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Butt Stuff

Why do we have a butt? Well, it’s not just for the convenience of a portable seat cushion. This week, we have a conversation with our Contributing Editor Heather Radke, who has spent the last several years going deep on one of our most noticeable surface features. She’s been working on a book called Butts, a Backstory and in this episode, she tells us about a fascinating history she uncovered that takes us from a eugenicist’s attempt in the late 1930s to concretize the most average human, to the rise of the garment industry, and the pain and shame we often feel today when we go looking for a pair of pants that actually fit. Special thanks to Alexandra Primiani and Jordan Rodman Episode Credits:Reported by Heather RadkeProduced by Matt KieltyOriginal music and sound design contributed by Matt Kielty and Jeremy BloomMixing by Jeremy BloomFact-checking by Emily Krieger Citations:You can Pre-order Heather’s book “Butts: A Backstory” here (https://zpr.io/QVFVLTTW9vpN) Our newsletter comes out every Wednesday. It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)! Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today. Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected].   Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Duration
37m
Broadcast on
11 Nov 2022
Audio Format
other

Why do we have a butt? Well, it’s not just for the convenience of a portable seat cushion. This week, we have a conversation with our Contributing Editor Heather Radke, who has spent the last several years going deep on one of our most noticeable surface features. She’s been working on a book called Butts, a Backstory and in this episode, she tells us about a fascinating history she uncovered that takes us from a eugenicist’s attempt in the late 1930s to concretize the most average human, to the rise of the garment industry, and the pain and shame we often feel today when we go looking for a pair of pants that actually fit.

Special thanks to Alexandra Primiani and Jordan Rodman

Episode Credits:Reported by Heather RadkeProduced by Matt KieltyOriginal music and sound design contributed by Matt Kielty and Jeremy BloomMixing by Jeremy BloomFact-checking by Emily Krieger

Citations:You can Pre-order Heather’s book “Butts: A Backstory” here (https://zpr.io/QVFVLTTW9vpN)

Our newsletter comes out every Wednesday. It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!

Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.

Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected].

 

Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.


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that you wait you're listening to radiolab radio from the WNY see you so do you want to start do you want to wait hold on I'm just a whole idea here oh we're hey I'm lucked if not sir I'm Lulu Miller she's just texting me who was running late this is radiolab well the question Lulu wanted me to ask you to start actually is what do you think buts are for what do I think buts are for I mean I think they're up it's a portable cushion to sit on right the cheeks I'm thinking the cheeks are like a portable okay so today on radiolab we're gonna share with you all a conversation that we had with our contributing editor well Heather Radke yeah over the last few years Heather has been putting her blood her sweat her tears her back into a book all about buts specifically the butt cheeks yeah the cheeks the junk in the trunk the booty in the back straight up it's a book about the cheeks not the whole so if you're looking for but whole stuff it's not here it's not happening no but Heather's book it's called buts a back story is it's pretty hefty and cheeky and juicy but no seriously it is a deep thing on something that we don't usually think that deeply about the gluteus maximus which is the butt muscle it's one of like three but muscles goes into the why and how of the butt muscle yeah there's like a little bit of a debate is the butt for running or is it more for like jumping not for cushions apparently but also there's this other part which is actually the part that's like way more complicated and fraught which is the fat part because Heather explained it's the fat that makes the butt the thing that society obsesses over and that's why I like the Brazilian butt lift is one of the most popular cosmetic surgery procedures in America today Brazilian butt lift I've never heard of such a thing my god botif you're gonna learn so much okay great I'm so excited was that oh hi I'm so sorry I'm late I've been so excited for this for weeks so can't just keep going and I will orient as you go okay so I guess that just the like to finish this thought what if it's like so buts are also highly sexualized right so there's a question that becomes like is part of the reason they look they the way they do is because of sexual selection not just natural selection and I guess your book kind of looks at how even just in a few different eras which are pretty close to one another just how much the the in vote but in a certain society changes right that becomes the question yeah because you know like elbows for example we don't put a lot of meaning into how elbows look but what a butt looks like is like it's a sign of beauty it's a sign of disgust it's been highly racialized it's like was used to put people into hierarchies and there's a real question of like why have butts come to mean so much when they could just mean nothing and so a lot of the book is sort of an exploration of of all the things they've come to mean and why they've come to mean that well yeah I mean so what is the one so we talked about butts from every possible angle but the part of the conversation we want to play for you today pretty much straight through actually was about more than just the but yeah because at a certain point in Heather's reporting she uncovered this moment in time where the ideal that so many of us measure our bodies up again not just our butts our whole bodies became concrete in a way that even today still haunts us yeah all right go for it so I want to tell you about two statues that were made and then the late 1930s the early 1940s okay they were created by these two artists or actually one guy was a gynecologist and one guy was an artist Dickinson and Bells the classic guy no art duo so Bells he's the artist Dickinson's the gynecologist and these guys were trying to make these statues one was of a man

Transcription truncated.

Why do we have a butt? Well, it’s not just for the convenience of a portable seat cushion. This week, we have a conversation with our Contributing Editor Heather Radke, who has spent the last several years going deep on one of our most noticeable surface features. She’s been working on a book called Butts, a Backstory and in this episode, she tells us about a fascinating history she uncovered that takes us from a eugenicist’s attempt in the late 1930s to concretize the most average human, to the rise of the garment industry, and the pain and shame we often feel today when we go looking for a pair of pants that actually fit. Special thanks to Alexandra Primiani and Jordan Rodman Episode Credits:Reported by Heather RadkeProduced by Matt KieltyOriginal music and sound design contributed by Matt Kielty and Jeremy BloomMixing by Jeremy BloomFact-checking by Emily Krieger Citations:You can Pre-order Heather’s book “Butts: A Backstory” here (https://zpr.io/QVFVLTTW9vpN) Our newsletter comes out every Wednesday. It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)! Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today. Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected].   Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.