Booty, the human hindquarters, is much larger in humans than in other apes. English has many words for it that have arisen down through the ages:
- 1000s: arse
- 1100s:
- 1200s: buttocks
- 1300s: bum, tail
- 1400s: butt, rump
- 1500s: backside
- 1600s: posterior, seat
- 1700s: behind, bottom, derriere
- 1800s: ass, tush, rear end
- 1900s: booty, batty, buns, fanny, keester
Some of these words are dialect, like ass, arse, bum, butt and batty. So is booty, but I am using it here because I just did a post on booty dancing.
The word booty itself goes back to the 1950s. It spread from Black American use to general North American use in the 1990s by way of hip hop. I am guessing that because of hip hop the word is known throughout the English-speaking world.
Functions:
- Muscle: Provides muscles that allow humans to stand up and walk on two feet.
- Fat: In women it stores fat for having babies.
- Beauty: In women it is a secondary sexual characteristic, like breasts. On average it is larger in women than in men.
Stone Age art regularly shows women with big booties like it was a good thing.
The ancient Greeks: Aphrodite Kallipygos, goddess of love, had a booty more beautiful than any other part of her body. The Greeks built a temple to her. No other part of the body was so honoured by them.
The Western world is kind of strange:
- Writers: Since at least 1500 its writers and poets have said little that is good about booties.
- Fashion models: extremely thin, almost bootyless.
- American men’s magazines: only those for black men regularly show women with serious booty.
- Sarah Baartman: a black woman with a huge booty who was brought to Europe in the early 1800s. She became a sideshow and museum specimen.
Yet, despite all that, women’s clothing in the West, like the bustle (1780s) and designer jeans (1980s), helped women to look like they had a good booty.
Then came Jennifer Lopez. In the late 1990s white men were saying what a beautiful ass she had. The Economist called her “callipygian”. Yet black women have had that and better since forever. What was going on?
Then, when tennis star Serena Williams won the US Open in 2002, the white press said her covered booty was an “inappropriate” display of sexuality.
Backstory: White men used to commonly rape black women in slave times – men like Thomas Jefferson, an American Founding Father. Out of that came the Jezebel stereotype, the self-serving idea that black women are loose and mad for sex. Most White American men, even today, see black women as sex objects, not as women who possess beauty, who should be loved and treasured.
So:
- Jennifer Lopez is beautiful because she can be loved.
- Serena Williams, when showing her “ghetto booty”, becomes hypersexualized as some thing to fuck.
Many black men have bought into this racist mindset too, as shown in countless music videos.
See also:
Booty may have some West African root, in Brazil its “bunda”, I saw the African word once but I have forgotten it
I just think the American public psyched themselves out of booty , I guess when Serena arrived on the scene they just couldnt handle it , calling her “overtly sexual” only sounds like repressed and unable to value black woman features, hearing these uptight examples only makes me super happy to be in a country that loves bunda…before Hugh Hefner , booty was more aprecieted…the flapper era valued small breasts and compact booty
Some really beautiful women today are short compact women with small breasts and big compact asses…but they are not very recognised in beauty standards in America..with the exception someone like Lopez although she pushes her breast thing also…I like small breasts with a compact ass
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The word “badonkadonk” is a version of slang onomatopoeai. In the slang world, a large bum is sometimes called “junk in the trunk”. “Badonkadonk” is the sound junk makes tumbling around loose in the trunk of a car as it is driven around town.
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Reblogged this on oogenhand and commented:
On the other hand, there is the racist stereotype that Black women are repulsive.
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Its just one of the various, double standards that black people have opposed on us in America.
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This is nothing more than the white enforced double standard:
When a non-black possesses a typical black trait, she/he is worshiped and revered as “ethnic”, beautiful, sensuous and “full.” Examples are:
Lisa Rinna (lips)
Molly Ringwald (lips)
Raquel Welch (body)
Tommy Lee (penis)
Mae West (breasts)
When a black woman/ man has their own God-given trait, it is despised, feared and made to seem sinful and deserving of sexual exploitation.
Whites are seriously deranged in their thinking. I want to pity them.
But I can’t muster the strength to give an eff.
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@Abagond
I’m on to you. You created this post just so you could put up a gratuitous picture of Bria. It’s okay you’re forgiven.lol
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I’m thinking that Abagond has discovered he likes ass.
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I’ve been meaning to tell you….I love the picture currently on the main page of your blog. It says so much.
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I still love big booties, especially black ones. That’s all I can contribute to this thread.
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Good post! As far as the word booty (in this fashion) is concerned, I’d say that even before hip-hop emerged, it’s use became more prominently used in the 1970’s-particularly in thanks to Disco music.
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..Shake shake shake, shake your booty”..is one of the many tunes that comes to mind..
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“I still love big booties, especially black ones. That’s all I can contribute to this thread.”
************
LOL @ Brothawolf
I’m very partial to ROUND, and/or SHAPELY derrieres!!!!!
I don’t discriminate in terms of size. Big butts, small or in-between, I like them all! As long as one or two of the above traits are happening, I’m bootyfied! lol
In my personal observation, no other female behinds come close to matching the typical roundnessity and the heavenshapedfullness (yeah, my NEW words) of the average black/brown woman blessed with copious amounts of African blood in her booty! : ))
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I love muscular man buttocks, haunches!
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Lol
Abagond is on a booty binge. Shoot can us ladies get something to look at lol. How about do a post on some fine brothas. And peanut I would love that booty of yours rofl. Shoot mine is on vacation I gotta do some squats, the sad thing is my brother has the ass I was supposed to have. Sheit my family teases me all the time for not having much back there, but idc because an arse will hook a man but cookin for him will keep him.
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@ herneith
Shoot I love a man with a nice ass too, you mean like this
This guy got more than me.
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Abagond, well written article. I am 17 and almost done with high school but I am skinny with a booty and many guys in my childhood have commented on how big my butt is and honestly they are intrigued by it. I find it strange though.
”Most White American men, even today, see black women as sex objects, not as women who possess beauty, who should be loved and treasured”
That is the main reason why I don’t date White AmeriKKKlan men. I don’t like their mind set and all most of them want to do is fuck a Black woman, that is it. I have had many White AmeriKKKlan men approach me online and tell me how they think I am gorgeous and crap like that. I knew they wanted sex. I will never date a White AmeriKKKlan man, trust me. I know his parents wouldn’t like me the first thing they see me. I am not rude, loud or ghetto but I know these White AmeriKKKlan parents wouldn’t like me because of the color of my skin. They would be thinking and telling their ”sweet White AmeriKKKlan son, Jim” why did you bring home this n word.
And where I live, in a small, racist Southern town, most White guys in my town are either racist, redneck or just plain ignorant. They really fit the term White AmeriKKKlan man as well as most White boys/men in White AmeriKKKlan with the mindset that Blacks are inferior and White is superior.
I know many Black men have brought into that stereotype as well but I rather date a Black man than a White AmeriKKKlan man. I want Black children and the Black race to survive in AmeriKKKlan and make something of themselves.
Sorry for the rant but the fascination of a Black woman’s booty has something to do with the oversexed stereotype and that is the truth. No, I am not oversexed at all.
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@Truthbetold
I don’t see why White AmeriKKKlan praises Black features on non Black people but hate these features on a Black person? To me, that is messed up thinking.
Great point. Plus it got me thinking about Kim Kardashian. She is praised and famous for her booty but Black women like me who have a big boot aren’t praised for their booties.
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This topic makes my mouth water.
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I remember one night I went to a party. There was this girl with a t-shirt and sweats. Her hair was natural and she was dark skinned. She is average in size, but huge in the hips. I looked at her back and I thought I saw a bulbous booty so booty-ful…er beautiful, I was in a trance. I couldn’t take my eyes off it.
This is just one of a few booty memories I treasure.
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Sadly, I didn’t dance with the girl I described. I was too shy.
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When I was in junior high there was this Trinidadian chick with a booty that had its own gravity. It would draw my hand in real close and then I would snatch it back for fear of having the sense smacked out of me.
I still dream of that booty.
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I don’t think the backstory applies here; that and most white men don’t look at Serena as somebody they would want to have sex with or as attractive in general.
That being said; yeah its racism that prevents people from seeing black women as attractive when they see those features on non-black women, not even white women only but simply non-black, and can see them as attractive.
Thats also why I don’t think most white men see black women as sex objects, they are too racist to have those feelings in the first place without them being buried way down deep.
If I had to guess due to the whole medieval/victorian age mentality of “sex is bad” that the “booty” became something not to be focused on.
Which if this post is correct; the booty and sexuality has had a connotation since the age of the greeks with Aphrodite, pre-racism era.
Characteristics that implied purity, innocence and beauty became more valued and thats why from the 1500’s on up it stops being a thing.
But like I said; thats pretty much a guess going purely on my vague knowledge of that era and this post itself.
Also; and I don’t know if this is true or not, just a hearsay kind of thing, supposedly in “recent” times appreciation of the derriere among the african community actually started out in the US with African-Americans and then traveled over to Africa due to being popularized by Western Media. Like I said; hearsay but it would be interesting if true.
@Kiwi
It isn’t impressive when Asian people do it because the stereo-type is that they are supposed to be smart.
Its like when the C-average kid gets an A and the parents freak out but when the A-average kid gets an A no one says anything. Its just an everyday kind of thing for them.
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That is why I love Brazil. As an American, who always loved booty, falling into Brazil was like a kid dropping into a candy shop and having all the things society in the states sais is bad for you, , all blown up on display right in front of you on all sides.(even though , yes, working at Louis Falco dance classes gave me this understanding, first,, it is specialised work, not out in the open)…Europe isnt like this, those topless women in France and Spain dont know how to wear a bikini bottom, but , i noticed on tour that Lithuainia had women who liked to show off thier booty..
There was a time America was into booty,in the 20’s…some pictures of that age depicts sexy women with small breasts and curvy ass….it was media hype that pushed big breasts on Americans
There is absolutly no doubt in my mind that being exposed to bare booty of the sex you are attracted to, is really an elixer to good health and well being…I have observed this in full force in myself…ok, if its only me , at least I know it works full force for me
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I am a black girl with a small booty. Guys have rejected me in the past because of it. It kinda sucks not being a part of the big booty, black, girl stereotypes. I remember when I was 19, I overhead a friend of my boyfriend ask him, “Why are you dating her? She don’t have no ass.” He replied, “But she’s pretty and smart.” His friend called him stupid and walked away. In my experience, I think booty gets enough credit! Too much credit now! Another girl I knew in college looked like Mike Tyson in the face but she had a nice butt. She walked up to me after class and said, “I wish I looked like you.” I said, “Share that ass with me!” lol
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I cant speak for others , Cleonette, but, its not size, its shape, and stucture in relationship to the waist and legs. A woman can have a small booty, but, if it has a nice dimple, is in great perportion to the legs and lower back up to the shoulder blades and into the neck and head, it can be incredible…innersymetry structure is really important also, and, can be small but incredibly defined…and yes, the forces of heavens and earth have given the Afro descendant, directly related to ancient pre colonial Africans, a special definition of booty in all shapes and sizes
I like booty…all shapes and sizes, dont think because you dont fit the stereotype that some men arnt admiring your booty…your picture speaks to a very good symetry in your features that surly carries out over the bone structure of your body
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@Cleonette
lol hilarious! I am skinny but I have a nice big butt though. Black men have rejected me for being too skinny but they say that they like my butt. Anyways you should ignore superficial men like that. Find a guy who loves you for you
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@kiwi
But usually I see it is Asians in Asia who compliment such a “talented” white person. I try my best to point out to those people that they are actually looking down on them — by having so low expectations of them that they think it is AMAZING what they do.
In Asia, people tend not to treat English-speaking Asians as cardboard laughing stocks. They either treat them as being very well educated and cultured, or as simply as someone who is very westernized (and thus foreign).
To me, speaking any one language well is not that amazing. Now speaking a dozen languages well — that is awesome, esp. if they are from different language families.
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Any tit men here?
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“That is the main reason why I don’t date White AmeriKKKlan men. I don’t like their mind set and all most of them want to do is fuck a Black woman, that is it.”
Adeen, I would say that is true for a lot of men, including black men. I wouldn’t say most though. Instead of excluding people based on race, you should do it based on their mindset.
I am happily married to a white guy and my in laws are great. They treat me like a daughter. We are all from Arkansas. You shouldn’t judge people based on skin color.
“Great point. Plus it got me thinking about Kim Kardashian. She is praised and famous for her booty but Black women like me who have a big boot aren’t praised for their booties.”
NIcki Minaj is also praised and famous for her large butt. While I definitely wouldn’t want to be degraded for my butt, I wouldn’t want to be praised for it either. At least not at the exclusion of everything else. The entire issue is problematic.
While I don’t mind compliments, there is a big difference between telling a woman she looks beautiful and telling her she has a nice butt.
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I’m probably going to get chewed out for saying this, but here goes:
In antiquity (ancient times) Black women were revered for their beauty and the darker the better. Hence in part why Moses caught such hell–because he married a darker-skinned Black woman and the white world began gaining political influence during his time. Men from all over the world were excited about getting to know Black women (but as white politics penetrated the globe the lies about Black beauty spread like wildfire).
I think it is partly true that Black men see an ample backside on a lighter skinned Black woman as more innocent, but the same trait on a darker skinned Black woman (as the lady pictured above) has tons of implications attached to it. Is he just as attracted to her as he would be a lighter skinned Black women? Without a doubt i believe the answer would be yes–but darker skinned beauty has been a taboo to like and admire openly now for centuries. It is something that a lot of Black men i know personally wrestle with. It saddens me that Black people in general cannot seem to embrace the many faces and body shapes of Blackness. I would be living a lie if i didn’t admit that colorism and shadism still plays a role in who and what we are attracted to.
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@V-4,
History does not back up what you say about white men not being attracted to Black women.
People need to start being honest about the world and white folks and stop protecting their (white people) feelings and insecurities.
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Abagond,
Why is my comment awaiting moderation? Can you tell me what I am doing wrong?
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so Herneith can get away with the tit comment, but mine is in moderation. Wonderful.
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@phoebeprunelle
Depends on what history you mean; if you mean pre-racist times thats certainly true.
If you mean because white men used to rape black women by insane amounts from slave times to the early/mid-1960’s, well no that doesn’t mean they were attracted to them.
It just means they had an opportunity to rape someone and get away with it.
That and alot of mean don’t care about liooks if it comes down to meaningless sex.
For a woman to date/have sex with an unattractive person they need to have money or at the very least, personality….for a man often times a unattractive woman simply has to offer sex and thats good enough.
I would say for most white people that the attraction they have to black women is so repressed that its below even subconscious at this point.
That racism keeps most white men from even thinking of black women in that way in the first place.
Like Abagonds written himself, a white man can walk by a devastatingly beautiful black woman like she isn’t even there.
Whats scary about that is how for lack of a better word; intensely trained into white people that is without it ever actually being directly trained, spoken or even address by white people or society at large.
It happens by osmosis almost.
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I agree with V-4, on average I don’t think white men pay attention to black women at all. They pay attention to black men because they fear them.
It’s just not sexual or romantic either. Think about how this affects black women in the workplace. They are routinely ignored and looked over for promotions.
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Most white people are repulsed by large backsides. It was black men that knew how to appreciate a woman’s backside. Especially a black woman.
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I have to admit my junk in the junk in the trunk has served me well.
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I don’t think a lot of white men are attracted to black women, but a lot are attracted to black features just not on black women. I do think a lot of them view black women as sex objects, you don’t have to be attracted to someone to screw them. I see youtube vids of how to pick up a black girl and its white guys going up to random black women and saying some dumb cheesy ish. There are also stories I’ve read where a black man will say a white guy tells him about the black women he has slept with and will talk about them in a degrading way. So yes they do view black women as sex objects, its how the whole i’m racist but my dik isn’t came into play.
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@Bulanik,
Thank you Bulanik! I get so sick of reading day in and day out on this damned blog how white men are not attracted to Black women. Total and utter B.S.
People use anything they can to discredit Black women’s desirability (e.g. only a handful of non Black men marry us) that statement is assuming Black women are these docile creatures who wait around like sad puppies and do not have a choice in who we choose!
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@ Herneith
Small boobs. Big butt. That’s my perfect combo.
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@ Bulanik
Love is love. A man or woman can fall in love with anyone regardless of appearance. So, in the end I guess it really doesn’t matter.
Not counting stink booty though. I can’t stand stink booty!
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@herneith: ööh… A whole woman man, I guess. I like the head and arms and legs too, and the torso and waist, hips and all. So I guess, I*m a whole woman man.
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“I have to admit my junk in the junk in the trunk has served me well.”
********
: )))) : ))))
“Any tit men here?”
********
BREASTS are nice, as long as they’re still ABOVE the waistline …
I’ll never forget that time I was at this party. A few of us were chillin in the kitchen drinking beers, wine coolers, chatting…
This very animated and attractive woman I was talking to casually placed her beer down on the counter in the middle of her sentence so she could re-adjust her belt and the bottom of her blouse – which was at her waist. When she lifted her blouse an inch… WHOA!! I was expecting to see a belly button – not her boobie.
: /
: )
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I remember one girl from college that had a huge booty. She was so fine outside and inside. Sadly, she was dating.
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Mary
I have to admit my junk in the junk in the trunk has served me well.
In many ways that’s nice to hear lol.
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Suddenly, I feel guilty about liking booty.
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Sorry you had to go through that peanut. IT’s true they look at you as stereotypes if you overweight they think you are the mammy stereotype, if you are fit and good looking they think you are easy,or they try to say you are light skinned or mixed. They are crazy, don’t forget these the same men that will get offended if a woman breastfeeds in public. I’m not surprised they find a woman with a booty and curves disgusting and make fun of her. They act like little kids who tease girls because they like them.
I wonder why its ok for a white woman or other non black to have a booty but if a black woman does its disgusting and she’s to be viewed as a sex object. I think part of it is because they don’t want black women to be proud of our bodies, but those same features they will praise a white woman for having. Its because if they praised every woman that had a booty regardless of race then they know white women wouldn’t be number one in that category. also the rap vids mess things up for us as well, they rationalize it as if black men are degrading them then so can we. It’s the same excuse they use to kill black males.
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I wrote about post about Brenner and his butt observation.
http://brothawolf.wordpress.com/2011/12/23/big-butt/
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Peanut ,your example of white women cashing in plays out big time in the video I brought in about the “boquina de garrafa”. The blond starts gettinghuge recognition and fame and they actualy let go of the black dancer and have a contest for “morenas” to replace her, but they are all “white” morenas…the black dancer gets dumped and the group goes on to big fame
But, the whole thing about “sex objects” is we all really would like to be sex objects and women look on men as sex objects and who on here would not like to be the object of sexual desire by our partner? Not acknowledging that women also sexualy objectify men also, clouds up the issues, especialy the very valid points, you make, Peanut, about images of black women in media(which, Solesearch, I think is much more urgant than the LeBron James picture with Bunchkin), how they are perceived and the hypocracies about black women. They have strip joints for women to objectify men and lets face it women oogle men as much as men oogle women
The real bottom line about sexual objectification is, we men and women dont really understand each other…at all.
I think the slave legacy from the past certainly is carrying over into attitudes towards black women today and how beauty standards are set,but sexual objectification is a territiry mixed in by militant feminist political agendas and superimposed by our own repressed religious dogmas seeping sub conciously down into our daily life attitudes, And then people funnal it through their own personal outlook on sex whatever that means for them
Dealing with white men’s hypocracy about black women, yes, should be addressed,but I feel there is a huge lack of sexualy objectifying black women in the media, except in hip hop videos, its like if you want to find sexual objectification in black women you can only go to rap videos, and only white women can cash in on sexual objectification, like you said Peanut.
I just think sexual objectification runs both ways and I dont think its a negative thing…..its racism, hypocracies about black female beauty that are more urgent, and how women have to face the spector of violence in a relationship, which I dont think sexual objectification is responsable for, you can tie in alcoholism more than sexual objectification as a cause for violence against women
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This is a dichotomous subject. It’s been fun for the most part. But I have to say that in the early 90’s and early 00’s music videos bothered me. Seeing scantily clad young black women dancing seductively on the television made me think that black women were being labeled as Jezebel stereotypes. Luther Campbell was just disgusting to me. I always said his music video were just soft porn. It seems that women were just being reduced to body parts. But it was just business as usual and sex sells.
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Michelle Obama is criticized by whites on social media and I even heard a co-worker say that they thought Mrs. Obama’s posterior was too large and she should dress more appropriately. Michelle Obama is in fit condition. Her detractors only wished they could be that fine. But in this age of Kim Kardashian and Nikki Manaj white women are getting injections to make their backsides larger.
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@Peanut : It’s a slippery slope. One has to tread carefully. You are very young still and evolving into your sexuality. With each phase of your life you will learn how to navigate your femaleness. I hope that’s somewhat helpful. I didn’t have anyone to teach or help me with learning how to use my feminine mystique. I made many mistakes. But through trail and error and just learning who I was as a woman.
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@ Peanut; You are on your own journey in this realm. You have to do what’s right for you.
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Bulanik,
“The human male is the only male mammals fascinated by breasts in a sexual context.”
I think the human female is the only mammal that has permanent breasts.
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I think of Esther and Delilah in regards of using one’s power of femininity. One woman used it to influence while the other used it to manipulate. The booty can be used in the same way. 😉
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@ lifelearner; Those are excellent examples. Go To The Head Of The Class.
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Not all people like bootie, at least not in the same way. Asians prefer slim but shapely asses. Too much protruding is… unattractive.
I suspect white tastes for ass falls somewhere between Asian and black.
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I didn’t know who this Bria Myles was so I googled her. Cute face with an amazing figure…also saw her boyfriend. Smile.
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Maybe it’s the Asian men I dated, but some of them preferred an ample behind over a bountiful bosom because they like to, um, grab it. 😉 My husband feels the same way. Mind you, I wish I had more “back”, but I make do with what I have. 😎
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another pathetic afro-centric site… great
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