THE BEAUTY OF BOOTY

The FIGHT for BODY POSITIVITY

Peter Paul Rubens, The Three Graces, 1630-35

What was your first thought, dear Reader, upon laying eyes on this gorgeous painting, The Three Graces, by a master painter of the Baroque era, Peter Paul Rubens? Three sisters and muses, daughters of Zeus, interrupted mid-bath in a pastoral forest.

Want to know my first thought?

"Hey, that looks a lot like me, nude, from behind!"

My sincerest apologies if you now have this image of me stuck in your mind: an imperfect mortal with fluffy folds, bumpy rolls, deep dimples, and a 'cheeky' piece of diaphanous veil pinched between two arsecheeks like an ancient wedgie. Think what you may ... You must agree that this painting provides an excellent visual for my theme: Body Positivity.

According to Greek mythology, these three voluptuous Graces (together) represented the ideal female: grace, charm, and beauty. Where my 21st-century lens shows me imperfection (the backside cellulite, love handles, and flabby arm flaps), the truth is that Rubens was lauded for those pale, plump female shapes. To this day, a woman of a certain curvaceousness is lovingly referred to as Rubenesque. Back then, it was considered the ideal shape for a woman, and had I lived then, I would most likely have been fed plump grapes by buffed lads in loincloths while reclining on an empire daybed.

In modern society, however, there have been disturbingly few cases where a rotund female is praised for her beauty except in certain African cultures where the largesse of a woman is considered a sign of wealth and being called "Mafuta" (translated to "fat" in Swahili) is a divine compliment. I know; I was called that word oh-so-lovingly by one of the African nannies who helped raise me, upon reconnecting years later. I remember smiling bravely through my teeth because I knew that it came from a sincere place. Privately, I cringed. It stung.

Admiration (or lack thereof) for the female body has morphed throughout the centuries and women have had to scramble and jump through hoops (sometimes quite literally) to keep up with the trends. Since I’ve been on this earth, I've witnessed several swings of the pendulum in regard to beauty ideals. The bra-burning 1960s (led by the shockingly thin Twiggy) heralded the end of the '50s bleary-eyed housewife who was considered 'somebody's keeper', and who was sewn into tight corsets so as to show off an hourglass figure like Marilyn Monroe's. The 1970s, with its Studio 54 attitudes of loose hair, looser clothing, and even looser morals, swung the other way, holding up the ideal of a tanned, athletic (yet buxom) free-spirited woman à la Farah Fawcett. Then the Awesome Eighties hit, and women across the world, me included, were sweating through step aerobics and a gazillion thigh-presses in legwarmers, to look like Jane Fonda or Jamie Curtis.

Then came the grungy Nineties …

And here, dear Reader, I must pause for a moment of silence for all those who fell victim to the horrible ‘heroin chic’ trend as it was coined during Calvin Klein’s 1993 fashion campaign that featured severely undernourished, waif-like models setting unattainable goals for normal women who preferred to eat more than a handful of lentils (rumored to make its way straight through so fast that calories had no chance to stick to the bones). Young women felt horribly inadequate and overweight; unable to emulate those shape-less shapes that were prescribed to them on the runways, in magazines, and in the stores. Kate Moss, Courtney Love (who quite literally embodied the washed-out, sunken-eyed, brain-fried heroin 'chic'), I'm lookin' at you!

I have always been uncomfortable with my body shape. Like Rubens' Graces, I'm a gynoid or upside-down triangle shape. Pear-shaped, in body (fruit) language. In the dictionary, 'pear-shaped' is defined as 'tapering toward the top, like a pear. ... (of a person) having hips that are disproportionately wide in relation to the upper part of the body.' And there it is … that word, 'disproportionately' that I have always had hanging over my head like the sword of Damocles. A negative word. Connoting that something is wrong. Disproportionate like a woman in a Picasso sketch. Historically, women have had to live up to a bevy of expectations in terms of their bodies. And, though it is often self-imposed, the self-castigation is not without outside pressure, albeit the male gaze, lofty commercial guidelines, or society's rules of acceptance.

And yet ... over the last few decades, in the 2020s, there has been a hint of change in the air. A whiff of hope. A refreshing newness and a gradual, cautious trend toward acceptance of "the other." Today, the world seems a friendlier, more accepting place (bar certain countries, religions, and political parties) for gender neutrality, trans-positivity, and body positivity. However, as is the norm with change before it settles somewhere in the middle, the pendulum started swinging too far; from the divine to the ridiculous. Suddenly, your butt had to be huge for you to be considered beautiful. And I mean … huuuuuuge! Brazilian butt lifts became a thing; young women half my age were getting fat transferred from their hips, abdomen, or thighs, and injected into their buttocks. To make them fatter and bulging outward like Jessica Rabbit’s famous derrière. When I first came across pictures of this trend on social media, I was flabbergasted: I had spent my entire life so far dieting and exercising to shrink my booty, and now the trend was to add to it. Huh? I felt cheated.

Mine is very real, an Anjou pear I'd like to think, but those who opt for the fake kind cannot sit on those babies for up to two weeks post-surgery. Speak of a pain in the butt! In my neck of the woods, Los Angeles, a Brazilian Butt lift can cost between $8,000 - $24,000. Because of the prohibitive cost, a black market of illegal practices has boomed using dangerous chemicals injected by untrained non-medical persons. Naturally, it has become one of the world’s most dangerous plastic surgeries with mounting cases of death resulting from customers seeking cheaper alternatives (as in industrial-grade silicone or cement ... I know, sigh ... injected by your best friend's cousin, in her basement. Without anesthesia.)

Another alarming trend to achieve an hourglass figure is rib removal. Yes, you heard right, dear Reader: human rib removal. The procedure involves having the 11th and 12th ribs cut away by a surgeon (the floating ribs not attached to the sternum) to make the patient's waist tuck in tighter, giving the new rib-less (or rather less-ribbed) person that sucked-in corset-look of the previous ages, when women struggled for breath and couldn't eat because their ribs were crushed into their lungs and their internal organs were displaced, for god's sake! A certain celebrity who famously sang about how she yearned to "turn back time," is rumored to have undergone this very painful, elective procedure. I’m assuming that one needs to wait a few months after your Brazilian butt lift so that you can sit comfortably while you heal from your missing ribs?

(Important side note: Rib-resection and butt lifts are often performed as part of transgender body modification surgery, to make the patient’s body conform better to the norms of female beauty. In such cases, I consider it necessary, affirmative surgery with a therapeutic and life-affirming benefit. You go, gurl!)

Yes, dear Reader, striving towards an ever-shifting beauty goal can be excruciatingly painful to those seekers of eternal youth: injections of fillers into the face and lips, butt transplants, liposuction, teeth capping, eyebrow microblading, breast implants, tummy tucks ... have I left anything out?

Yes, there is still much work to be done in terms of body positivity without modification, but the needle has started moving in the right direction. I’ve noticed its subtle signs over the last few years: the odd full-sized model popping up in the middle of a fashion spread, a full-sized mannequin hidden in the back of the fashion store floor. A few breakout models with fuller body shapes making headlines, stealthily at first, sneaking in under the radar and then ... BAM! ... making BIG waves. I’ll never forget the first time a larger-size model, Ashley Graham (google her), graced the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue in 2015. She was 27 years old at the time and a size 14-16 which (up until then, and still in some cases) was considered “plus” sized. (According to a 2018 report by the Centers for Disease Control, the average American woman is about 5ft 4” and weighs 170.5 pounds. That's a size 14-16. For my metrically inclined readers, it translates to 1.63m and about 77kgs.)

I remember buying that edition of Sports Illustrated which, until then, I had always considered being exclusively for the male gaze, populated with unrealistically thin models with tiny butts and huge boobs, posing seductively in floss-thin bikinis barely covering the pinkest parts of their tanned, oiled, and dusted-with-golden-beach-sand bodies. But this time, this momentous breakthrough with Ashley on the cover called out to me and to other women, to those of us “natural” sized, with fleshy parts and jiggly bits. Say it with me: "Ha-le-freakin'-lujah!"

The model Ashley Graham has been a beacon of hope in more ways than one. Unbeknownst to her, she helped me save a life once, during a harrowing crisis-counseling session I had with a sixteen-year-old girl. (I worked as a volunteer Crisis Counselor for an online suicide hotline from 2015-2018.) During the hour-long text 'conversation' with this girl, she admitted that she considered ending her life because she was overweight and constantly bullied because of it. She was desperate to fit in, to be asked out on a date, to be "normal" (her word, not mine). I tried all the usual methods of therapy first: the ladder-up suicide risk assessment, the open questions, the positive reinforcement, website referrals, and a bevy of tools for stress management. She fought me on each suggestion, batting away my attempts to help as “useless.” And then she said the most alarming thing: She said she saw no future in this world that had no place for a larger-than-average woman. It was at that point that I pivoted to a different strategy. And invoked the beauty of the booty.

“Tell me X (name omitted),” I asked, “have you heard of the supermodel, Ashley Graham?” (This was shortly after the famous cover shot and Ashley was all over the media, touted for her groundbreaking achievement.)

“No,” X replied, likely cringing at my mention of the word 'supermodel'.

"Well, she is a famous model who is fuller-sized, and she has just made the cover of one of the most prestigious magazines. She proves that the world is changing its attitude in terms of the female body.”

“You're lying to me,” she said in an accusatory tone as if I were making it up to appease her, to pull her back from the edge.

“I'm not; it's true,” I countered, “and you can see for yourself. Google her name, right now. I’ll wait.”

I waited, knowing that she would reluctantly google the supermodel, Ashley Graham, expecting to see an emaciated, hollow-cheeked automaton. The next few minutes felt like an eternity, and then she texted back with a single, breathless word that spoke volumes: “Wow.”

What I did that day, was show her the hail-Mary of body positivity: the image of a gorgeous, healthy, "normal" woman—yes, one with above-average BMI and thighs without the pre-requisite thigh gap, but a woman presented in a sensual, body-positive way, demanding admiration. An image that imbued the possibility of acceptance. A percolating change in the air. Hope with a capital 'H' ... for "Hips don't lie."

Ashley and the many stunning “normal” sized women who followed in her footsteps, were the icebreaker through the icy wall of what a beautiful woman is supposed to look like. Since then, I now see larger women everywhere: on the covers of fashion magazines, on the runways, in storefront mannequins dressed in strappy lingerie, and in ads for makeup and jewelry. Men might not have noticed, but you bet your bottom (pun intended) dollar that we, women, have. Sexy has suddenly become inclusive and right now there is a whole new generation of little girls growing up seeing "normal" bodies around them, held up to them for validation. And it’s a beautiful thing to behold.

Of course, I’m not saying that only larger women can be sexy. I’m only saying that much larger women can ALSO be sexy. Though I’ve always envied you, my more petite, leaner friends, for your kittenish lightness, for the way summer dresses flutter around you and flatter you, I feel for those of you who want to be taller or boob-ier, as much as do for those of us who want to be slimmer. The point is that we have all been fooled into believing that we should be a piece of fruit, a shapely berry—fat-free, of course—ripe for someone else's picking.

Enough, I say. We are beautiful as we are, provided we are happy and (here's the caveat) … healthy. If there are troubling signs like high blood pressure or cholesterol, pre-diabetes, and/or dangerous BMI, a change may be warranted.

Having said that, I admit that it’s hard to always feel comfortable in one’s skin and I often stumble and fall off the positivity wagon. In recent years, my own body has gone from sexy kittens frolicking with puffs of cotton wool, to what resembles two matronly cats sumo-wrestling in a potato sack around my midriff. Why? Two words: 1/ Menopause (also known as a 'pause in the attention of men') and 2/ Hormones. And mine are moaning louder than ever before, demanding comfort food and tight hugs (from shapewear, if nothing else). No, dear Reader, it's not easy to practice the act of self-love, but thankfully there are modern muses we can turn to for inspiration. Take, for example, the multi-hyphenate singer/rapper/flutist-extraordinaire and prophet of body positivity, Lizzo, who sets a shining example for younger girls, singing, “No, I’m not a snack at all//Look baby, I’m the whole damn meal.” Preach, queen!

This New Year, my resolution will be to fight (like those two Mafuta cats in the sack tied around my hips) for body positivity; to regard my body as if it were a work of art (one made out of papier-mache more so than marble, but still ...) And, whenever I falter, I’ll listen to Lizzo proclaiming, “That’s the goddess in me!” while I admire the beautiful Graces in the Rubens painting, which will henceforth be pinned to my dresser mirror.

They’re booty-ful, don’t you agree?