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Friday, 25 January 2013

VINTAGE TGB: What Happened to My Butt?

EDITORIAL NOTE: I needed a day off yesterday for a day trip to the Oregon coast with my friend and house guest, Jim Stone, so you are getting a vintage post from a couple of years ago. Everything I said still holds.

We all had some silly fun with the Naked Guys' Balloon Dance in the Interesting Stuff post on Saturday.

I am sure that Marcia Mayo (who blogs at Well Aged With Some Marbling) is not the only one among you who, as she wrote in a comment, “kept trying to watch their crotches” to see if she could “check out their stuff.”

Come on, now. Admit it. You did the same thing. I certainly did.

Even so, I was more interested in their butts or, since they are British, their arses. What a nice collection of round, juicy, pat-able posteriors. Take a look:

Aren't they cute? Don't you want to grab them and squeeze?

That isn't common with guys. I remember a boss I had 40 years ago who, in his meanderings around the office, often passed my desk with his fanny directly in my line of sight. It was flat as a pancake, nothing there at all and I used to think that was a shame. He was otherwise such an attractive, interesting man.

Most men have moderately good bottoms – at least some small amount of meat to fill out their trousers – and the lucky few, like the balloon dancers, have spectacular backsides of the sort that show off particularly well in snug-fitting khakis, less so in jeans and hardly at all in suit pants.

Far more women have nice hind ends and although my sexual orientation leans otherwise, I can still appreciate a well-shaped female derriere.

For example, my own. Unlike guys, my tush looked best in jeans, especially men's Levi's 501s, and even better when paired with high-heeled shoes. I took full advantage of that in my younger years.

It's been a long while since I pranced around so attired and anyway, it's no longer possible, with a waist as wide as my hips, to fit into those sexy 501s.

But I still have to ask, what happened to my cute keister? It's not exactly flat now but there is no shape. I know this because – only for the purpose of this blog post, you understand - I checked it in an angled mirror.

There is none of the definition that once made men glance my way as I walked past. And it is not even a particularly fat ass. I am currently on my biennial diet to get rid of the excess weight that accumulates, but it doesn't gather in my rump. My body is more like that of an aging beer-drinker – all the fat goes to my waist and belly.

My hindquarters do not appear to have dropped much either, but the oomph is gone. (By the way, I produced a television show many years ago with the actress Julie Newmar who had invented - and patented - pantihose that lifts your buttocks.)

I can't say much about other elder women's bums but I suspect, since I don't recall having noticed any, that they are generally no more beauteous than my own.

A lot of old men, like that boss I mentioned, have no rear end at all, walking about with nothing to fill their saggy pants. Where do you suppose it goes?

I don't mind my wrinkles or little jowls anymore and I've accepted the crepe that is beginning to drape my neck. But, you know, I miss my quite excellent youthful fundament even though I have no idea what I would do with it if it were still there.

A final note: The English language has an amazing number of names for our bums and behinds. For no more reason than to amuse myself, I've used as many as I can think of without once repeating myself or checking a thesaurus. Have I missed any?

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At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Joyce Benedict: The Moth

Posted by Ronni Bennett at 05:30 AM | Permalink | Email this post