"(You know, because men don't have access.)"

Whoa, how Freudian!

Ha, fixed.

What the sweet holy fuck is up with that woman's ass? It scares me...it looks like she shoved some water balloons up there or maybe a couple punchbowls or something. Yowza.

OMG I read Slate at work sometimes when it's dull and I opened that up today and almost fell out of my chair!!! I am so glad I'm not the only one that noticed this. I'm just glad my boss wasn't around when I opened the home page!

What the sweet holy fuck is up with that woman's ass? It scares me...it looks like she shoved some water balloons up there or maybe a couple punchbowls or something. Yowza.

I'm sorry, but that's almost as offensive as the article being criticized. Who are you to start attacking some woman over what she looks like? Her ass scares you?

Christ... can't we criticize and critique the article- and the sexism and racism involved- without personally attacking the woman in the photo?

Yowza, indeed.

Okay. I got to the end of the slideshow and apparently, the headless uhhhhhh...round assed woman is Coco, who has been known for showing up places with her breasts looking like balloons under a net, so I'm pretty positive that the butt in question is more "nurture" than "nature." That makes me feel a LOT better about that picture, because the only other explanation I can think of for that unique shape is that both her hips are dislocated and jutting out her backside. Now I just find it incredibly hypnotic.

Carry on.

I also love the "Washlet" commercials ubiquitous on a lot of blogs I read that feature naked, almost exclusively female butts (all the women have near-butt-length hair just so you know they're female.)

Roymac: I'm sorry you found my comments offensive, but the idea of someone getting so much plastic surgery that it ceases to look natural is off-putting to say the least. The fact that plastic surgery exists and that people get it is one thing. I can understand WHY people would get a breast augmentation to create a more "feminine" shape (I don't necessarily have to think it's a good thing, but I can understand the reasoning). I can't understand someone who gets so many breast implants that they look like they're about to tip over at any moment and the tissue starts to harden. I don't necessarily have to APPROVE of someone getting butt implants to understand why someone might want them, but I can understand the appeal. I'm sorry, but I don't see why someone would get large sillicone implants put so high up that it ceases to look natural, especially since "sexy" is obviously what she's going for. I always assumed the point of plastic surgery was the same as that of makeup, namely, if you use it, you shouldn't be able to TELL. Also, I've never really seen such pronounced butt clevage. And now I can't stop looking at it. My brain is like, imploding on itself right now...

ugh...i hate slate more and more every day...remember their incredibly sexist and gross article about anal sex recently? ugh

It was a nice wakeup this morning, personally. I enjoy sending pissed off, "why do you feel the need to continue this sexist bullshit on the front of your website" e-mails with my cup of coffee.

Must they taint decent discusses of sex and sexuality with hypersexualized women? There has to be SOME other way to promote their articles than putting a big ol' butt on their front page.

And can they find real women to display in their slideshow of asses? You know, if they really wanted a great slideshow of asses, why not just post pictures of the Slate editorial team?

@ Skittles: Blame the patriarchy, not the victims of it. Have some empathy.

Yall I don't think that's plastic surgery or natural. It kind of looks photoshopped in a way.

"if they really wanted a great slideshow of asses, why not just post pictures of the Slate editorial team?"

LOL

Skittles--Excessive plastic surgery boggles my mind, too, but your initial comment doesn't attack the idea of surgery. It communicates disgust at the size and shape of Coco's rear--a size and shape that some women really do have naturally.

It looks Photoshopped to me, too. I don't think there is any plastic surgery that can extend a woman's asscrack to halfway up her back. My intial reaction was anger and disgust at Slate, that they would portray this anatomically impossible butt as some kind of ideal.

If it isn't Photoshopped--well. Wow.

That sex issue was practically a Will Saletan showcase. I don't really look to that byline for enlightened thinking about gender.

Tami, plenty of women have very large round backsides, but no woman on earth has a 20" waist with 50" hips and thighs and arms that are that thin.. Also, her buttcrack starts several inches before her tailbone. That doesn't happen, even with surgery. It has to be photoshopped.

No, that's not photoshopped, that's Coco's ass--and she did it on purpose. Ok, so it's probably photoshopped a wee bit, but you can find other photos of her out there and the plastic ass looks just like the above.

This is off-topic, but related to the 'beauty before all else' ideal. From http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/hot-maybe-but-tyras-girls-arent-smoking/index.html?ex=1348545600&en=141ae9f20079b4ce&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
about how America's Next Top Model has instigated a no-smoking rule. This is the reaction the blogger had from her daughter after they watched the segment:

Blogger: "The lecture came after an odd segment in which the girls were photographed holding cigarettes in glamorous poses. But then some startling graphics reflected the damage of smoking. The girls were shown coughing up blood, with facial tumors or tracheotomy holes in their necks, bald from chemotherapy and wrinkled from premature aging."

Blogger's adolescent daughter: “All I knew before was that you could get cancer from it,’’ she said. “I didn’t know you could get very ugly.’’

Blogger: "Even though we’ve had many talks about the perils of smoking, I realized she didn’t really understand until now how much damage smoking does to your body."

How telling. Because we all know that health is a non-priority in the shadow of the "ye shall be hot" commandment of our times. And yet, aren't coffee and smokes considered THE diet for supermodels (at least stereotypically if not actually)? And young girls, under more and more pressure to look like models, equate smokes with skinny, cool and hot, not with degenerative diseases.

It sickens me to no end that cancer is not enough to dissuade girls from smoking, but that being un-hot and un-fuckable are worse than any potentially terminal disease.
(But I guess with Crazy Sexy Cancer, see http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2007/08/29/shes_young_and_sassy____and_she_has_cancer/?rss_id=Boston%20Globe%20--%20Living%20%2F%20Arts%20News
what can we expect?)

Wendi-wasn't that anal sex article in Details?

Ugh, hate, hate, HATE that sex has to be equated with "hot chick" every. freaking. time. Ranks right up there with my least favorite assumption: "Who doesn't love a naked chick?" Um, all us heterosexual women and gay men?

I mean, really, couldn't they have *at least* posted a picture of Johnny Depp, too?

Hey, whoa. I just clicked on the "history of the buttocks" link, and the article actually uses the phrase "tramp-stamp tattoos" in the very first paragraph! This piece isn't an article on sex, it's practically a primer to female sexual objectification. What a shame.

My heart is beating fast because this is precisely what I struggle with on a daily basis. I do read Slate, even more so on Fridays, and I am very glad I didn't see this at work because it would have ruined the rest of my day. I have issues, not gonna beat around the bush on that one. And it is because I have such a large ass and hips. This woman's butt only looks odd because there is no line between her lower back and her actual ass, which is something that is very common with women with large asses. This is why I do believe it is air-brushed in some way. But they are that big, that round, I prove it. And I am sure most of you can relate to being harassed on the street, and to being objectified, but this is a daily struggle (obsession) with me. No matter how baggy my pants are, no matter how much I 'tug' I can't hide it, and I can't hide my hips. And I have to deal with the - OMG, ew her ass is too big! - from women, and "hmmm, let me tap that ass!" from men. It gets to the point that I don't want to go out. So I know Skittles, that you have explained yourself, but your reaction is exactly the kind that I am terrified of eliciting and unfortunately do too often. Way too fucking often.
Even if they showed her face later, this was porn in its ugly, objectifying, paper-bag-over-her-head way and it's a shame they went this route to trick folks into finding out actually informative history about butts.

Also, I have no idea who the hell Coco is and why Slate thinks I want to see her plastic ass.

I don't mean for this to be too inflammatory, but why is the slide show more offensive than the cover of Full Frontal Feminism? I'm asking because I want to know people's opinions, not to start big arguments.

And for that matter, why is it more offensive than all other content of Slate? I thought the sideshow is one of the more intellectual things they published.

I don't mean for this to be too inflammatory, but why is the slide show more offensive than the cover of Full Frontal Feminism? I'm asking because I want to know people's opinions, not to start big arguments.

Heh.
"I don't mean for this to be too inflammatory, but *insert potentially inflammatory statement*. I'm asking because I want to know people's opinions, not to start big arguments (despite saying something that I apparently know is likely to cause a big argument)."

We need a big fat FAQ page or something talking about that cover so we don't have to keep dealing with that question. :(

A perhaps scarier article from Slate recently, amazingly titled, I shit you not, The Mind-Booty Problem: Rethinking the Age of Sexual Consent. It contains such gems as these (emphasis added):

...having sex with a 12-year-old, when you're 20, is scummy. But it doesn't necessarily make you the kind of predator who has to be locked up.

and

The lowest standard is whether the partner you're targeting is sexually developed as an object.

Oops, sorry, meant to post the link to that article (which turns out to be from "the sex issue") --

http://www.slate.com/id/2174841/

Oops, sorry, meant to post the link to that article (which turns out to be from "the sex issue") --

http://www.slate.com/id/2174841/

Oh, and I really appreciated the article about how maybe it's ok for men to have sex with 12 year old girls, even though they really shouldn't.
They must be hurting for readers.
I have looked at Slate for the last time, let me tell you.

I saw this too and was immediately put off. I'm beginning to be unable to function in normal society as a direct result of the objectification and constant insulting of women that I find on the internet. Yesterday on a blog, there was a picture of Kate Hudson jogging. ALmost all the comments were pretty much saying "get some tits and then I'd do her". Women join in on the fun too. "That girl needs some ass so that she can look like a real woman!" I used to not be jaded and cynical about life, but what's the point anymore? If I walk down the street, I'm not a human, I'm a girl whose breasts and ass are to be commented on. And Jem, I feel your pain. Girls telling me I have a nice butt and then asking me if I'd ever get implants to be more even. My "nice butt" somehow becomes a way to insult me. We all have to deal with this sort of thing unfortunately in some way or the other.

Oh, and I really appreciated the article about how maybe it's ok for men to have sex with 12 year old girls, even though they really shouldn't.
They must be hurting for readers.
I have looked at Slate for the last time, let me tell you.

Maybe the reason the butt picture looks so strange is that the photoshopped (or maybe just badly lit) crack is making a break for her hip. I looked up Coco in google images and her butt looks absolutely normal. It is large and round, but so is mine!

You know, some women carry a great deal of fat on their hips in addition to their butt, and I could see them looking similar to that picture if sitting down that way. When you're sitting, everything gets pushed up.

I've definitely seen women (sorry to turn this into a racial thing, but they've nearly always been black women) who had a very round and elevated posterior that certainly I could only attain with plastic surgery. Some of those women had tiny wastes too.

So maybe what you're saying about how her body type doesn't exist anywhere naturally is true, but then again I think it's hard to tell simply b/c she's sitting in a positions we're not used to seeing people in (naked, from that angle I mean).

roymacIII:

This depends on if I make my comment in an argumentative tone, and if I, well, argue with the responses. If not, I'm just asking for opinions.

*shrug*

I just thought it was funny, idratherbedrunk. It's one of those things like:
"I don't mean to be insulting, but, *insert something insulting*"

"Not to sound racist but *insert something that sounds really racist*"

It's just frequently the case that people who preface a comment with "not to do X, but" end up doing exactly the thing they say they're trying not to, or don't mean to do.

idratherbedrunk has a point. I have never liked the cover of Full Frontal Feminism. I don't get the difference. A skinny, flat-stomached, nude, headless white woman on the cover of a book about feminism.

Yes, I've read all the reasons for the cover and why it's so empowerfulling, and I still find it distasteful. It's objectification of the female body, just like the picture in the Slate article.

Why read Slate, anyway? It's always sucked, and it's always been chock full of blatant and smug misogyny.

idratherbedrunk has a point. I have never liked the cover of Full Frontal Feminism. I don't get the difference. A skinny, flat-stomached, nude, headless white woman on the cover of a book about feminism.

Yes, I've read all the reasons for the cover and why it's so empowerfulling, and I still find it distasteful. It's objectification of the female body, just like the picture in the Slate article.

Which is fine. I'm not saying I agree or that I disagree- I'm saying that most of us know how the conversations about the book went, and that it's amusing to me that anyone would even consider bringing up the book cover in the context of this conversation while at the same time saying that they weren't looking to start anything. Starting something or being inflamatory may not have been the intention, but, given past conversations on the topic, it's hard to see how that could be anything but the expected outcome.

"According to a recent survey, women asked what they'd want if they could have any beauty treatment were three times more likely to choose vaginal lip trimming over buttock implants and 50 times more likely to prefer the permanent removal of body hair."

I wonder what the other options were in this "study." Don't you just love how hacking away at someone's vaginal lips is called "beauty treatment."

Cooleen*, that little tidbit freaked me out, too.

In regards to Coco's ass, I'm willing to believe that many people have many different body types, and I believe no one should be mocked for theirs. But I'm still not convinced her ass is natural - The top photo from this link (disclaimer - the language on the link is pretty derogatory, but I found the photo I was looking for and didn't want to look further - also, I think I first saw that photo on a story here on feministing) doesn't look anything like natural to me. Jem, am I wrong?

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Coco-039-Smooth-039-ly-Shows-Her-Photoshopped-Ass-42866.shtml

I'm not offended by the picture of a tummy on the book cover. who cares what color it is? There are quite a number of shades people's skin can be. You can either pick one of them, or you can re-color the photo to some unrealistic color like blue so that no one could possibly be offended. It's just a generic young tummy. I doubt anyone would want to see mine on the cover...39 years old with a fat roll and a hysterectomy scar. bleh.

Now as to the butt and the offensiveness of displaying it, here's a practical consideration. If you browse the web on your lunch break at work, depending on how strict your company is, someone's boss might have something to say about that butt showing up on your computer. I doubt too many bosses would be worried about the book cover with the tummy.

Iscah, that does not look natural, it's either implants or air-brushed, that level of sharpness between the back and the ass would cause a ridge. In any event, it is tasteless on their part to have put it up even though asses that big, round, etc. do exist. I am reminded of this book I once flipped through that was awesome because it showed people fully clothed, and then completely nude on the opposite page, and it was very moving to me. Not that it has much to do with this topic, but it would have been great of Slate to have included body-variety (not to mention men) if they were going to talk about the history of asses. As if that pic is the culmination of what an ass has 'become.'

At the risk of provoking some unpleasant reactions, I would like to speak in defense of Slate's Sex Issue.

As a committed sex-positive feminist and a historian of gender and sexuality, I see no need for such outrage over the Sex Issue. I agree that there are some problems with it. Many of the points that all of you have made about the butt slide show are very valid. While I understand the logic behind including only women's asses in the slide show (the male butt has not been the center of such an interesting trajectory of ideas of fashion and physical beauty in the way that the female butt demonstrably has), I agree that they made a bad choice there. By including slides on male ass-fashion (i.e. the “short shorts� of the 70s, Speedos, and low slung jeans) the slide show would have been more interesting and provoked fewer outcries. I was also disappointed that they did not mention racism or imperialism in connection with the “Hottentot Venus.� Perhaps they thought that that point could make itself, at least for most readers.

All of those complaints aside, I think that the Sex Issue raises some very interesting issues that are not often talked about in a more general audience. I do not find the picture of Coco on yesterday’s front page to be offensive. While it is “headless porned out [and] asscracked,� as Jessica pointed out, I think that we should keep the context in mind. Slate isn’t using this image to sell a product, as many similar images often are, but to provoke reactions, thought, and discussion. I do not think that their intent was to say “Who doesn’t love a naked chick?� but to incite discussion about conceptions of physical beauty, female sexuality, and the ubiquitousness of sex in our culture.

If we could all stop wringing our hands and crying foul for a minute, we could have a much better, but still critical, discussion about the Sex Issue.

Aspasia -- So what's your defense of the adults-who-have-sex-with-"womanly"-12-year-olds-apologist article I mentioned above? I consider myself pretty sex-positive, but Slate's printing of that article completely ruined any optimisim I may have had regarding potential reasonable explanations for their use of porntastic imagery.

As I just mentioned in a comment on the "New Slate WTF," I didn't much like Saletan's article either. I found it to be sexist, heterosexist, and downright creepy.

At the same time, I agree with his general argument that we need to re-think the way age of consent laws are written. Many of the current laws criminalize consensual sex between teens who are a few years apart in age. Saletan came across as a real creep, but I think do we need to consider the nuances of the ability of adolcents to consent to sex (preferably with other adolescents) in making these laws.

roymacIII,

I feel like this has been brought up before, but I personally distinguish the tummy of Jessica's book cover from the butt on this article, b/c the former is not sexualized. It's nudity, but nudity is not inherently sexualized, it's just, normal...

I'm an art model, so I can say from experience this is the case. People (men and women) can learn to see female nudity other than just as a sex signal.

ughhhh sorry ladies &gents but i had to sign in only to tell you the following:
1. like someone else posted: "I used to not be jaded and cynical about life, but what's the point anymore? If I walk down the street, I'm not a human, I'm a girl whose breasts and ass are to be commented on." - I wholeheartedly agree and I guess most ppl on here agree that it fucking sucks to be obbjectified like that. cuz it truly is!!!
BUT
2. what is happening here? WTF is wrong here? just read the comments: mainly its a discussion about coco's ass! gah! what if we just start taking ourselves seriously and stop objectifying each other? why do we even have to "rate" her ass, what sense does it make to judge female bodies like this? why even discuss wether it is "natural"? what IS natural anyways and why is there any need to construct a "naturalness" on womens' asses? we may like the pic or not but does it matter here?
I mean, after all we complain that slate objectifies women (in this case the sexist portrayal of coco) to sell sex articles and whatev. and know what? obviously we're the perfect slate audience cause we buy into this. they show us an ass and we discuss wether it looks nice, wether it is "real" or not and by this we do the same as the editorial staff of slate/the lame readers who think the pic is cool - we reduce a woman to an ass, treat her as an object, as a body to be rated, a piece of meat discussed like we're at a butchery ("Hey don't you think this steak has a strange colour? its surely not organic food! if it was from a healthy cow, wouldn't it have at least a bit more fat in it?").
If I imagine I/my body was judged like the way iit is done here with cocos ass by ppl i know or don't know, even if i knew some stranger on the street only thought of me/my body in this judging, rating way, I#d seriously start crying.

Ice-T wants everyone to know that that ass is real:

http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=1213855470

For what it's worth.

LaGloriosaDonna, I know I'm a little late responding to your comment. I think you make a good point about objectifying Coco (although I still have no idea who she is). I specifically object to the way Slate used the image, not to Coco herself. Slate used the image in what they intended to be a comprehensive sex issue, but what ended up being a lesson on female objectification. I object to what was called, in Slate's comment section, "a headless, porned-out, Frankenstein's monster of silicone and tanning spray" to be representative of the ideal of female sexuality. I dislike seeing such obvious surgical (I don't care what Ice-T says) and chemical enhancement being held up as the ideal we as women should all strive for.

What Coco wants to do to her body is Coco's business. I don't like Slate's insinuation that plastic surgery + orange tanning spray + hair bleach + perm = Ultimate Sexy. (I got a glimpse of her hair from the photo under the "History of the Buttocks" headline.)

I'm sorry to say that the cover of -Full Frontal Feminism- offends me at least as much as this Slate image from Slate. Both perform the message that women are defined by their body parts.

"I'm sorry to say that the cover of -Full Frontal Feminism- offends me at least as much as this Slate image from Slate. Both perform the message that women are defined by their body parts."

WTF? Acknowledging that we have body parts isn't the same always the same as defining us by our body parts.

roymacIII,

I feel like this has been brought up before, but I personally distinguish the tummy of Jessica's book cover from the butt on this article, b/c the former is not sexualized. It's nudity, but nudity is not inherently sexualized, it's just, normal...

I think you're probably actually responding to what someone else said- for some reason the bolding didn't work right in my last comment- my comment actually starts with the line "Which is fine." The two paragraphs before that were me quoting someone else.

I'm an art model, so I can say from experience this is the case. People (men and women) can learn to see female nudity other than just as a sex signal.

I totally agree with this. I think it's entirely possible to have nudity without it being sexual. The female body should not automatically be equated to sex, and it's harmful that so many people do.

Huh. Sort of like it just did, again. I'm not sure why it's cutting off my tags- maybe I'm getting sloppy?