num_pages: 320
description: Whether we love them or hate them think theyre sexy think theyre strange consider them too big too small or anywhere in between humans have a complicated relationship with butts. It is a body part unique to humans critical to our evolution and survival and yet it has come to signify so much more: sex desire comedy shame. A womans butt in particular is forever being assessed criticized and objectified from anxious self-examinations trying on jeans in department store dressing rooms to enduring crass remarks while walking down a street or high school hallways. But why? In Butts: A Backstory reporter essayist and RadioLab contributing editor Heather Radke is determined to find out. Spanning nearly two centuries this whip-smart (Publishers Weekly starred review) cultural history takes us from the performance halls of 19th-century London to the aerobics studios of the 1980s the music video set of Sir Mix-a-Lots Baby Got Back and the mountains of Arizona where every year humans and horses race in a feat of gluteal endurance. Along the way she meets evolutionary biologists who study how butts first developed; models whose measurements have defined jean sizing for millions of women; and the fitness gurus who created fads like Buns of Steel. She also examines the central importance of race through figures like Sarah Bartmann once known as the Venus Hottentot Josephine Baker Jennifer Lopez and other women of color whose butts have been idolized envied and despised. Part deep dive reportage part personal journey part cabinet of curiosities Butts is an entertaining illuminating and thoughtful examination of why certain silhouettes come in and out of fashionand how larger ideas about race control liberation and power affect our most private feelings about ourselves and others.
language: English
title: Butts: A Backstory
publisher: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster