After shedding the androgynous ideal of the 1920s, mainstream American notions of feminine beauty tended to center on the face and breasts. Although this still tends to be the case (evidence: breast augmentation is the #1 cosmetic surgery procedure), there have in recent years been a great deal of attention given to women with copious derrieres. While mainstream media represent this as a radical new trend, large buttocks have long been considered an attractive feature of femininity.
To the Greeks, the ideal woman had smallish breasts and very large buttocks. One of the more interesting statues highlighting this ideal is the “Aphrodite Kallipygos,” literally Aphrodite of the beautiful (kalos) buttocks (pagos), and sometimes described using the more familiar Latinate “Venus kalligloutos.” The statue is called Aphrodite, but the attribution is imprecise. It’s more likely a representation of a mortal woman, most likely a hetaera (courtesan). In the statue, the woman is lifting her peplos (gown) to look at her rear. This piece is important not only because it calls attention to the large posterior, but it tells us that this was a cultural value, that women actually checked out their appearance before going out, much as they do today. Although the woman might be concerned that her buttocks are too large, the universal use of large buttocks in statuary and the contemporary appreciation of the sculptor’s largesse imply that she is making sure her butt is big enough.
It is sometimes associated with a story recorded in 554 CE in which two country-dwelling sisters are trying to decide which of them has the prettiest buttocks. The girls go out onto the road and raise their dresses before a young man, who judges the older to be more attractive. Unsatisfied, the two girls go out the next day for a second opinion and show their buttocks to another young man, who judges the younger to be fairer. As it turns out, this young man is the younger brother of the other one, and the two men marry the two women, and they move to the city and found a temple for Aphrodite the fair-buttocked. Because no record of this story exists that is as old as the original of the statute, claims that the statue illustrates the story seem apocryphal.
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