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Getting to the bottom of Japanese gals' ass-pirations

Japanese women's bottoms, or lack thereof, have long been the butt of jokes, but changing attitudes toward posteriors mean local lasses are less likely to make asses of themselves, judging by AERA (6/6).

Take Eriko, a 26-year-old woman who has no doubts about what her husband likes in a lady following some of the first words he spoke to her on their initial date four years ago.

"I like a woman with a nice ass," he told her.

Despite having a bountiful bust most Japanese women would die for, Eriko's husband is the kind of guy who finds boobs can butt out when it comes to a cracking caboose, so she hasn't been able to take her mind off her bottom ever since.

Now, whenever Eriko goes shopping for clothes, she's always conscious of how her tush will display whenever she takes anything into a change room. At a time when tight-fitting jeans are trendy in Japan, she can't ignore the shape of her derriere.

"You're stereotypical image of a cool woman is a woman whose ass doesn't sag," Eriko tells AERA.

Japanese posteriors have tended to flatten rather than flatter. But now, women who think like Eriko are, the women's weekly claims, becoming more common.

Kose, a tope Japanese cosmetics manufacturer, surveyed 650 people in the Tokyo area and discovered that 40 percent of women in their early 20s, 41.4 percent of women in their late 20s and 54.3 percent of women in their early 30s disliked the shape of their ass. Each demographic doted over their derriere by at least 10 percentage points more than the same age group in an identical survey four years earlier.

Many of the 20- and 30-something women the weekly interview for its story said their ideal butt shape is "like a foreigner's."

By that, they mean the typical Western model's well-rounded buttocks and not the average ass found on the streets in places such as the United States, where the manifest destiny of the derriere appears to be spreading as far and wide as possible on all sides of the continental divide.

Terukazu Uchida, head of the Hari Medical Uchida Clinic and author of "Oshiri Bijin ni Naritai! (I Want to be a Nice Ass Beauty)," argues the recent fondness for fundaments could have more to do with rousing than arousal.

"Stimulating the buttocks may unconsciously be an inspiration for people," the physician tells AERA, pointing out the proclivity for slapping bums employed by sumo wrestlers and baseball players.

Desiring a more rounded rump may even be something more primal.

"Basically, four-legged animals' butts don't sag," Takuya Kura, head of Kyoto University's Zoological Studies Department, explains, saying that fat tends to build up on their bellies if walking around on all fours.

But Kura adds that the bottom still plays an important role in the mating process, especially with such creatures as scorpions and spiders, where the male runs the risk of being eaten by the female if it tries to mate front-on.

Nobuo Masataka, head of the Kyoto University Primate Research Institute, agrees, arguing that the bottom may have more to do with a women's sex appeal than she thinks. Masataka, who specializes in comparing the behavior of humans and other primates, says that when a female Japanese macaque is in heat, her buttocks get bigger, rounder and turn bright red, which is a sign to male monkeys that she's ready for action.

"This is what causes men to find the buttocks sexually appealing and, I don't know whether it's a conscious act or not, but the growing preference for rounder buttocks may be women's reaction to men's tastes," Masataka suggests.

Feminist psychologist Junko Umihara, however, sees Japanese women's yearning for a fuller ass to be something entirely different, saying that men don't even come into the picture.

"The human coccygeal, or tailbone, corresponds to the tail of a dog. When a dog feels good about itself, it raises its tail and gives it a wag. It's proof the dog feels good," Umihara tells AERA. "That women now want a more raised posterior is proof of their liberation from the male dominated society that had expected their obedience and may be an unconscious expression of their delight."

mainichi news 2005

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