Although the human shape was designed by the greatest of artists, His taste does not necessarily coincide with ours; at no time did man accept the image in which he was created as final…
…Another, far more enduring, not to say endearing, sort of body deformation is obesity. Admired in many parts of the world, obesity has rated- as far as women are concerned- as a secondary sexual characteristic. To judge from prehistoric art, fat women either predominated or were used by choice as artists’ models, and in the course of time the well-upholstered woman was favoured over the scrawny one. A similar taste can frequently be found in modern art; the artist who does not limit his sympathies to the fashionable disembodied female sides with the primitive and celebrates massive womanhood.
—Two Zulu Maidens Showing Steatopygia; Outside Thatch House n.d.
Contained in:
Photograph collection ca. 1860s-1960s
click image for source…
Since only women of leisure can afford the luxury of being immobilized, the languid and overfed woman came to represent the well-to-do and beautiful; obesity became a mark of quality. Among those primitives who gauge female beauty by sheer bulk, brides-to-be go through preparations of excessive fattening. On reaching puberty, a girl was placed in a special fattening-hut. The time of seclusion varied from six months to two years, depending on the wealth of her parents.
—Who knew there was a scientific term for ‘ghetto booty…’
Steatopygia is a high degree of fat accumulation in and around the buttocks. The deposit of fat is not confined to the gluteal regions, but extends to the outside and front of the thighs, forming a thick layer reaching sometimes to the knee.—click image for source…
Some tribes discriminated in their admiration for obesity between overall bulk and specific, strategically placed cushions of fat. The most celebrated among salient features is steatopygia, the overdevelopment of the subcutaneous fat that covers a woman’s hind parts and upper thighs. Unlike the judges of our beauty contests, who have their eyes on a prominently cantilevered bosom, buttock lovers, according to Darwin, would make their selection by “ranging their women in a line, and by picking her out who projects farthest a tergo.”
—Since steatopygia defines the so-called defective behind, what then do we call the much less prominent, flat butts possessed by countless Caucasian females? (Their male counterpart suffers the same fate.) In its heyday, the non-protruding posterior of the Caucasian female all over Europe adorned the popular bustle (example shown here), a fashion inspired by the Hottentot butt of Saartjie Baartman. It has been said that when the bustle moved, it indicated that the female wearing it had at least some behind. I am almost certain that most remained motionless. Pardon my redundancy, but I still want to know what label can be applied to a body that lacks adequate contour and, therefore, sufficient enhancement in the area of the derriere? In my humble opinion, it is definitely a deficiency.—click image for source…
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