Culture Study Podcast - Your Questions About Butts, Answered

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00:00:50.500 butt tushy ass badonkadonk bottom buttocks rear tuchus yours are all better than mine

00:01:02.720 um derriere derriere money maker backside cake

00:01:08.380 oh i always am like a little confused what how much of a body that refers to but i think it's

00:01:17.180 inclusive what about milkshake does that count see that's one i think it's maybe more i mean i

00:01:24.800 don't know i kind of think it's more than i was just listening to that milkshake that brings all

00:01:29.240 the boys to the yard i was like is it the breasts is it the butt is it everything everything it is

00:01:36.520 it's the vibe of my body um is the butt a private part it's a really good question yeah it is and

00:01:43.960 it isn't, which I think is part of its appeal. Right. Because and for our purposes, we're

00:01:49.780 talking about the cheeks, not the hole. And that in particular is very liminal.

00:02:00.280 I'm Anne Helen Peterson, and this is the Culture Study Podcast. And you know, sometimes we have

00:02:07.360 people who come to the Culture Study newsletter, do a Q&A. It's amazing. But I still want to talk

00:02:13.880 to them more because there are lots of different things that I want to ask that didn't fit into

00:02:18.120 you know a written response and then also we get a lot of reader questions so this is going to be

00:02:22.900 a podcast companion to our previous deep dive on butts a backstory if you haven't read the

00:02:29.300 newsletter I highly recommend it but you can also listen to this episode all on its own so the author

00:02:34.220 of butts a backstory is Heather Radke thank you so much for being here oh thanks so much for having

00:02:40.260 me it's a real honor so why butts like how did you first think like this is a book well I it sort

00:02:48.620 of started as an essay that I was working on I was doing an MFA at Columbia in non-fiction writing

00:02:55.260 and I was I was working on an essay that was kind of about body shame but I was really interested

00:03:01.300 in what I call mundane shame so like just feeling bad about your body the way we all do every day

00:03:09.280 nothing like nothing like a big eating disorder or like horrific bullying just this kind of like

00:03:15.880 low level feeling of like I don't feel good about myself that I think so many people live with all

00:03:23.320 the time and for me one of those things was always about my butt because I had a big I had have you

00:03:30.400 know always will have probably a big butt I'm a white woman I grew up in mid-Michigan um I was

00:03:37.680 a teenager in the 90s and that was like a time and place and racial category that meant that

00:03:45.060 having a big butt was kind of considered gross or a problem something I needed to contend with

00:03:51.920 not something to be celebrated so I was writing an essay about that about just like some things

00:03:56.880 that had happened in high school and the way my mom felt about her butt and I got interested in

00:04:03.200 where that shame comes from. And I think there were some kind of obvious answers or sort of

00:04:08.880 suggestions of obvious answers about race and gender presentation. But when I really started

00:04:15.300 to research them, I just realized how vast this topic was and how there was no way I was going

00:04:21.960 to be able to answer it meaningfully in an essay. So I started to think about it as a book project,

00:04:26.840 and it really just kind of like spooled from there. I mean, I really do think there could be

00:04:30.880 many many volumes written about this and this was just like one possible treatment of it yeah

00:04:36.480 that's one of the things i really appreciated about the book is how it used this jumping off

00:04:41.500 point of like we're supposed to feel a certain sort of way about these different parts of our

00:04:47.200 bodies and it really got me thinking about like that internal monologue that is so present that

00:04:52.080 sometimes you don't you forget that it comes from somewhere just like that critique the constant

00:04:58.300 disciplining of your body that goes on both in terms of like what you put into your body how

00:05:03.740 you treat your body but also just like how you think about your body and how it has to be

00:05:07.660 especially I think for women we're taught to be constantly trying to reform the body in some way

00:05:14.640 like you have to have feelings about your body and that's why body neutrality is such a radical

00:05:19.780 concept because just imagine not feeling any sort of like feeling the same sort of way about your

00:05:25.580 body as I feel about a light switch. Can you imagine? No, I mean, I love it as an idea. But

00:05:31.940 I do think it's also a near impossibility because we're just sort of sort of indoctrinated about our

00:05:37.840 bodies from such an early age. Yeah. In the newsletter Q&A, you said that, quote, butts are

00:05:43.780 biologically pretty straightforward, even though they are culturally very complicated. So I would

00:05:49.440 love to hear a little bit about the cultural history of the butt. What are the big moments

00:05:53.500 and the butt timeline well i mean i really started my butt timeline in about 1800 but obviously

00:06:01.260 there's like much history before that and i think kind of the big first moment was when sarah bartman

00:06:07.940 was brought up from south africa by two men i mean then one of the many things about her story we

00:06:13.540 don't totally know is if if she was brought up on her own free will or if she was enslaved and she

00:06:20.320 was so she was a woman with a large butt from the koi tribe in south africa and she was brought to

00:06:27.300 london where she was displayed in piccadilly where a lot of other kind of colonial um

00:06:33.280 objects and people were displayed also to show off what was going on as the empire expanded and

00:06:40.340 people paid to come and look at her and touch her and poke her and i mean it's a horrible story but

00:06:46.140 it's a story that actually like that is not even the end of how horrible it is then she was she

00:06:51.700 went to France where she died a very early death kind of a tragic death and then she was her body

00:06:58.300 was dissected by a scientist named George Cuvier who was one of the most famous scientists in France

00:07:05.000 and of that time of the early 19th century and he used the autopsy report as evidence of what many

00:07:12.740 scientists believe but he was a big proponent of which was that African people were not fully human

00:07:17.980 and that particularly African women were hypersexual and there was like a whole bunch

00:07:23.100 of reasons why this was a kind of important and convenient theory for white Europeans and white

00:07:29.680 Americans at that time but it's sort of like the the codification of a stereotype that like we'll

00:07:34.940 see for the you know we still see today it lives through the through two centuries and I think the

00:07:39.480 other thing that's always important to say about Sarah Bartman is Cuvier displayed her parts of her

00:07:45.020 body in his museum and they stayed on display into the 1970s and in fact there was a there was

00:07:51.320 an exhibit in the 90s at the Musée d'Orsay that included her body parts and this kind of strange

00:07:57.340 cast he had made of her body so it's like the kind of history that feels so old or like we would

00:08:03.340 never do that or something but like in fact in both of our lifetimes we could have seen that

00:08:09.100 those body parts on display right and contributed in so many pernicious and normalized ways to like

00:08:16.520 the larger colonial project that like that's you know that still is part of the ideologies that

00:08:23.300 are operating within a lot of these spaces and certainly within like museum spaces up until

00:08:27.400 very recently the other thing that i appreciated in the book is that you actually talk about like

00:08:32.880 the butts utility so like part of your history is thinking about okay how did butts make it

00:08:38.420 possible for us to stand yeah yeah no totally and you're I think you're a runner right so maybe this

00:08:44.380 is like particularly of interest to you there's yeah so I'm you know I work at Radiolab and I was

00:08:49.900 interested in the science of the butt for a bunch of reasons one of them was that a thing when I

00:08:54.700 first started working on this project people always would kind of bring up was this idea that

00:08:59.460 like big butts had some kind of evolutionary purpose like there was a real commitment to this

00:09:05.080 idea, particularly from men who would just kind of discuss it casually. And so I, I felt like it

00:09:12.180 was important for me to understand the biological purpose of all the parts of the butt. And I mean,

00:09:17.540 I think it is a really straightforward, almost simple part of the body. It's like, the muscle

00:09:22.740 is there to make it so that when you run, you don't fall forward. But running is this like

00:09:26.820 amazing human adaptation that was like, most scientists now think was very critical to our

00:09:32.500 development into like large brained people because basically running lets you hunt big

00:09:40.500 animals which have a lot of calories and you really need all those calories if you're going

00:09:45.440 to have a big brain and particularly if you're going to have a baby with a big brain so all the

00:09:50.600 adaptations in our bodies for running which the butt is one but it's certainly not the only one

00:09:54.800 they make it so that like you know not even like pre homo sapien like we're talking about like

00:10:00.340 homo erectus they those creatures could like run long long distances and although you can't like

00:10:07.780 out sprint an antelope you can out long distance run an antelope because an antelope can run really

00:10:14.080 fast but only for short periods of time so what the way you like kind of in this idea at least

00:10:20.380 the way you would kill an antelope is you just like run forever at this slow pace and eventually

00:10:25.980 that animal will basically like, you know, keel over and then you like beat it with a rock or

00:10:32.440 something. That's right. And then you eat the animal. Yeah. You know, you're, it's interesting

00:10:38.380 that you point out that I keep going back to this physical part because I'm a runner. And it's

00:10:43.300 really true though. The more I thought about it, like one of my tweaky areas as a runner is in my

00:10:50.540 right glute and I like that's a word for butt right is glute and only you only say it though

00:10:56.900 when you're talking about like a sporty thing right but when I go to my sports massage therapist

00:11:03.420 like he goes to town on my right glute like he is up in there in the butt and it never

00:11:10.220 never feels weird or sexual or like an abject area or anything like that I'm just like oh

00:11:17.480 it is a place in my body that so many I hold tension there so many other parts of like my

00:11:23.820 my stride connect there and thinking of it through that lens of this is what makes my body do what I

00:11:30.600 want it to do has made me think about it differently like and part of that is naming it

00:11:36.740 glue and part of it too is just being like this is what allows me to run like I need to keep it

00:11:40.820 healthy totally yeah I mean it's an amazing part of the body I mean it's the biggest muscle in our

00:11:45.160 bodies. I think it's the biggest like of that kind. I think your intestines are probably a

00:11:50.540 bigger muscle. But and then also the fat on our butts, which I found very profound when I talked

00:11:55.740 to the anthropologists about this, like that, you know, women need a lot more fat than men or

00:12:02.140 females need a lot more fat than males, really. If you're going to be a person who has a baby,

00:12:08.700 there's like you need to have a lot of fat to store estrogen. But really, it's because you go

00:12:13.480 through so much so many calories when you're pregnant and then really it's breastfeeding

00:12:17.700 because you just like pound through these calories while you're breastfeeding and so

00:12:21.040 basically you have to store a lot more fat on your body and that just that fact I found quite

00:12:26.740 profound because we have more fat on our bodies than almost any other animal on the planet except

00:12:33.140 for like whales that's a lot that's like a lot of fat and no one's like oh that whale is so fat

00:12:39.320 they're like no that whale has has like the correct amount of fat to like allow it to sustain

00:12:45.940 life and like live in the ocean yeah and i mean it's like it's like a biological necessity it's

00:12:51.480 not yeah and that one of the things i really liked finding out was this idea that fat doesn't

00:12:58.240 show up on the fossil record which is like a very obvious thing if you think about it but what that

00:13:02.660 means fat it doesn't show up just like like by the way like hair doesn't show up like penis size

00:13:08.460 doesn't show up like flesh doesn't show up so yeah there's a lot of things we sort of

00:13:12.500 you have like some sense maybe that you know what like ancient man looked like but like we don't

00:13:19.760 we have no idea and no it's important that we kind of remember that because a lot of our fantasies

00:13:25.440 about like what a correct body look like come from some really kind of not scientific idea about

00:13:33.520 like the original human right breasts too right like totally there's no record the breasts are

00:13:40.280 gone and i think that that like whatever we have of these representations it's extrapolated from

00:13:47.220 our current understanding of like what a hunter and gatherer would look like like what that body

00:13:53.320 would look like right and there's probably you know depending on the climate depending on the

00:13:57.880 diversity of life it's like probably all kinds of bodies looked all kinds of ways then just like

00:14:03.120 they do now so I mean you know there's obviously all kinds of studies about like the way that

00:14:07.760 there's been more fat over the last 100 years or something like there's all like I don't mean to

00:14:12.080 say any of that's not real it's just that like I think we have to always kind of

00:14:16.340 question our ideas about things like what is like the perfect body or the original body or

00:14:22.940 like one of the things that would come up a lot when I was at parties and talking about this book

00:14:26.640 was people would say things like women with big butts are more fertile but that's like this really

00:14:32.680 messy evolutionary psychology thing that really took hold in the 90s and just

00:14:38.420 got into every major magazine including like the Atlantic and you know I mean sure like Maxim and

00:14:44.860 these kind of men's magazines but also into mainstream publications that were like

00:14:48.800 because the studies are so funny like the word but really goes a long way trust me

00:14:54.580 and so like to put be able to write a headline about that the science was never very good and

00:15:01.900 it's just not true. You're saying that like there were studies that were pretty bad that people saw

00:15:07.320 and were like, oh, this would be a good headline. And so publish the findings, even though maybe

00:15:11.840 the science was not well, that's probably a little bit ungenerous. I think what was true

00:15:15.500 was that evolutionary psychology became this really big thing in the 90s. And that's basically

00:15:20.460 the idea that almost everything, including our desire can be explained through like a sort of

00:15:28.160 evolutionary lens so that there's like a reason a sort of biological imperative that we like

00:15:35.160 certain things that we eat certain things yeah yeah and this was a really popular way and kind

00:15:40.540 of still is a really popular way of thinking about many parts of our lives but that science

00:15:45.600 according to me and according to all the evolutionary biologists i talked to

00:15:50.460 is very flimsy because it i mean for a bunch of reasons that are probably like a little too

00:15:55.200 complicated to go into but basically it's like it ignores some of the most obvious things like

00:16:00.700 they ask questions like why do men like big butts and they come up with answers like well

00:16:06.560 a woman who is pregnant sways her butt out more and when i we show these pictures to

00:16:14.820 college freshmen at the university of texas they say they're more attractive i mean you can i mean

00:16:22.320 I'm being ungenerous like there's a probably a kinder way to talk about that study but you can

00:16:27.160 see a bunch of problems with it right like yeah like it ignores the fact that like those are men

00:16:32.100 who have been 20 years living in American culture or what any culture that's like yeah suggests that

00:16:37.900 some women are more beautiful than other women or it sort of ignores the obvious that's like

00:16:42.700 not all men like big butts actually like as I can attest to you know what I mean like right like

00:16:48.120 there's just these kind of but that those studies are fun to read they explain something about

00:16:56.140 ourselves that feels a little taboo to investigate and i also think there's another thing which is

00:17:03.140 like it gives us an excuse it like makes it so that you think if there's a scientific answer

00:17:07.920 for something like why we like big butts we don't actually have to think about all the cultural

00:17:12.040 answers as hard yeah that's so true this is a great segue to all of our additional questions

00:17:18.100 that we got from culture study readers so first we're going to hear from e i would love to hear

00:17:23.060 heather's favorite terminology for butts how did we end up using peach and ass and moneymaker and

00:17:30.060 cake and badonkadonk and bum for the same thing and what about those words that mean other things

00:17:37.220 the food ones and shape references and words for the end of things are pretty clear but what about

00:17:44.120 ones like a bum is a butt but also a freeloader but also to borrow something an ass is also a

00:17:52.100 donkey the moon as in mooning is also the moon also what is heather and ann's favorite song

00:18:00.280 about butts and did heather discover any hidden gems among the many many songs about butts while

00:18:08.080 writing the book there's so much here so let's start let's start with the like the nicknames

00:18:15.000 component well i'm like a big proponent of just saying but because i feel like the whole thing

00:18:21.040 is like there's no correct word like there's no like what is it like it's turtles all the way

00:18:26.320 down i don't even totally know what that means but that feels like the right thing here to say

00:18:30.260 but like all the way down it is because there's no like it's not like breasts where there's like

00:18:35.400 a word that if you went to the doctor you would say it and it would be the right word and it

00:18:39.160 wouldn't be super embarrassing either it would just sort of be like this is the thing um so i

00:18:43.840 like to say but because i think it's like how i grew up it's what i grew up saying i think it's

00:18:49.020 a little transgressive but it feels like about it's not dirty i don't think i looked in so i i

00:18:56.660 was interested in this person's question about all the about the particularly like bum and how

00:19:01.820 that has these multiple and actually like etymologically they actually come from different

00:19:06.840 places which i think yeah is true and makes sense and i think that's also true with ass

00:19:11.940 where does it come from for butt it comes okay just i like got the proper oed for ass and it

00:19:18.500 of course it's like it comes from it it's like weirdly i think if i understood it right arse

00:19:25.360 comes first and then it got like turned into ass but i couldn't quite figure out where arse comes

00:19:31.160 from and ask for donkey is latin i think got it do you know that when i was in junior high

00:19:39.360 our mascot originally was the jackass they changed it to burroughs in like the 90s or something

00:19:48.560 but jackasses the jennifer jackasses jennifer junior high school jackasses it was that's also

00:19:56.180 funny it was a woman's name no it was like it was like someone's last name but yes but the

00:20:03.820 jennifer jr high so i was a cheerleader so we had a picture of a burrow on the back of my

00:20:11.680 my little jacket that i had um yeah no i think that a lot of these are accidental but we've come

00:20:18.620 to think of them as like holistically like the connotation is negative in some way because

00:20:23.580 somehow the connotation of there's the one connotation of a butt which is negative and

00:20:29.800 abject and then there's the one connotation of a butt which is that is delicious yeah and like

00:20:35.220 juicy i mean i think there's the thing like why cake and peaches and stuff it's like it's

00:20:41.740 ripe and full yeah i'm sort of all for it i kind of like that there's so many euphemisms

00:20:48.080 i mean i think the fact that there's so many euphemisms tells us something but

00:20:51.960 i also think it's sort of like humans are so creative like what a weird thing my mom was

00:20:57.800 making fun of me the other day that i have so many nicknames for my dog and i was like it's great

00:21:04.000 like i love being able to call my dog so her name's bev like beef beefcake beef stroganoff

00:21:11.200 beaver like all those things and i kind of feel bad sometimes calling her beaver i'm like beaver

00:21:16.480 come here like that it's somehow like referring to a vagina and like why why is that gross like

00:21:22.380 why is it gross for my dog to be called beaver there's nothing wrong with that that's right

00:21:26.980 humans are creative which so what's your favorite butt song i'm trying to think of mine

00:21:33.600 okay so i mean i don't actually have any like fun secret ones i think i i but i did i was

00:21:40.200 thinking about this too and i was like you know the one i kind of wish i could have i had written

00:21:44.380 about but it didn't quite fit into what i was doing was fat bottom girl by queen oh i love it

00:21:50.140 it's it's a little out of time like the like most of the stuff i was working on was in the 90s and

00:21:55.820 the kind of like rise of the butt as part of hip-hop culture and the white consumption of

00:22:02.220 hip-hop but that's just like this like kind of early 80s ode to full-figured women as far as i

00:22:09.440 can remember yeah and i remember too we had queen's greatest hits that was on like just constant play

00:22:16.660 in my house and i just always when it got to fat bottom girls like it made me giggle a little bit

00:22:22.000 like it seemed transgressive in that way and but you can tell that like freddie mercury and the

00:22:28.940 rest of queen that they don't think it's gross right like it's not exactly a joke right they're

00:22:35.400 not like trying to like make fun of these girls no they think it's hot and i think it's interesting

00:22:40.500 when i i can't remember the year it came out but it's early enough that it's kind of interesting

00:22:45.880 because it's at a time when right a lot of the women i interviewed who were adults at that time

00:22:51.520 they would have thought it was gross like it i think most white women and most mainstream beauty

00:22:58.440 ideals at that time were definitely like no but you could have like a strong but maybe but even

00:23:05.160 that is like just coming into fashion. So yeah. And I don't think it was Freddie Mercury. I think

00:23:10.580 it's who's the other guy in Queen? Oh, did he write it? It's who's the other dude? What's his

00:23:15.360 name? Another dude. Brian May. Yes, Brian May. It's Brian May. Bless you, Melody. I think it's

00:23:21.140 Brian May. All right. So our next question is from Sarah. In addition to all the great observations

00:23:26.520 about femininity, fashion and whiteness, I'm curious why butts are funny. Why is mooning a

00:23:31.680 prank or sometimes bullying why do kids crack up about butts no pun intended is it just about the

00:23:37.200 taboo of it all are there other cultures where butts aren't funny okay this is something i was

00:23:43.240 really interested in actually especially since the book i actually wrote an op-ed that never

00:23:47.480 quite went anywhere about why kids like butts so much and also this just to answer the previous

00:23:53.360 question i think mooning is just pretty straightforward like it looks like the moon

00:23:57.020 if you're a white person and you show your butt it looks like the moon i think that's my guess on

00:24:01.380 that one i think butts are i think kids find butts funny because it's kind of the dirtiest

00:24:07.980 thing that's still allowed yeah and i think they're dirt i think they are transgressive and

00:24:13.660 it's for like the most obvious reasons it's like where your poop comes out of it's where you fart

00:24:19.380 like there's all these noises and sort of disgust that is there but it's also like at a certain age

00:24:25.980 you're talking a lot about it you're like trying to figure out these like what's private and

00:24:31.260 what's public and this is like a thing you're allowed to laugh about and like you know you'll

00:24:36.540 get in a little bit of trouble but no one's like you know what I mean it's not that bad if you're

00:24:41.740 six and you say but but if you said you know the f word or something like things would be bad

00:24:47.900 right I think that's sort of my impression about it and I did talk to a bunch of parents who have

00:24:53.480 kids like I have a kid but she's too young for any of this to kind of quite come into the frame yet

00:24:57.720 but that's my impression from talking to parents about it so i think that they just occupy this

00:25:02.580 really interesting place of being off limits but not totally off limits it's like you can show your

00:25:10.780 butt you just can't show your butt crack and even on instagram actually the butt occupies a really

00:25:17.720 interesting place in the history of instagram because it's kind of the dirtiest thing you can

00:25:21.220 show on instagram but sometimes they'll ban it yeah like there's this woman who makes these like

00:25:25.760 little christmas ornaments of women's butts and i just saw that she got somehow like her images of

00:25:33.320 this like very like benign it's not even a real butt it's a representation of butt got she got

00:25:37.860 like taken off of instagram or something or not her whole thing but like her images started to

00:25:42.020 get censored yeah and it's this thing that instagram sometimes goes through some kind of

00:25:46.160 anti-butt thing but part of why kane kardashian got so popular was because she figured out i mean

00:25:51.760 i don't know if it was conscious but she was showing the thing that was dirtiest that you

00:25:55.800 could show on instagram in the earliest days of instagram right and that's why kids like it too

00:26:00.260 it's like the dirtiest i i have a quick story which is that um my best friend's kids who i

00:26:05.600 take care of a lot they one of them was down at the beach and they were climbing with some friends

00:26:11.920 on a driftwood fort and the fort collapsed and one of them got hit by some driftwood he's totally

00:26:16.620 fine but had to go to the emergency room and while i was waiting in the emergency room

00:26:20.980 he wasn't in pain he was just like bored and mad and he was like telling the story of what happened

00:26:27.360 and he was like and then that asshole log fell on me he just kept calling the piece of driftwood

00:26:35.900 an asshole and i was like that's funny and like my best friend she had to be like laughing but

00:26:42.360 not laughing to try to like she's like i don't want him to tell that story to the nurse per se

00:26:46.320 but i do think that like i'm sure the nurse would have loved it so really spice up her day

00:26:52.400 but that that you know it's with all bad words to some extent um but there's something about

00:26:59.300 but that like you can get away with saying it and like you could say it at recess whereas

00:27:03.720 in the school environment you can't say asshole but you can't say but well and that's isn't that

00:27:09.680 like the famous thing about like you can't say asshole on television although you can say ass

00:27:14.400 right or at least it's the whole it's the whole it's the whole part that's really upsetting to

00:27:20.000 people another kid's story is that we were just texting these friends like these little kids

00:27:26.780 ones in the fourth grade we're texting him on his ipad about like oh do you know where we are

00:27:31.240 because we were overseas my partner and i and he responds just on the fly up your butt

00:27:36.760 and it was so like all of us laugh like his parents laugh

00:27:41.240 like you know where did he learn that i don't know like just like when someone probably on

00:27:49.320 the playground was like told that joke or like heard it from one of their parents or saw it on

00:27:53.660 tv show but like it's just funny i don't know i know it is funny i don't yeah do you feel like

00:27:58.420 you have any other insights about like what about it is so funny no maybe there's something about

00:28:05.060 the bigness of it too where it's like yeah a bulbous nature of it kind of has some kind of

00:28:10.400 cloud i don't know i mean totally it's just like you know how there are parts of your body that

00:28:15.540 are like noses are funny eyebrows super funny i think that butt is like in that category of these

00:28:22.960 parts of your body that have developed for whatever reason that are weird like the shape

00:28:27.600 of an ear can you like an ear is really funny i love that you think all these i'm like are they

00:28:34.000 i mean yeah they're funny yeah she's funny i mean bodies are funny i don't know that's the other

00:28:39.960 thing that's the other thing about like the charged nature of a body like i i really do

00:28:44.920 think body neutrality is such a good idea and i'm all in in for that but there is this other

00:28:49.900 thing that i think is true which is like bodies just aren't neutral they're so strange and

00:28:55.140 beautiful and funny and i mean they're not light switches they are they're cool like yeah they're

00:29:01.680 dynamic and weird and like i don't know my daughter learned to pick her nose when she was

00:29:05.800 like that's a thing like you have a hole in your body you can stick your finger into like right

00:29:11.880 and like there's like you pick it and then sometimes it tastes good like what a marvel

00:29:16.800 i know it's just i don't i don't eat my boogers just to be clear but what's it or do you i mean

00:29:23.940 boogers are also funny poop is funny like there's so many things that are funny about bodies okay

00:29:29.920 So our next question about butt discourse comes from Liz.

00:29:34.080 How did you learn to talk about butts as a kid and body parts generally?

00:29:39.000 How do you think that impacted your relationship with your body today?

00:29:42.680 Wow.

00:29:43.200 This is a great question as like a continuation of this, you know, how we're thinking about

00:29:47.660 kids right now.

00:29:49.220 I think all the time about like my friend growing up whose mom called her vagina her

00:29:56.120 cat.

00:29:57.380 Whoa.

00:29:58.300 Like your cat is showing.

00:29:59.720 or like don't show me your cat like what an interesting relationship with your vagina

00:30:05.520 that's really intense also like potentially very confusing when a child encounters an actual cat

00:30:13.740 so i'm trying to think about my relationship with my butt i think my mom was like you know

00:30:22.920 she was one of those like mindful moms that isn't you know she's she's liberal today and

00:30:29.300 she was liberal then but wasn't like super like you have you should get to know your body or

00:30:36.680 explore your body or that sort of thing she did call it a butt i think we were allowed to call it

00:30:41.500 butts and she called it like vagina and penis and that sort of thing what about you i mean i think

00:30:46.620 we called it a butt i mean i should know i've been thinking about it for five years i mean i had an

00:30:50.380 older brother and i think that i think that one of the things i was thinking about about the

00:30:54.900 playground is i feel like that's just like like up your butt is like a joke that's just been

00:30:59.640 passed down from like one seven like grown-ups aren't involved in that joke it's like

00:31:04.600 like it's like somebody's brother it's like why we all like the smiths for a couple of years at

00:31:12.120 some point in our lives it's like somebody's brother got involved in our lives you know what

00:31:16.820 adults aren't involved in is the passing down of the song jingle bells batman smells rather

00:31:21.820 like that is still it is still on the playground and you know yeah yeah yeah and the s the s that

00:31:29.220 you do three lines and then three lines and then you connect the things like that that s that all

00:31:34.260 of those things adults not involved this is not our concern yeah i mean so i think the word but

00:31:40.100 well i don't know i guess i just feel like my brother was definitely like making jokes about

00:31:44.620 butts and that was part of our lives but i mean my mom had i write about this in the book i feel

00:31:50.260 like a year into publicity for this thing I'm like still talking about your butt mom she she has a

00:31:57.700 big butt and she oh and her you know she had a very fraught relationship with her butt even as

00:32:03.300 she tried really hard for me to not have a fraught relationship with mine right and I think a lot of

00:32:09.320 that part of it gets past like for me and then I interviewed so many women and non-binary people

00:32:16.000 about this about like how it's I think that there's like a dressing room world where that

00:32:21.560 kind of thing gets passed on where it's like you're trying on pants and like that's where

00:32:25.220 you kind of start to see your mom not feeling good about the way the pants fit and you start

00:32:32.000 to have these experiences of like there's something wrong with this body when in fact

00:32:36.520 there's something wrong with the world of pants if you really want to know but so I don't know I

00:32:42.320 think in my in my life like I think my feelings about my butt come certainly from my mom's feeling

00:32:50.040 about hers but then also just the way that girls are with each other where somehow by the time

00:32:55.220 you're in fourth and fifth grade you kind of start to realize that there's some people's bodies that

00:32:59.240 are quote-unquote correct and then there are some people's whose aren't and that that's a kind of

00:33:04.560 folk knowledge too that's coming from siblings and culture and parents and you know it feels

00:33:12.300 unknowable but I mean that was part of what I wanted to figure out was like to to know where

00:33:17.980 some of those things were coming from. I wonder how much too really is involved as you said like

00:33:23.220 a dressing room moment or now is I think kids actually go to dressing rooms less and less but

00:33:29.920 like just that feeling that you have to get a different type of pants these don't fit me

00:33:36.260 anymore right or the feeling of growing out of your pants in some way breaking pants which i

00:33:43.860 think everyone has had some sort of experience with that like it just gives you when you break

00:33:49.340 a pair of pants for whatever reason it gives you a feeling that like somehow it's your body's fault

00:33:55.080 instead of like you said the the poor construction of the pants fault yeah totally like you're just

00:34:01.020 like living an active life in your pants and your body's not doing anything wrong in that capacity

00:34:06.020 yeah totally and the reason the pants don't fit it's because pants are an industrial product and

00:34:11.240 there's no possible way to make enough pairs of pants and kinds of pants that would fit all the

00:34:16.040 human bodies so yeah no I think that that's a that is a very common way that people experience

00:34:22.780 like early shame about a body or they come to know that there's some bodies that are

00:34:28.280 right and some that are wrong i also think there's just that like very intense moment from

00:34:34.260 so many women where when they're young girls and they kind of are like it's like the you have to

00:34:40.860 wear a shirt and your brother doesn't moment but yes god like that there's this kind of like period

00:34:45.740 of time that i always want to write more about that's just sort of like where you're starting

00:34:50.580 to realize that like this utter freedom of childhood is going to be taken away from you

00:34:56.860 there is something interesting that comes on the other side but that for girls especially there's

00:35:02.060 a kind of yeah an unfreedom you know you have to cover yourself up you have to you're gonna have to

00:35:08.780 like be more careful and like this that you're gonna get your period this thing's gonna happen

00:35:13.900 like you're you need to like be more aware of the body that is coming in this way that feels really

00:35:19.380 i mean i think it could be exciting but for so many people i think it's quite sad and rules that

00:35:26.660 don't make sense per se you know a lot of rules that your parents make or that society makes like

00:35:34.020 they you can explain them in some capacity but when you're like oh when you're six you have to

00:35:41.120 stop going around with your shirt off yeah i remember my mom trying to explain this to me

00:35:46.180 and it just there was nothing that she could say to me at that age that could make it make sense

00:35:54.040 because at that age like I looked the exact same as my brother and as my best friends in the

00:35:58.940 neighborhood who were boys and like I wanted to do those things and there's this thing that I

00:36:03.800 think is really hard that's true about that which is like there's something about safety that also

00:36:08.320 I think like a story I heard a lot was about you need to wear looser clothes you need to be

00:36:16.000 make sure your butt is covered as a girl because like develops and part of the thing I think

00:36:21.620 that parents don't want to say because it's so upsetting is like you might be in a kind of

00:36:28.600 danger I don't even want to think about if you don't do this and that's the fault of this world

00:36:35.020 we live in and it's a very sad thing I mean it's not even a true thing that if you cover up you're

00:36:39.660 any less danger. But I think that that's the fantasy. The workers are not all right. You as

00:36:49.800 a worker, you're probably not all right. A lot of people are struggling, including maybe you,

00:36:54.540 to make your career feel right right now, whether you're trying to bounce back from layoffs or

00:36:59.500 staring down a hard market or thinking about what's next. And I know it can feel really

00:37:04.820 isolating. And it doesn't help that so much of the workplace writing out there is self-aggrandizing

00:37:11.180 broetry or just straight up bad advice. I found that one of the best sources for truly no bullshit

00:37:18.300 work advice is Melissa and Jonathan Nightingale's newsletter. They are the people that I go to

00:37:23.660 when I want to read something about management that doesn't feel apropos to this episode,

00:37:29.940 like it was written out of someone's butt they are so great and their newsletter is free and

00:37:35.680 bi-weekly and always feel spot on they call it the world's best newsletter but out of respect for

00:37:41.600 my newsletter you can find theirs at world's second best newsletter.com

00:37:46.040 thank you so much to raw signal group for sponsoring this episode

00:37:50.540 if you want to advertise on the culture study podcast get in touch we are totally diy-ing

00:37:57.480 this whole pod instead of going through an agency. So it's a perfect, non-intimidating way to dip

00:38:03.080 your toes into marketing, I don't know, your Etsy shop, your proofreading business, your upcoming

00:38:08.580 book or podcast, your art, your jewelry shop. I mean, there's so many things. You can even request

00:38:13.960 a birthday shout out for your best friend who maybe is also a listener of the pod and it will

00:38:18.020 be a total surprise. We won't accept advertising from any shady companies or MLMs or anything even

00:38:25.120 remotely related to diet culture or turfism or Trumpism or bigotry, broadly defined. But if

00:38:32.100 that's not you, drop us a line at culturestudypodcast at gmail.com. Our next question

00:38:43.680 comes from Erin, and it's more of a philosophical question. I have a very important question.

00:38:49.880 There's a theory that says capitalists are boob guys and socialists are butt guys.

00:38:55.820 Does this hold any weight?

00:38:57.100 And where did this originate?

00:38:59.120 I had not heard this theory.

00:39:00.640 Had you heard this theory?

00:39:01.540 Never heard this before in my life.

00:39:04.100 But can you extrapolate where you think this theory is coming from?

00:39:08.420 Okay, well, I did a little research because I was like, I've never heard of this before

00:39:11.720 in my life.

00:39:12.380 And there was a tweet maybe three years ago that went sort of low level viral that said

00:39:17.880 this.

00:39:18.100 So I think that's literally where it comes from.

00:39:20.480 That's our theory is a tweet.

00:39:22.100 Got it.

00:39:22.900 I mean, and then I guess, you know, it's really hard to say, but I guess like I've known some socialist Zizak bro men style.

00:39:33.660 Zizak bro men.

00:39:35.560 In my life.

00:39:36.800 I don't know.

00:39:37.300 I mean, I guess like the best thing I could say is that breasts like big breasts are sort of a mainstream, you know, for decades were part of like what it was to be attractive in a mainstream white way.

00:39:52.640 And I guess, like, if I think about, like, Playboy and Wall Street and, I mean, I guess I kind of can see it. And then I think that there can be a kind of fetishization of the, I don't know, the sort of periphery or in the world of, like, the Zizac bro.

00:40:15.320 so maybe there's something about like the idea that like you know the pervasive stereotype that

00:40:21.240 it's non-white women who have big butts or that there's something even like a little bit like

00:40:26.960 I don't know like I'm such a good guy I don't like the traditional shape or something like that

00:40:34.320 right this is like I'm really like out on a limb this is like my just me just guessing I don't know

00:40:38.600 what do you think no no no and I think the boobs like what there are a number of like assumptions

00:40:43.280 of what type of boobs what type of butts that we're talking about when we're saying like

00:40:47.620 capitalist like boobs and and socialists like like yeah that's true maybe the capitalist like

00:40:53.340 small boobs no well i think you're right i'm either they like the ideal perky b cup like

00:41:00.860 i don't know that you have for like two years if you're a b cup like that in the right yeah

00:41:06.480 like that size or it's like the we like things that are bigger than are possible and possibly

00:41:14.840 cause cancer like you know what i mean like we we only have like then we only like the aesthetic

00:41:22.380 we don't care about the consequences yeah which is implants like right and fake boobs and that

00:41:28.300 that understanding and like i think that also suggests that like there are so many reasons why

00:41:34.080 women do things to their boobs right so many reasons right totally bigger smaller all sorts

00:41:39.620 of things get rid of them all together and this is assuming like an understanding where like women

00:41:46.140 the women who gets a breast implant is doing it specifically for the male gaze so like a capitalist

00:41:51.580 is also within this framework like a traditional patriarchal status quo upholder right and a

00:41:59.740 socialist within this understanding is like a feminist right yeah i mean i it's like there's

00:42:06.280 so many assumptions being made and i including by me in this question i can't really yeah parse it

00:42:10.940 all but yeah i was assuming in both like both the it's like the wall street bro and the zizak bro

00:42:18.240 like they're all yeah flawed and both of those guys ultimately suck i was just there's no there's

00:42:26.360 no hero in this story is kind of what i'm saying all right our next question comes from julia in

00:42:33.960 the era of breaking down stigmas why aren't we talking more about down there issues and

00:42:38.600 normalizing vaginal penile and butt related problems i know four people very well who

00:42:44.000 have crohn's disease or have had to have their colon removed and i personally had to undergo

00:42:48.780 pelvic floor physical therapy after a car accident caused major vaginal issues for me

00:42:54.240 When I had a colonoscopy, my GI doctor told me everyone has hemorrhoids.

00:42:58.800 So why is this so kept behind closed doors?

00:43:01.700 Why do we as a Western society view these natural things as so gross and feel uncomfortable

00:43:07.060 to talk about them when we've worked so hard to normalize talking about other things that

00:43:11.080 are natural, like mental health issues, sexual orientation, et cetera?

00:43:15.540 Oh, man, I could talk about this all day.

00:43:18.060 I'd love to hear it.

00:43:19.020 What's your thought?

00:43:19.800 well I mean I so there's this theorist Julia Kristeva whose work I absolutely loved in grad

00:43:26.800 school it's like very heady but she wrote this book called powers of horror that's all about like

00:43:32.060 why things that are gross things that are abject like why we have to label them as gross and as

00:43:38.460 other and some of that work is involved in like okay like if we look at old Jewish laws about

00:43:47.080 like why you have to keep things separate and why you shouldn't have sex with women during their

00:43:50.640 period like all of these things were meant to essentially keep us alive right to like not get

00:43:56.160 sick and then they've evolved since then to become things that like we have to label things as gross

00:44:03.060 just to maintain social order in some capacity so with that said like that's why i think you know

00:44:09.360 we still have this understanding of poop as abject as a menstrual blood as abject all these things

00:44:14.740 but then also i think and and women too like there's this whole thing of like mothers like

00:44:20.860 the feminine the abject feminine as gross and like the desirous vagina as gross yeah and again

00:44:29.240 that's there to to maintain patriarchal order i do think that we're getting we're normalizing

00:44:35.600 some of this stuff you know i wrote a newsletter a couple years ago about my first colonoscopy

00:44:40.480 just because like it felt like something that I didn't know anything about and the only people

00:44:45.060 that could help me were actually a couple of my guy friends who also had family history who had

00:44:49.740 to have them a little bit early and if I had talked more openly with like my friend group I

00:44:55.240 would have found out that several of them had had colonoscopies and it's just like why do we not

00:44:59.880 talk about that if we talk about pap smears to some extent some people more than others why don't

00:45:06.760 We talk more about colonoscopies.

00:45:09.000 And I think as people age, they're much more confident in talking.

00:45:12.420 Yeah, I think that makes, I mean, the Julia Christiva thing, that's interesting.

00:45:15.740 I think, I mean, I think people are more open to it than they were even 10 years ago.

00:45:22.380 I mean, one thing I saw when I was doing, I mean, again, I do work on the cheeks, not

00:45:27.340 the whole, but I mean, it's obviously all of a piece and a lot, I think a lot of the

00:45:32.460 taboo is about the whole and both about anal sex and about poop.

00:45:36.760 i mean in fashion magazines they wouldn't even say the word but until like 1999 i mean they would

00:45:43.060 say derriere which is so i mean it's like even in like jet and essence and i mean i bet like if i

00:45:51.820 had looked at sassy magazine they wouldn't have said derriere but i feel like even magazines that

00:45:55.740 i was surprised like i don't know why am like just all of them they said derriere that feels

00:46:01.920 like such a sort of covering over and so like it's french it's fancy so i do think it's changed

00:46:07.600 and i think even the way people have like wanted to talk to me about butts on this like little

00:46:14.900 press tour i've been doing i feel like that's it suggests an interest and an openness but again

00:46:20.720 it's not i'm not talking that much about poop um yeah i do think it's disgust and i think it's

00:46:27.060 shame i think that there's a way that like even talking about vaginas and i was thinking about

00:46:33.780 like yeah like pelvic floor therapy there's something even a little like sexy about that

00:46:38.500 even as it's also obviously not sexy but i think that there's kind of a way that stuff around

00:46:44.720 pooping pooping too much the possibility of having something be wrong with your colon like i think

00:46:52.880 all of that is embarrassing in a really different way because it's sort of like this thing that

00:46:59.400 you're supposed to control and that is like fundamental you can you learn to control so early

00:47:04.260 you may not be in your control anymore and then it's like obviously there's like smell and

00:47:09.180 but I think it's like just really important that we just I mean it's like anything it's like the

00:47:13.400 more you talk about it the less stigma it has and I think colonoscopies is a really good one like I

00:47:17.860 think people are talking about that more and more or it's also possible I'm just getting older and

00:47:21.620 now i'm talking about it more and more it's 100 that you know how like there's all these parts

00:47:27.520 of pregnancy and postpartum that women still feel like no one told me about this stuff yeah

00:47:34.800 that to me is astonishing that we are in at this far along that there are still like these parts

00:47:41.860 of the postpartum experience that people our age who have like some sort of willingness to talk

00:47:48.860 about quote unquote taboo subjects like that there is still an astonishment of like oh i didn't know

00:47:54.280 that it did this to my vagina but i also think well i mean one thing having just gone through

00:47:59.620 not just but relatively recently gone through a pregnancy and birth and postpartum i mean there's

00:48:03.860 also just a lot like i started to wonder about with some of that stuff like i'm of course some

00:48:10.140 of it is shame and some of it is taboo and it's you know thousands of years of shame and taboo

00:48:15.420 i think that there's also a life cycle question like that there's a set of information maybe you

00:48:20.080 don't need to have until you're actually pregnant and postpartum and that there's there's a way that

00:48:27.320 like having it might freak you out too much and then it's not that bad anyway you know like

00:48:34.100 yeah like i had a c-section it you know it hurts to cough it's like you know you feel crazy when

00:48:40.920 you poop the first time but like and then it's fine like a few weeks later it's fine and like

00:48:45.840 maybe me knowing that and intimate detail ahead of time wouldn't have helped it just would have

00:48:50.000 made me feel scared I don't know I guess that I even with the colonoscopy stuff it's like it's

00:48:54.340 good for us to just talk about it like it's a normal thing like going to the gynecologist or

00:48:58.840 whatever but also like I guess maybe I'm just thinking out loud here maybe I'm making an

00:49:03.720 argument for like not making it such a big deal yeah and also not making not hiding it like that

00:49:10.900 by doing it the middle way you're also kind of that's what makes it feel normal when it's not

00:49:16.480 like super sensational like wait till you're 40 and then it's a horror show like have a baby and

00:49:24.760 your body turns into a monster uh i think that you know the it's also part and parcel of this

00:49:31.580 move towards like well we're not going to use blue liquids to demonstrate like how tampons work

00:49:37.340 anymore right exactly right and i just remember growing up like seeing so many commercials that

00:49:44.900 i'm sure kids have no exposure to anymore because they don't watch like broadcast television right

00:49:48.300 for hemorrhoid cream and hemorrhoid wipes oh yeah and being like i don't know what those are because

00:49:53.960 no one ever says like a preparation age commercial would never say like what it was and if they just

00:50:00.540 would say it like maybe we would be less freaked out when you get them which many people do over

00:50:06.680 the course of their like most people yeah when i was when i was knocked out from my last colonoscopy

00:50:13.040 i apparently had a long conversation about hemorrhoids with the like the people who were

00:50:17.540 doing the procedure i have no memory of it but he told me afterwards well i'm sure he appreciated

00:50:22.180 but it's true i mean hemorrhoids is a great example because like i don't think i really

00:50:26.620 knew what a hemorrhoid was until i was pregnant and then some like i was like they were like well

00:50:30.880 have you had a hemorrhoid and i was like can you just tell me what it is but i actually think

00:50:34.640 because i'm a reporter i actually am way more willing to ask a question like that than most

00:50:40.260 people like i'll ask a stupid stupid question to a doctor and i i mean it's not stupid because no

00:50:46.440 it's like they're like you know nobody ever asks but this is what it is and you're like maybe tell

00:50:51.560 them like maybe just be like fyi if no one ever told you what a hemorrhoid is here's a picture

00:50:57.820 and some information what if you could like go to the doctor when you like graduate from high school

00:51:04.160 and they're just like none of these are a huge deal like these are just things that happen as

00:51:08.700 you get older like here's what a hemorrhoid is if it gets really bad this is what it will feel like

00:51:14.480 and this is when you should come to a doctor right so instead of doing all of our frantic googling

00:51:18.780 where if you google it google hemorrhoid it just comes up with like all these horrible representations

00:51:23.980 that you just be like oh that's a hemorrhoid um it would it would be really useful i know just

00:51:30.540 some really simple patient education it probably helped them too i bet people come to the doctor

00:51:35.320 all the time they're like oh my this horrible thing is happening and it's such a big deal and

00:51:39.780 they're like try preparation age you know like it's a real it's a real lifesaver this is our

00:51:49.740 psa to anyone listening and hemorrhoids are not a big deal there are many creams and other things

00:51:55.220 available also a bath of epsom salts works for a lot of people most for most people it too will

00:52:01.960 pass that's right but um also we are here if you ever want to like ask us more body questions

00:52:08.460 i mean i'm no expert but i'll talk about it we're not experts but we'll talk to you about them right

00:52:14.300 this has been a total pleasure thank you so much for coming on the show heather where can people

00:52:21.740 find you online or on the podcast app if they want to find more of you uh yeah um thanks so

00:52:28.660 much for having me it was really great i'm i'm sort of like have a weird relationship with social

00:52:33.160 media but i'm on instagram i'm rad h radke on instagram and i work for radio lab so i'm

00:52:39.920 working on some stuff for them right now and yeah just in the interwebs at various places

00:52:46.520 Thank you again.

00:52:47.300 This has been great.

00:52:48.180 Thank you so much.

00:52:49.680 If you're a paid subscriber, stay tuned for today's AAA segment.

00:52:53.860 I'm answering a question about what to do when it feels like you have too many friends.

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Culture Study Podcast - February 28, 2024

Your Questions About Butts, Answered

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