This will forever be stuck in my head...

Callipygian (Callipygous) - My Favorite Word


Having well-shaped buttocks. 

This is a word about which it would be possible to generate many bad puns, thereby making an ass of oneself and becoming the butt of jokes. The subject matter - and the rather beautiful form of the word itself - has lent itself to adoption by word-hungry authors, even though the first recorded use was only in 1880. Thomas Pynchon wrote in Gravity's Rainbow: "Those dusky Afro-Scandinavian buttocks, which combine the callipygian rondure observed among the races of the Dark Continent with the taut and noble musculature of sturdy Olaf, our blond Northern cousin". Its origin is in Greek kallipugos, used to describe a famous statue of Aphrodite; that comes from kallos, beauty (as in calligraphy, or callisthenics, or the lily called hemerocallis) plus puge, buttocks.

One of the trickiest things to accomplish for American women of the 1990's is successfully attracting worthy partners for purposes of breeding. While this may not be uppermost in women's minds when they go through their mundane daily tasks of applying make-up or donning their togs, it is a subject always close to the surface. Are they preparing effectively for the task that is set for them by an often capricious mother nature? The physical areas women spend most preparation time with is usually their faces. As the part of the body most often presented to the public, it would make sense that it is an important feature with which to take extra care. But a survey of available research and a look at cultural data may indicate that women should spend more time and take more care with other facets of their physical selves.

. . . efforts might be more productively spent on their breasts and buttocks.

An informal poll conducted among thirty-five male steelworkers, concerning what attracts them to women, asked them to rate, in order of importance, the female body parts or areas that most intrigued them. Just over half (eighteen) pronounced themselves to be breast men, and of those, twelve rated buttocks as second on their lists, and four chose legs. Just two opted for the face. Of the remaining seventeen men in the group, nine preferred buttocks, and five embraced the legs, with only one of the total group not having an opinion ("None of your damn business," was the way he phrased it). That left just two who professed a preference for the face. Among the sixteen non-breast men who had an initial opinion, eleven fingered breasts as their second choice, three buttocks, one the face, and one had no other preferences; "The ass is it; that's it," he said. When the question was rephrased to ask what first gets their attention when women are walking toward them and then away from them, the first choice, by a wide margin, was breasts (twenty-five), followed in order by hips (pelvic region)(five), face (three), and legs (one). When walking away, the response was overwhelmingly in favor of buttocks (thirty-two), followed by legs (two) with one subject electing the calves (Alsman).Based on the amount of men who chose breasts and buttocks as their first or second choice, it would seem women are working needlessly long hours on their faces when their efforts might be more productively spent on their breasts and buttocks. {Read on}