Why are so many celebrities obsessed with showing us their rear view?
tHERE’S a revolution on the beaches of Barbados and St Barts this winter. Photographs are filtering through of white sands and breath-taking bodies, drawing mutters of envy from those left shivering at home.
Look a little closer, however, and you’ll notice a distinct difference in the usual format of these photographs: most seem to be taken from behind.
Getting the perfect ‘bottom shot’ has overtaken the pout and even the cleavage as the crucial body boast among look-at-me celebs.
But why are so many beautiful young women obsessed with showing us their bottoms?
Leading the charge has been model Suki Waterhouse — at least, we assume it’s her, as her face rarely makes it into view — posting pictures of her peachy bottom as she strolls in Barbados. More than 24,000 people have ‘liked’ the image on social media site Instagram.
Others have gleefully joined the fray. On New Year’s Eve, Made In Chelsea’s Millie Mackintosh posted a picture showing off her derriere in a skimpy purple swimsuit, captioned: ‘Leaving 2016 behind.’
Meanwhile, Kate Moss’s 18-year-old halfsister Lottie posted a snap of her perfectlyformed posterior on a beach in Barbados to her swelling Instagram fanbase. ‘Let me know when you have seen enough pictures of my bum,’ she wrote.
There is no doubt about it: (almost) bottomless has become the new topless. Of course, female buttocks have always been a symbol of beauty and fertility. The erotic beauty of the female bottom was important to the ancient Greeks, while African culture has long celebrated the larger-hipped female form.
Since the turn of the century, more substantial bottoms have become increasingly prized — even fetishised — in mainstream culture. In 2001, girl group Destiny’s Child, featuring Beyonce, released their hit single Bootylicious — a word that made it into the Oxford English Dictionary.
Sages at the OED defined it: ‘Bootylicious: sexually attractive, sexy; shapely.’
The generously proportioned pop star Jennifer Lopez capitalised further on the craze in 2014, calling her sexually-charged anthem Booty. The raunchy, bottom-jiggling video that accompanied it has been downloaded on YouTube more than 200 million times.
Then there’s Kim Kardashian. The extraordinary derriere of this reality star is more famous than most actresses’ entire bodies. I’d guess most people could pick out her bottom from a line-up ahead of her face.
aLSO, it’s extraordinary — and a little troubling — to think that the ageold female refrain ‘Does my bum look big in this?’ has been effectively re-written as ‘Does my bum look big enough in this?’
But it is not acceptance of body types in their infinite variety, but rather a new body ideal that women feel they must aspire to.
For while today’s desired bottom may be of more generous dimensions, the female form is still being subjected to the same tyranny of perfection handed down by celebrity culture.
Unless a woman’s rear is as round as an apple, cellulite-free, sits atop long and slender legs and is as smooth as alabaster, it won’t pass muster.
When girls feel their bottoms not only have to conform to a particular shape and size, but also have to be worthy of baring on the beach, it is a sad reflection of the increased sexualisation and pornification of popular culture.
Even for older women, a firm, but bouncy, backside has become a real status symbol. Despite more outstanding achievements in other fields, serious-minded women from Carol Vorderman to Sian Lloyd and Fiona Bruce have carried their Rear of The Year awards with pride.
If exercise doesn’t give you the derriere of your desires, there are industries built on helping women to fake it. You can add volume with ‘undetectable padded knickers’.
Or you can opt for surgery at one of the increasing number of clinics offering buttock augmentation.
While it is to be welcomed that bigbottomed girls no longer need feel ashamed of their figures, what this really amounts to is a new strand of body fascism. A strand that encourages girls not just to have bigger bottoms, but to expose them on the beach and beyond.
So, my response to Lottie Moss is: Yes, we’ve had enough. Because, as pert as your bottom is, it does the rest of your sex no favours at all.