Buttocks: Definition from Answers.com

Also called the nates, ass, clunes, breech;they are formed by the gluteal muscles which cover the back of each pelvic bone and span the hip joint to be attached to the thigh bone. These huge muscles are mostly concerned with moving and stabilizing the hip joint. The largest is the gluteus maximus (‘biggest in the buttock’), which is important in locomotion. (See musculo-skeletal system.)

The history of the buttocks has been written either as the history of the physical buttocks or as the history of their symbolic function within cultural systems. Thus Charles Darwin's The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (building upon the work of earlier anatomists such as Georges Cuvier) assumes the relationship between the ‘natural’ form of the buttocks and the meaning associated with the human female pelvis. The pelvis was seen as the most prominent secondary sexual characteristic and the buttocks were read as the pelvis' visible sign. The buttocks became the visual sign of the reproductive system. The breasts came to be understood as a sign of the anomalous nature of the human body, as other mammals do not have prominent mammae: only human females do. The breasts came to be perceived as a form which mimicked the buttocks, the ‘real sign’ of the sexual. The debates about the meaning of the mammae and their defining force in determining the very nature of the ‘mammal’ has been well documented by Londa Schiebinger in her Nature's Body: Gender in the Making of Modern Science (1993).

Buttocks in racism

Beginning with the expansion of European colonial exploration, the form and size of the buttocks became a mode of describing and classifying the races. Thus Darwin's view is a further elaboration on the adaptivity of human form for reproductive purposes. The buttocks become associated with the reproductive organs of the female through the analogy with the form of the pelvis. This is a continuation of the cultural presupposition that ‘primitive’ races have ‘primitive’ sexuality, which is represented in their bodies by physical signs of their ‘true’ nature. Thus Khoikhoi (called the Hottentots by the first Dutch explorers) and San (named Bushman by early Anglophone explorers) women of southwestern Africa were represented from the sixteenth century by their exaggerated buttocks (steatopygia) and labia (Hottentot apron). While these images claimed a greater size for the buttocks, they also claimed that these women (once anatomized) had a smaller pelvic size. The steatopygia was seen as a pronounced, localized accumulation of fat or fatty-fibrous tissue on the upper part of the buttocks. It was understood as rarely manifested prior to puberty, and as an accumulation which enlarged gradually and was a normal physical characteristic in women who otherwise may not be obese. As greater pelvic size was understood, in analogy to increased cranial capacity, as a sign of ‘progress’, the small pelvic size of the ‘primitive’ was understood as proof of their actual place on the great chain of being. The exaggerated buttocks were understood as an attempt to ‘mimic’ the higher stages of evolutionary development. Similar representations can be found in the images of the native peoples of South America in early illustrated accounts of European exploration. Here too the breasts and the buttocks are seen as natural signs of the barbarism of the native. After their initial representation as the idealized ‘Roman’ types, these native inhabitants come to be seen as in need of domestication and conversion. Thus their body forms including their buttocks, come to be represented as grotesque.

Buttocks, gender and gait

In drawing the history of the physicality of the buttocks, works such as Havelock Ellis' multi-volume Studies in the Psychology of Sex lay stress, following Darwin, on the history of the buttocks as a secondary sexual characteristic which is highly fetishized in European culture. Again Ellis associated the practice of whipping with the overemphasis on the buttocks in British culture. Ellis related this symbolic reading of the buttocks to the primary sexual characteristics (the genitalia) and other secondary sexual characteristics (such as the female breasts). In his case study of ‘Florrie’ (Volume 7: Eonism and Other Supplementary Studies) he showed how ‘Florrie’ comes to displace the meaning of the buttocks on to other body sites.

Ellis also stressed the function of gait as a manner of measuring the erotic nature of the buttocks. Quoting Virgil, he observed (Volume 4: Sexual Selection in Man) that ‘the goddess is revealed by her walk.’ As Cesare Lombroso and a number of other forensic scientists of the nineteenth century had argued for the relationship between gait and character, the notion that the buttocks could be defined by the appearance and attraction of the carriage is understandable. Thus non-Western women are represented as having a greater ‘vibratory movement of the buttocks in their women’. The primitive gait was a further sign of the less civilized (and therefore less self-conscious) sexuality of the ‘primitive’.

Buttocks and the Freudian model

Ellis' work on the meaning and the history of the buttocks was paralleled in Austria by Sigmund Freud's discussion of the meaning of the ‘anal phase’. First working it out in detail in his Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), Freud understood the anal phase as the second of three stages of bodily fixation — beginning with the mouth, then moving on to the anus, and then the genitals. ‘Normal’ development proceeded along this path, but the development could be fixated at the earlier stages. Freud saw anal fixation as the origins of male homosexuality. Again, it is not the anus per se which comes to function as the symbolic reference in Freud's system, but rather the buttocks. Here it is not the proximity of the buttocks to the genitalia which is of interest, but rather their adjacent position to the anus. Freud's fascination with the buttocks can be seen in his note to the publication of the anthropologist John Gregory Bourke's Scatalogic rites of all nations. A dissertation upon the employment of excrementitious remedial agents in religion, therapeutics, divination, witchcraft, love-philters, etc., in all parts of the globe (1934).

For Freud, too, the question of the symbolic meaning of the buttocks was read in the erotic attraction of the gait. It is in his reading of Wilhelm Jensen's short story Gradiva (1903). Introduced to the text by C. G. Jung in the summer of 1906, Freud published his interpretation in 1907, shortly after his work on the stages of human development. It is the first complete study of a work of literature from Freud's pen. In this text the hero recognizes the heroine subliminally by her gait. The classical image, the ‘Gradiva’, was, according to Freud, a

sculpture [which] represented a fully-grown girl stepping along, with her flowing dress a little pulled up so as to reveal her sandaled feet. One foot rested squarely on the ground; the other, lifted from the ground in the act of following after, touched it only with the tips of the toes, while the sole and heel rose almost perpendicularly. It was probably the unusual and peculiarly charming gait thus presented that attracted the sculptor's notice and that still, after so many centuries, riveted the eyes of its archaeological admirer.

This description of the act of walking is, of course, also a detailed description of the erotic nature of the gait and therefore a reading of the erotics of the female buttocks in terms of Freud's contemporary discourse. Thus the symbolization of the buttocks as the erotic also has a place within Freud's system of representation.

Consciously building on the Freudian model, the American folklorist's Alan Dundes, in his Life is like a Chicken Coop Ladder (1982), stressed the study of the buttocks in terms of their symbolic value as the site of the production of the faeces. Thus anus and faeces become interchangeable. By relating the buttocks to other aspects of the body, Dundes, for example, examined the meaning of scatology in German cultural systems including child raising.

The buttocks are an ever-shifting symbolic site in the body. They are associated with the organs of reproduction, with the aperture of excretion, and with the mechanism of locomotion. Never do they represent themselves. Indeed the very problem of whether they are singular or plural is a sign of their nature as a floating signifier.

— Sander L. Gilman

Bibliography

Gilman, S. L. (1985). Difference and pathology: stereotypes of sexuality, race, and madness. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY.
Hennig, J. L. (1995). The rear view: a brief and elegant history of bottoms through the ages, trans. M. Crosland and E. Powell, Souvenir Press, London

Buttocks

Male human buttocks

Female human buttocks
Artery	superior gluteal artery, inferior gluteal artery
Nerve	superior gluteal nerve, inferior gluteal nerve, cluneal nerves
MeSH	Buttocks

The buttocks (singular: buttock) are rounded portions of the anatomy located on the posterior of the pelvic region of apes and humans, including many other bipeds or quadrupeds.

1 Anatomy
2 Connotations
3 Synonyms
4 Related terms
5 Fashion
6 See also
7 Sources and references
8 External links

Anatomy

Baboon hindquarters illustrating ischial callosities

The buttocks are formed by the masses of the gluteal muscles or 'glutes' (the gluteus maximus muscle and the gluteus medius muscle) superimposed by a layer of fat. The superior aspect of the buttock ends at the iliac crest, and the lower aspect is outlined by the horizontal gluteal crease. The gluteus maximus has two insertion points: 1/3 superior portion of the linea aspera of the femur, and the superior portion of the iliotibial tractus. The masses of the gluteus maximus muscle are separated by an intermediate gluteal cleft or "crack" in which the anus is situated.

The buttocks allow primates to sit upright without needing to rest their weight on their feet as four-legged animals do. Females of certain species of baboon have red buttocks that blush to attract males. In the case of humans, females tend to have wider and thicker buttocks due to higher subcutaneous fat and wider hips.

Some baboons and all gibbons, though otherwise fur-covered, have characteristic naked callosities on their buttocks. While human children generally have smooth buttocks, mature males and females have varying degrees of hair growth, as on other parts of their body. Females generally have hair growth in the gluteal cleft (particularly around the anus), often extending laterally onto the lower aspect of the cheeks. In addition to such areas, males often have hair growth over the most (or the entirety of) the buttocks.

Connotations

The English word of Greek origin "callipygian" indicates someone who has beautiful buttocks. However, the qualities that make buttocks beautiful or well-formed are not fixed, as sexual aesthetics of the buttocks vary considerably from culture to culture, from one period of fashion to another and even from person to person.

In ancient astrology, various parts of the body were associated with signs of the zodiac - e.g. the buttocks to the Balance. Depending on the context, exposure of the buttocks in non-intimate situations often causes feelings of shame, embarrassment or humiliation in a non-exhibitionist subject, and embarrassment or amusement in a non-voyeurist audience (see pantsing). Expressions such as being caught with one's pants/ trousers down or more explicitly in Dutch, "met de billen bloot" ("with bared buttocks"), use the image as a metaphor for non-physical embarrassment as well.

Students at Stanford University conduct a "mass-mooning" in May 1995.

Willfully exposing one's own bare buttocks as a protest, a provocation, or just for fun is called mooning.

Buttocks depicted on a plaster replica of Donatello's sculpture of David

A wedgie is pulling someone's undergarments or swimming trunks up through their buttock crack to be hauled over the top of the victim's trousers, sometimes partially baring the victim's buttocks.

It is no coincidence that the English verb to spank is the only one specifically meant for physical discipline of a specific part of the body, and various other languages have terms specifically referring to spanking; in many punitive traditions, the buttocks are the preferential target for painful lessons, from educational to judicial, as offering them for punishment (especially divested) adds a psychological dose of embarrassment and even sexual humiliation to the pain, which can be meted out with less risk of long-term corporal harm than elsewhere. There are, in various cultural traditions, expressions like "seat of learning" which refer to the preferential paining of the posterior in a submissively bent and exposed position.

Many comedians, writers and others rely on the buttocks in these and other ways (such as flatulence and toilet humor) as a source of amusement, camaraderie and fun, despite (or in some cases for the sake of) the risk of being in dubious taste, if not censored.

Because in most cultures the buttocks are rarely shown naked, they are generally considered unsuitable for ornamental body markings and body modification, but may be preferential for discreet markings, such as secretive membership proof or to be shown in intimate company (e.g. amongst lovers).

In American English, phrases use the buttocks or synonyms (especially butt and ass) as a pars pro toto for a whole person, but generally with a negative connotation. For example, terminating an employee may be described as "firing his ass". One might say "move your ass" or "haul ass" (or the polite, understood euphemisms "move it" or "haul it") as an exhortation to greater haste or urgency. Expressed as a function of punishment, defeat or assault becomes "kicking one's ass". Such phrases also may suggest a person's characteristics, e.g. difficult people are termed "hard asses" (polite euphemism: "hard nosed"). People deemed excessively puritanical or proper may be termed "tight asses" (in Australia and New Zealand, "tight ass" refers to someone who is excessively miserly). An annoying person or any source of frustration may be termed "a pain in the ass" (euphemism: "a pain in the neck", though some claim that this alleged euphemism actually appeared in English earlier than the former).

Certain physical dispositions of the buttocks — particularly size — are sometimes identified, controversially, as a racial characteristic (see race). The most famous intersection of racism and buttocks may be the case of Saartjie Baartman, the so-called Hottentot Venus.

Synonyms

Look up buttocks in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

The anatomical Latin name for the buttocks is nates (pronounced /ˈneɪtiːz/ or NEY-teez^[1] in English), which is plural; the singular, natis (buttock), is rarely used. As buttocks are an object of both shame and fascination, it is not surprising that there are many colloquial terms, euphemistic, ironic or other, to refer to them. These include the following:

backside, posterior, behind and its derivates (hind-quaers, hinder or the childish homophone heinie, strictly the whole body behind the hind leg-trunk attachment), rear or rear-end, derrière (French for "behind") - all strictly positional descriptions, as the inaccurate use of rump (as in 'rump roast', after a 'hot' spanking), thighs, upper legs; analogous are:
aft, stern and poop, naval in origin; in nautical jargon, buttocks also designates the aftermost portion of a hull above the water line and in front of the rudder, merging with the run below the water line
- apple(bottom) , referring to the similar shape of the fruit, derived from the 1970s. Also likened to an upside-down heart, attributed from various, popular ads of the '70s.
- caboose, originally a ship's galley in wooden cabin on deck; also the "rear end" car of a freight train, considered a cute synonym suitable for any audience
  
  Seattle's naked cyclists with painted buttocks
- cakes
- bottom (and the shortening "bot" as well as childish diminutives "bottie" or "botty"), but the use of similar-sounding booty is artistic liberty^{[citation needed]}
- tail (strictly anatomically a zoomorphism, humans only have a tail-bone, yet the illogical tail feather was popularized by musicians; also used for the even more sensual phallus) and tail-end
- trunk, in American English, particularly when describing large buttocks "junk in the trunk"
Tush or tushy (from the Yiddish language "tuchis" or "tochis" meaning "under" or "beneath")
dumper sometimes denotes the buttocks, especially when talking about a large butt.
arse or ass, asshole, and (butt-)hole - a pars pro toto (strictly only the actual body cavity and directly adjoining anal region); also used as an insult for a person. The term is Anglo-Saxon dialect, and over a thousand years old.
badonkadonk - onomatopoeic slang meaning the voluptuously bouncing, large yet firm buttocks of a woman
biscuits
breech, a metaphorical sense derived from on older form of the garment breeches (as the French culotte meaning pantoloons, via cul from Latin culus 'butt'), so 'bare breech' means without breeches, i.e. trouserless butt
bum - in British English, used frequently in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and many other English speaking Commonwealth countries, also historically in U.S., is a mild often humorous reference to buttocks, not necessarily in vulgar or sexual context: "I've a boil on my bum, thrice as large as my thumb" - The Judge With The Sore Rump, St. George Tucker. Also used in reference to anal intercourse, often as an insult, as in bum boy (for a homosexual). Also a verb - to practise anal intercourse.
buns, mounds (cfr. Butte, a geographical mound, known since 1805 in American English, from (Old) French butte "mound, knoll") and orbs - shape-metaphors.
bund - derived from Punjabi
bunda - bottom, of Brazilian Portuguese origin.
butt - the common term for a pair of buttocks (singular, as one body-part; cognate but neither its root nor an abbreviation) in the US, used in everyday speech. It is also acceptable in print.
can (a container) had an unusual development: the slang meaning "toilet" is recorded circa 1900, said to be a shortening of piss-can, the meaning "buttocks" from c. 1910, verb meaning "fire an employee" (to flush=dump?) from 1905.
cheeks, a shape-metaphor within human anatomy, but also used in the singular: left cheek and right cheek; sounds particularly naughty because of the homonym and the adjective cheeky, lending themselves to word puns
culo - (From Spanish/Italian/) slang, usually meaning a woman's voluptuous, round and firm buttocks. Put simply the Latino equivalent of booty, although in Spanish it is considered vulgar and offensive (but less so in Spain than in Latin America).
duffs - Scotch Irish origin
fanny - a socially acceptable term in print, in the United States at least, for many years before some of the bolder terms came along; and a subject of jokes, since "Fannie" can be a woman's name, diminutive of "Frances"; however, in British English fanny refers to the female genitals or vulva and is considered vulgar. The figure of a bare-bottomed lass named Fanny is ubiquitous in Provence (the southeast of France) wherever pétanque is played: traditionally when a player loses 13 to 0 it is said that “il est fanny” (he's fanny), and he has to kiss the bottom of a girl called Fanny; as there is rarely an obliging Fanny, there is always a substitute picture, woodcarving or pottery so that Fanny’s bottom is always available.^[2]
fourth point of contact: in military slang, because of the sequence of textbook parachute jump landing
fundament (literally "foundation", not common in this general sense in English, but for the butt since 1297)
Gand or Gaand - a Hindi derivate
hams, like buttocks generally as a plural, after the meat cut from the analogous part of a hog ; pressed ham refers to mooning against a window; brawn, a singular derived from the Frankish for ham or roast, is also used for both a muscular body part (but either on arms or legs) or boar meat, especially roast
hurdies - British, origin unknown, also applied to the whole rump
haunches
moon was a common shape-metaphor for the butt in English since 1756, and the verb to moon meant 'to expose to (moon)light' since 1601, long before they were combined in US student slang in the verb (al expression) mooning "to flash the buttocks" in 1968.
prat (British English, origin unknown; as in pratfall, a vaudeville term; also a term of abuse for a person)
seat (of the trousers; or metaphorically) another long-standing socially acceptable term, referring to the use for sitting - but compare the sarcastic use of seat of wisdom and similar expressions, such as 'seat of learning', referring to use as target for an 'educational' spanking.
sit-upon; has various independent counterparts in other languages, e.g. Dutch zitvlak ('sitting plain'), German Gesäß (~=guh|seys), Italian sedere
six; in military terminology, particularly in the U.S. Navy, it refers to the term "six o'clock", i. e. a point directly behind the referenced person.
ultimatum (Latin, literally 'the outer-most') was used in slang c.1820s.

For more slang terms for the buttocks, see WikiSaurus:buttocks — the WikiSaurus list of synonyms and slang words for buttocks in many languages.

For unrelated homophones of butt(ocks), see also butt (disambiguation) and bud (disambiguation)

Related terms

Japanese man in a traditional swimwear Fundoshi -rokushaku

The word "callipygian" is sometimes used to describe someone with notably attractive buttocks. The term comes from the Greek kallipygos, (first used for the Venus Kallipygos) which literally means "beautiful buttocks"; the prefix is also a root of "calligraphy" (beautiful writing) and "calliope" (beautiful voice); callimammapygian means having both beautiful breasts and buttocks.
Both the English (in) tails and the Dutch billentikker ('tapping the buttocks') are ironic terms for very formal coats with a significantly longer tail end as part of festive (especially wedding party) dress
macropygia means 'heaving large buttocks, hindquarter', and occurs in biological species names,
a pygopag(ous) (from the Greek pygè 'buttock' and pagein 'attached') was a monster in Ancient (Greek) mythology consisting of two bodies joint by common buttocks, now a medical term for 'Siamese' twins thus joint back-to-back
pygophilia is sexual arousal or excitement caused by seeing, playing with or touching the woman's buttocks; people who have strong attraction to buttocks are called pygophilists.
pygoscopia means observing someone's rear; pygoscopophobia a pathological fear to be its unwilling object
pygalgia is soreness in the buttocks, i.e. a pain in the rump.
Steatopygia is a marked accumulation of fat in and around the buttocks.
uropygial in ornithology mean, situated on, belonging to, the uropygium, i.e. the rump of a bird
"bubble butt" has at least two connotations, which are at odds with each other: either a small, round and firm pair of buttocks resembling a pair of soap bubbles next to each other, or a large rear end, seemingly about to burst from the strain. In both cases, the term implies an appealing shapeliness about the buttocks.

Fashion

Because many cultures have a (partial) nudity taboo, which usually applies specifically to the buttocks (as usually to the most erogenous zones), mainstream garments generally cover the buttocks completely, even when it is not a practical requirement. Nevertheless male and female clothing is often designed in a way that reveals the shape of the buttocks under the clothing.

Some articles of clothing are designed to expose the buttocks. Such clothing is not generally worn in public situations; however, it is sometimes considered appropriate to wear such clothing at swimming facilities or at the beach.

Emphasis on one part or another of the body tends to shift with generations. The 1880s were well-known for the fashion trend among women called the bustle, which made even the smallest buttocks seemingly huge. The popularity of this fashion is shown in the famous Georges Seurat painting Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte in the two women to the far left and right. Like long underwear with the ubiquitous 'butt flap' (used to allow baring only the bottom with a simple gesture, as for hygiene), this clothing style was acknowledged in popular media such as cartoons and comics for generations afterward.

More recently, the cleavage of the buttocks could be exposed by some women as fashion dictated trousers be worn lower. (known as a "coin slot", or "vertical smile").

An example of another attitude in an otherwise hardly exhibitionist culture is the Japanese fundoshi.

Sources and references

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Buttocks

Etymology on line one can also search for most synonyms
For synonyms: On-line thesaurus
This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913. passim

External links

"The Muscles and Fasciæ of the Thigh" (by Henry Gray) at "Anatomy of the Human Body", 1918.

Human anatomy (TA A01.1)

Head

Forehead · Ear · Jaw · Face (Cheek, Eye, Nose, Mouth, Chin) · Occiput · Scalp · Temple

Neck

Throat · Adam's apple

Torso

Breast · Thorax · Abdomen · Navel · Back · Pelvis
Sex organs

Limbs

Upper limb	Shoulder · Axilla · Arm Elbow · Forearm Wrist · Hand · Finger (Thumb · Index · Middle · Ring · Little)

Lower limb/ (see also leg)	Hip · Buttocks · Thigh Knee · Calf · Crus Ankle · Heel · Foot · Toe (Hallux · Fifth) · Sole

Skin

Hair

List of muscles of lower limbs (TA A04.7, GA 4.465)

ILIAC Region
/ ILIOPSOAS

psoas major/psoas minor · iliacus

BUTTOCKS

gluteals: (maximus, medius, minimus) · tensor fasciae latae
lateral rotator group: quadratus femoris · inferior gemellus · obturator internus · superior gemellus · piriformis

THIGH /
compartments

LEG/
Crus/
compartments

FOOT

Dorsal	extensor hallucis brevis · extensor digitorum brevis

Plantar	1st layer (abductor hallucis, flexor digitorum brevis, abductor digiti minimi) · 2nd layer (quadratus plantae, lumbrical muscle) · 3rd layer (flexor hallucis brevis, adductor hallucis, flexor digiti minimi brevis) · 4th layer (dorsal interossei, plantar interossei)

Fascia	Plantar fascia retinacula (Peroneal, Inferior extensor, Superior extensor, Flexor)

v • d • e Superficial anatomy and general regions of limbs (TA A01.2.07-08, GA 12.1325)

Upper limb	Cubital fossa · Anatomical snuff box

Lower limb	Buttocks : Gluteal sulcus · Gluteal cleft Femoral triangle Popliteal fossa

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Buttocks

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