Underbutt: Our Best Weapon Against the Bullshit Mythology of Cellulite
LatestThanks to the ubiquitous cheeky shorts trend, these days, you can’t angrily chuck an iPhone without hitting some teen in the exposed buttcheeks. Some naysayers might say that this is Bad because won’t somebody think of the intact hymens? or that it’s Harmful because what about those of us with buttcheeks we don’t wish to showcase? But I say bring ’em on. Bring on all the cheeky shorts, the underbutts, the upper thighbacks — as of now, they’re the best weapon we have against the bullshit mythology of cellulite.
Some background on the underbutt trend: while our very own Callie Beusman posited many moons ago (ok, like three months/moons ago but it feels like longer because there have been so many happenings this summer and not enough vapid but distracting blockbuster films to absorb my free time) that the phenomenon was but a novelty in a constantly changing “roller coaster of bare erogenous zones,” The Cut’s Kat Stoeffel seems to think that shorts so short that they expose the curvy bottom of the human ass have more staying power. (Blogfight after school by the swings, ladies. I’ll officiate/ bring wine. Also a blogfight is where we all braid each other’s hair.) And while Callie made some great points in her original post — that ass-to-train-seat contact is generally a Bad Idea, that assflashing shorts don’t really let your bits breathe, and that they look silly unless you’re standing like an American Apparel model dreading having sex in Terry Richardson’s hipstercreep lair — I’m hoping that Stoeffel’s end-of-summer proclamation ends up ringing true. Keep ass shorts around. Keep ’em around forever.
Hear me out: if a child (or weird teen) is afraid of monsters hiding under her bed, a parent or caretaker’s best course of action is to demonstrate to the child (or weird teen) that there’s nothing under her bed. See? Right there behind the bed skirt? Nothing. No monsters. Now please go to sleep; your parents are trying to sleep/sex each other. In the same way, ubiquitous underbutt on all body types proves that there are only, like, 6 people in the whole entire world who don’t have cellulite, and that’s just perfectly fine. In fact, the idea that somehow we should all strive for some smooth-buttbottom ideal has been bullshit all along.