upper arms, and a certain ratio of rear to waist – well, all those *together* would knock me sideways, and I make no apologies for that. The Kardashians for instance, with their endless narcissism, and dead expressions, I find them repellent. Genuinely repellent.  And it’s less about size than about shape and muscular tone and ratio to waist. A straight bloke reacts primarily to a wider pelvis, it’s in the lizard part of our brains. Someone could have massive wobbly cellulite rear, and it’s nothing special tbh. And white women themselves have a wide spectrum of shapes, from small to large and from flabby to toned; and lots of African women are quite skinny, depending on which African country they’re from. The idea that all African women have big butts is itself racist nonsense.  If a white bloke said as much, there’d be uproar about that too. And the real turn on is how a woman walks, moves, carries herself – it’s an holistic thing, not an absurd blinkered obsession on body parts, for heaven’s sake. This is totally ridiculous. The woke idiots have run out of micro-aggressions to whine about. And the sheer intolerance of woke black people is instructive.

polidori redux
polidori redux
1 year ago

“…from whose name the word “callipygian” is derived”
I had a chum who adopted that moniker.

Jeff Cunningham
Jeff Cunningham
1 year ago
Reply to  polidori redux

What did his butt look like?

polidori redux
polidori redux
1 year ago

It was definitely a “she”
It was good.

Smalltime J
Smalltime J
1 year ago

I’m inherently suspicious of an article that alleges that the book declares that liking butts is racist and then provides no quotes from the book which actually make this point.

Mark Duffett
Mark Duffett
1 year ago
Reply to  Smalltime J

4th paragraph.

Smalltime J
Smalltime J
1 year ago
Reply to  Mark Duffett

Nope – the quote from the book in the 4th para is this: [desire for the butt is] “coming from Black male desire. Straight-up, point-blank. It’s only through Black males and their gaze that white men are starting to take notice”.
This is not a statement that ‘liking butts is racist’, it’s a claim about where current admiration for butts in our culture comes from. It may be the set up for a claim that liking butts is racist, but such a claim, if in fact made, is not itself quoted.
(The following sentence in the 4th para – “To paraphrase a popular meme: “Fellas, is it racist to like butts?”” – is the author’s gloss and not a quote from the book).

Smalltime J
Smalltime J
1 year ago
Reply to  Mark Duffett

Nope – the quote from the book in the 4th para is this: [desire for the butt is] “coming from Black male desire. Straight-up, point-blank. It’s only through Black males and their gaze that white men are starting to take notice”.
This is not a statement that ‘liking butts is racist’, it’s a claim about where current admiration for butts in our culture comes from. It may be the set up for a claim that liking butts is racist, but such a claim, if in fact made, is not itself quoted.
(The following sentence in the 4th para – “To paraphrase a popular meme: “Fellas, is it racist to like butts?”” – is the author’s gloss and not a quote from the book).

Mark Duffett
Mark Duffett
1 year ago
Reply to  Smalltime J

4th paragraph.

Smalltime J
Smalltime J
1 year ago

I’m inherently suspicious of an article that alleges that the book declares that liking butts is racist and then provides no quotes from the book which actually make this point.

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
1 year ago

{more than enough said already}

Last edited 1 year ago by AJ Mac
Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago

looking like the back end of a 5 furlong sprinter leaving the stalls for The Kings Stand Stakes is not my idea of a woman’s look…

Hardee Hodges
Hardee Hodges
1 year ago

Stunned to admit I actually read this. Even more I read many comments. My age is catching up me. A book about body parts, indeed.

Alan B
Alan B
1 year ago

Benny Hill called…

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago

Why on earth are the comments for this essay subject to ‘special measures’.
It is simply ridiculous and antipathetic to everything England stands for!

Eric Parker
Eric Parker
1 year ago

All very well, but….
How many angels dance on the head of a pin? Did they ever get to the bottom of that?

Christopher Barclay
Christopher Barclay
1 year ago

Not sure I understand. Did Heather Radke’s butt double in size the first time a black male looked at it with lust? Did she bust out of her trousers or skirt when that happened? Did she have a buy an entire new wardrobe of clothes? Or does someone have to say a magic word like ‘booty’ or murmur ‘junk in the trunk’?

David Fawcett
David Fawcett
1 year ago

People are always nagging me to tidy the junk in my trunk.

Alan Osband
Alan Osband
1 year ago

See John Donne’s order of precedence (c.1595)

‘Licence my roving hands and let them go
BEHIND , before, above, between ,below! ‘

Thank goodness there were some blackamores around to tell him what to do

Nona Yubiz
Nona Yubiz
1 year ago

Love it. Excellent article. We need many more articles like this. The comments from the humor-impaired males of the species are icing on the cake.

Kat L
Kat L
1 year ago
Reply to  Nona Yubiz

i’m the opposite sex but find the premise repulsive and insulting.

Kat L
Kat L
1 year ago
Reply to  Nona Yubiz

i’m the opposite sex but find the premise repulsive and insulting.

Nona Yubiz
Nona Yubiz
1 year ago

Love it. Excellent article. We need many more articles like this. The comments from the humor-impaired males of the species are icing on the cake.