Apr 11


The perfect ass

by Terry 11 April 2006


For many of the women I know, the breast insecurity of their youth has been surpassed by butt-consciousness in middle age. Too big, not big enough, cellulite, jiggle, sag, etc; we don’t want to see what’s behind us. Now David Holmes, a psychology lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, England, has devised a formula to tell us just how unhappy we should be.

From the Sunday Times (Australia):

The magical figures are (S+C) x (B+F)/T = V. Though the equation looks rather complicated, it is, according to the scientist, simple.

It assesses shape, bounce, firmness and symmetry – all factors that add up to the bottom line.

S is the overall shape or droopiness of the bottom, C represents how spherical the buttocks are, B measures muscular wobble or bounce, while F records the firmness.

V is the hip to waist ratio, or symmetry of the bottom, and T measures the skin texture and presence of cellulite.

[snip]

“The perfect female derrière has firmness to the touch and a resilience that prevents undue wobble or bounce, yet looks soft with flawless skin,” Dr Holmes said.

“Slender thighs and a hip-to-waist ratio of 0.7 will frame the perfect bum, well perfectly.”

Each attribute is rated on a 1-5 scale, with a perfect score being 80.

I’m wondering just how a psychology lectureship qualifies this guy as an expert, but that question is never addressed. He apparently feels free, as the self-appointed Butt Police, to rank the women he sees by this scale and announce his findings to the press.

Dr Holmes said that Kylie Minogue, whose celebrated bottom relaunched her career with the help of a pair of hotpants, would almost certainly score a perfect 80.

“Kylie would score amazingly well on sphericality and symmetry. Her bottom is pretty much perfect in these areas, more so than the likes of Charlotte Church or Jennifer Lopez, who have more curvy posteriors,” he said.

“While no one, of course, can be sure of the firmness and texture of Kylie’s bottom, from the exposure it has been given in the newspapers it is obviously muscular and is likely to score highly in these categories also.”

The acceptability of our bodies is no longer opinion. It’s quantifiable fact. Rating us on a 1-10 scale is not even enough anymore – we’ve now got an 80 point range to have our failings identified with pinpoint accuracy, provided we let men grab to assess firmness and skin texture. He has proposed no similar formula for men.

In my humble opinion, the true perfect ass is not the one being evaluated but the one doing the study.

Via Boing Boing, which ironically had a Suicide Girls ad displaying on the page when I viewed it.

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12 Comments

12 Responses to “The perfect ass”

  1. Bluegrass Poet on April 12th, 2006 5:24 pm

    In my humble opinion, the true perfect ass is not the one being evaluated but the one doing the study.

    Right on, sister!  (Quote)

  2. Ahistoricality on April 12th, 2006 7:32 pm

    I wonder if this is one of those cases where the reportage is exaggerating the goofy aspects of scholarship for amusement value? (and the researcher is playing along because it’s the only way to get research noticed by modern journalists) Holmes seems to be a reasonably normal psychologist (a bit of googling, is all), and the study itself involves a significant body self-evaluation component: Body self-image and social definitions of beauty are both entirely legitimate topics within social psychology.

    Just a thought.  (Quote)

  3. Burrow on April 12th, 2006 8:02 pm

    I think we found the perfect ass(es)-the people who came up with this!  (Quote)

  4. Terry on April 12th, 2006 8:24 pm

    Ahistorically, thanks for commenting. I’m glad to have your opinions. While the intent of his study may have been legitimate in terms of body image, it could not have been limited to women’s self-perceptions because one of his conclusions, which I did not excerpt, is the difference between men’s preferences and women’s on women’s bodies. Someone was assessing and rating those women besides themselves.

    Perhaps he sought to answer psychological and societal questions, but in my opinion he crossed the line with his comments to the press. If he was set up by the writer, he walked into it himself. To me, his comments dissecting and comparing named women’s anatomies were sexist, boorish and completely unprofessional.  (Quote)

  5. Ahistoricality on April 13th, 2006 2:46 am

    To me, his comments dissecting and comparing named women’s anatomies were sexist, boorish and completely unprofessional.

    Well, you’re not going to get an argument from me on that score. (I could, if I really cared, construct scenarios in which his comments might be rationalizable …. but that’s his job, not mine.) I will say, though: he’s gone to a great deal of trouble to amass considerable data; it ought to be useful for something!  (Quote)

  6. Terry on April 13th, 2006 8:32 am

    I hope you’re right!  (Quote)

  7. Sour Duck on April 13th, 2006 3:27 pm

    Ahist – His data is useful for promoting his career.

    And don’t hint at being able to construct a counter-argument without actually doing it. You seem to be teetering on defending him.  (Quote)

  8. Sour Duck on April 13th, 2006 3:40 pm

    Sorry, Ahist, I think I got a bit aggressive in my language in that last comment.

    Besides, Terry has answered you beautifully in comment no. 4.  (Quote)

  9. decrepitoldfool on April 14th, 2006 2:03 pm

    I wonder if he is really serious – it seems like a long way to go for a joke.

    It occurred to me some time ago that the standard of beauty may be that which is antipodal to whatever the main health problem are most common in the societal context in which it exists.

    For example, if a society suffers from difficulty in ‘getting enough food’, then a person carrying a few extra pounds may be seen as beautiful. Ditto for a thin person in a society in which it is common to suffer chronic health problems related to obesity.

    Since either can be carried to an unhealthy extreme, the next step is a conscious health-related beauty standard (as if we need a standard, but what the heck) that focuses on strength, mobility, energy, range of motion, etc.

    I would like to see a study of eye tracking of people viewing pictures of naked people. I bet a certain subset of individuals tend to look at the face first even when the subject is naked. It would be interesting to correlate that with age, gender, nationality, religion, etc. to see if trends emerge.

    Then there are matters of preference such as facial symmetry, jawbone proportion, etc. – this has been studied at length and found that most people prefer symmetrical faces that amount to an average of thousands of faces.

    So this guy picking out one body part and trying to define perfection, well it doesn’t make a lot of sense.  (Quote)

  10. Terry on April 14th, 2006 3:25 pm

    I like your idea of an eye tracking study, DOF. That would make fascinating reading. I agree that there’s definitely a percentage of people who look at faces first.

    Yes, his focusing in on one body part is odd. I wonder at his motivation.  (Quote)

  11. Tish G on April 19th, 2006 6:55 pm

    well..he *could* have a butt fetish. a real one. and if that’s the case, he’s just no good to a real woman. just give him a foam-rubber cast of the perfect butt and he’d be in heaven…

    I’ve been told I’ve got a heart-shaped butt. have no clue what it means, but there’s an awful lot of it these days and I prefer baggy pants.  (Quote)

  12. I See Invisible People » The bottom line on June 10th, 2006 1:04 pm

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