BBC News, UK
11 February 2011 Last updated at 06:37 ET
Big buttocks: Where does our obsession come from?
By Rajini Vaidyanathan BBC News, Washington
Surgeons are warning of the risks of DIY buttock enhancement after a
20-year-old woman died in the US from silicone injections. why do so
many women now want to be big-bottomed girls?
For some people, bigger is better.
But tragically, for Claudia Aderotimi, it was the desire for a more
shapely behind which ended in her death.
The student, who lived in North London, had travelled to Philadelphia
for silicone injections, but died after suffering chest pains and
breathing trouble following the procedure.
Police investigating her death believe she made contact with a
supplier over the internet, exchanging text messages and phone calls
before flying over.
Even though the injection of liquid silicone for cosmetic purposes is
banned in the US, there is a burgeoning black market in the substance.
For many, the risks of the banned injections are worth taking, for the
reward of a shapelier bottom.
Several internet chatrooms discuss the injections freely.
"I wanna have one of them big ghetto booties that turn heads and make
em drool. just kidding, I just want enough to fill out my jeans,"
writes one poster.
"I have received butt injections before. I get it done every six
months… it is the first thing that men go crazy," writes another,
who says she is a dancer.
Bootylicious
Claudia was a budding actress and model, who once wrote of how she
"dreamt of taking the world by storm".
Some people in the business say the pressure to look like stars who
sport larger bottoms, such as Jennifer Lopez, Nicki Minaj, Buffy
Carruth and Beyonce Knowles, is encouraging young women to turn to
cosmetic procedures.
As a singer and actor who stars in music videos, Tassie Jackson says
the urge to conform is powerful.
"I personally haven't one done and I wouldn't. But, in today's society
and the world that we live in, a lot of women feel the competition and
the need to enhance their features," she says.
"There are pressures to look like our favourite icons and role models."
Some artists will look for women with "more curves" when choosing
dancers for a music video, she adds.
References to so-called "booty", a slang term for bottom, are
commonplace in hip hop and rap music.
Beyonce Knowles' former band Destiny's Child even brought the word
"Bootylicious" to mainstream consciousness. the term, which now even
appears in the Oxford English Dictionary, is an amalgam of "booty" and
the word "delicious".
But it's not just young people immersed in hip-hop culture who yearn
for a bigger bottom.
The number of buttock enhancements across all ages has risen in recent
years, with the most desired waist-to-hip ratio standing at around 0.7
- an hourglass figure.
There were more than 5,000 buttock lift and implant procedures (which
are legal) carried out in the US in 2009, according to the American
Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.
Fuller figure
It is difficult to know how many illegal treatments are taking place -
but the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says the number of cases
leading to serious injury or death is on the rise.
Dr Constantino Mendieta, a plastic surgeon who specialises in buttock
implants, dates the trend back to Jennifer Lopez's rise to stardom in
the 1990s.
Women wearing bustles Victorian women wore "bustles" to enhance their rears
"she showed how nice it can look when you've got the right curves,"
says Dr Mendieta.
"It's not that we never looked at the buttock before then, but it was
a taboo subject. she drew attention to it in a good way."
Demand for Dr Mendieta's Miami Thong Lift operation – which transfers
fat from other areas of the body to create a fuller bottom – has risen
20-fold in the last decade.
However, the cost of $14,000 (£8,700) is beyond the reach of some
women, leading them to turn to cheaper, but dangerous methods to
replicate the look.
"Many people don't have a licence to practise, they're injecting in
hotels, spas and apartments – all non-sterile environments," he says.
Cultural differences
Ms Mendible points out that buttock augmentation has been around for
years – in the 19th Century, women wore "bustles" to exaggerate their
behinds.
At the same time, she says, large bottomed-people have historically
been a source of ridicule in many cultures.
The most striking example was the Hottentot Venus, a young African
woman who was kidnapped and exhibited around Europe in colonial times
because she had large buttocks.
"It was almost a freak show," says Ms Mendible. "she was paraded
around and exhibited as an example of what made African women
different."
Today, buttock augmentation procedures – both legal and illegal – are
most common among African-American, Hispanic and transgender
communities.
Female body types have always been a sign of what society aspires to,
Ms Mendible says, with a lean muscular form preferred in capitalist
countries, compared with larger rears in poorer places such as her
native Cuba.
"There, if you're thin it's a sign of being poor, it's not a sign of
beauty," she says.
"To them the voluptuous body is a sign of good health and fertility."
BBC © MMXI
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12411274
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Everything: [News] [UK/USA] Big buttocks: Where does our obsession come from?