Butts

Few parts of the body provoke as many opinions as the backside. People adore them, mock them, judge them, and fret over whether their own measure up. It is a body part found only in humans, and it has been central to our evolution and survival. Over time, though, it has come to stand for much more than anatomy, including sex, longing, punchlines, and shame. Women in particular live under constant scrutiny here, from anxious checks in department store fitting rooms to crude remarks shouted at them on city sidewalks and down high school corridors. Why this happens is the question at the heart of Butts: A Backstory.

Heather Radke, a reporter and essayist who is also a contributing editor for the podcast RadioLab, set out to trace the answer across almost two centuries. Her route runs from theaters in nineteenth-century London to the aerobics studios of the 1980s, from the video shoot for Sir Mix-a-Lot's 'Baby Got Back' to the Arizona mountains, where people and horses compete each year in a contest of endurance built around the rear end. Along the way she speaks with evolutionary biologists who study how the trait first emerged, with models whose measurements helped set jean sizing for millions of women, and with the fitness personalities behind trends such as 'Buns of Steel.'

Race runs through the book as well. Radke examines Sarah Bartmann, who was known as the 'Venus Hottentot,' along with Josephine Baker, Jennifer Lopez, and other women of color whose figures have been idolized, envied, and despised in equal measure.

Mixing investigative reporting, personal reflection, and a collection of odd historical curiosities, the book explores why certain body shapes rise and fall in fashion and how ideas about race, control, freedom, and power shape our most private feelings about ourselves and one another.