When men talk about their preferences in women in a crude way, it’s common to hear someone say he is a leg man, or a—well, whatever part he prefers. Living in a house full of boys has taught me that no matter what they say, they are all butt men. I think they are programmed that way, and I’m pretty sure this gene was found during the Human Genome Project.
I developed this theory when we took a family trip to Las Vegas when the kids were about preschool age. We allowed our middle-class, minivan-driving minds to convince us to get off of the freeway and instead drive the strip all the way to our hotel. Along the way, there were giant billboards featuring the name of some show next to a close-up shot of a giant g-string-clad female butt. One of my sons saw it first. “I see a butt!” he shouted as we passed. My other son scrambled out of his seat to see it but we had already passed it. He was not happy about missing the sight.
“I didn’t see the butt. Go back!” he insisted. The show must have been a popular one because the sign was posted everywhere we went, so the rest of the trip was a game of trying to spot The Butt as many times as possible.
That was the first clue that we didn’t belong on the strip with kids. The second came as we walked through the casino of our hotel to our room. Right near the lobby was a girl dancing on a table, wearing what my husband insisted was not a g-string, which he determined by the scrap of triangle cloth at her butt crack. Still, my boys were getting an eyeful as we quickly ushered them past. Then my 3-year-old stopped and looked at me and said, “Dance mommy. Like this,” and began to shake his little booty. The crowd gawking at the woman turned to my son and then to me and started laughing. I didn’t think it was funny. Needless to say we haven’t been back to Ass Vegas with the kids since.
I don’t think this butt obsession is necessarily a conscious thing. Take, for instance, the time my husband Ron and I were in sales. As a team, we cold-called on businesses every day. If you’ve never been in sales, it’s basically about being comfortable enough to walk up to a total stranger and persuade him to give you money in return for a promise that he will benefit in some way. It has to be done with confidence and personality and without uncontrollably giggling, which is unfortunately a spot we found ourselves in.
Walking into a business, we used to hype ourselves up a bit—get the personality and energy going. We were a team, after all, and at some point I think Ron thought that team was a football team because as I entered the business in front of him, he gave me a player-to-player swat on the backside. I held it together and reminded him to watch his professionalism, even though it was an absentminded action. But by the third business, he once again ushered me through the door by my booty and I started to giggle. Realizing what he had done, he started to laugh too, which left us standing in front of the employee at the counter in a fit of uncontrollable, red-in-the-face laughter. Without a word we turned and walked out.
Since then, to prove my husband isn’t a lunatic butt-grabber, we took our Las Vegas butt sign game and made it a different game. It started at a recent vintner’s festival when we had a whole conversation with a couple about the nuances of the Pinot Noir grape in the Santa Rita Hills appellation, and the whole time the husband
had a wine glass in one hand and the other hand never moved from its resting place on his wife’s laurels.
Since then we’ve noticed it happens more than you think. At winery events, at concerts in the park, at a parade—everywhere you go, guys will cup their partners’ buttocks more often than they hold hands. Has the backside caress become an acceptable form of PDA? Do people not notice it because they are doing it themselves? Is it just a guy thing? Because I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman smacking the back pocket of her guy’s Levis. Or maybe my theory is right: Guys can’t help it, it’s just part of their DNA.
Think about it. Butts are a major source of amusement for kids. Possibly because when you take children to a crowded place, and you are making eye contact with another adult, guess what your kids are making eye contact with. So is it surprising that the first jokes they make up are usually butt jokes? (Incidentally, I think most men still find butt jokes funny.)
OK, so I can’t totally back up my claim that this obsession is an inherited male trait. Nor can I prove it’s solely a male trait. However, I have a daughter and three sons. My daughter never once opened fire on my butt with a Nerf gun as I washed dishes, never stuck a whoopee cushion under my seat, or tossed footballs at my rear end or inexplicably toddled over and sunk two little baby teeth into my backside as I reached for toys under the living room couches.
Of course, I’m sure there are scores of female Brad Pitt admirers who would beg to differ.
Arts editor Shelly Cone is just trying to figure it all out. Contact her at scone@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Sep 6-13, 2012.