Bottoms Bring Us Together

Marvelous art by Jeanne Lorioz

I was out to brunch by the sea with my play partner last weekend when a group of lovely ladies in form-enhancing pants walked by. Attempting not to stare like a common degenerate (I’m a classy degenerate, thank you!), I whispered what I was seeing. 

“Pretty ladies with such nice bottoms. There are still some good things in this crazy world.”

My partner nodded without looking up from his food, already aware of what I’d seen. “Makes life worth living.” 

I chuckled, scooping up another mouthful of huevos rancheros. He paused to lock eyes with me, brows raised and shaking his head slightly, utterly serious. “I’m not kidding. If that’s gone, kill me now. No point in continuing.”

I cannot disagree. I’m not sure what a world without bottoms would look like—perhaps we’d all just slither around like snakes—but I don’t want to live there. No butts?! It would be an epic tragedy and I’d demand a refund. 

This isn’t about reducing all of reality to rumps, nor do I seek to objectify those lovely ladies who caught my eye. I would never prioritize aesthetics over the value of their souls. But in an empathy-starved world of vulgar violence and grotesquely smelly corruption, bottoms help bring us all back to basics. 

I don’t know a single person who hates bottoms. Not one. And that is saying a lot in relation to our fickle species, is it not? Our collective passion for the human posterior exceeds even our love of things like tacos, cats, and COFFEE. Every one of us has a bottom—one with two round cheeks that are surely bare at certain times of day. This fact unites us all. 

Our bottoms are a symbol of earthly instinct. They represent what is most natural and right about our species. Softly curved, much like the planet itself, they give off a humble air of playfulness. From the beginning of recorded history, humans have been inspired to create art depicting mighty haunches, ensuring evidence of our shared obsession is passed down through generations.

Take, for instance, the acclaimed Venus of Willendorf, a 4.4-inch-tall, 30,000-year-old Paleolithic statuette discovered in 1908 in Austria. Carved from limestone and colored with red ochre, the figurine features exaggerated female features.

The Venus of Willendorf is housed in the Naturhistorisches Museum in Vienna. (Source)

Its curves dance in the mind like sparkles on waves.

Humans are intrinsically drawn to roundness for several reasons related to survival, adding a degree of instinctual common sense to our collective enchantment with pairs of jiggling cheeks. Here are a few:

• Safety signaling: We associate sharp angles and pointed shapes with threats in nature, such as thorns, claws, teeth, and jagged rocks. Rounded shapes signal an absence of danger. Studies have shown our brain's amygdala, the threat-detection center, responds more strongly to angular shapes while roundness produces feelings of calm.

• Biological wellness: Roundness in nature—seen in the form of ripe fruit, well-fed bodies, and full breasts—is linked to succulence, health, and abundance. Ancestors who found these traits attractive were more likely to survive and reproduce.

• Visual processing: Curves are easier for our visual system to process. Our line of sight flows smoothly around them, while angles require the brain to pause and recalculate.

We are therefore primed to respond powerfully to bottoms, for they make us feel safe, abundant, and alive. As long as there are plump, bulbous pairs of cheeks walking the earth, the holiest aspects of existence cannot be taken from us. 

Civilization may crumble, empires may fall, but bottoms endure. The great philosophers of olde asked the universe what was sacred and true. The answer, as it were, has been behind us all along. 

-T