The Bootylicious Gwen Stacy

It started out with foreign comics...

I'd seen posts in a couple of places linking to Brian Hughes' Again with the Comics. Hughes has displayed a bunch of Mexican Spider-Man comics from the sixties and early seventies, called El Sorprendente Hombre-Araña (The Surprising Spider-Man). Originally reprinting American Spider-Man comics, the weekly series eventually overtook the American publication, and new stories were commissioned for the Mexican book only. This also included new covers.

And boy, did those cover artists like Spider-Man's girlfriend, Gwen Stacy!

A lot.

Especially her butt.

It must've been a real kick in the pants when she died.

Anyway, one of the blogs discussing these comics is Occasional Superheroine -- and a commenter named Valen linked to a news story about how much people love butts. Valen offered it as evidence of Latin America's fixation with cheeks -- I see it as much more universal. The thing is, the story was in Spanish, so I ran it through a translator in order to attempt to read it. (Just copy the url into the box and select Spanish to English; I couldn't arrange a direct link.) Among other fun things, it coins the word culocracia -- a rough translation of which would be buttocracy, or, as it defines, "the government of the ass."

The translation is awkward and quirky, but it offers reasons why butts are so popular:

Unlike the mammary silicones, that are acquired and they are enjoyed the operating room when coming out, the beautiful ass demands intense and permanent work. Just now, which it is so easy to become of a prodigious advantage, desire moves towards another objective: most indefinite of the sexual symbols, the only one which nobody lacks. The obsession by those young, fibrous and hard tails also expresses to one more a more permeable society to the sexual ambiguity, in which travesti is the new queen of the conchero.

This just flat-out kills me. Wonky translations are fun. Wonky translations of pseudoscientific justification for instinctual desire? Awesome.

I also notice that while the story itself pays homage to both male and female butts, the accompanying art only shows the ladies. I can think of a couple reasons for this:

1) The photo editor is a guy who really knows what he likes.

2) I have some cookie in my browser that lets their website know the sort of butts I, personally, would like to see,

or

3) I got so distracted by all the ladybutt that I totally missed all the man-rump on the page.

Because if the editor thinks women don't like a nice butt, I can think of someone who'd strenuously disagree.

But(t) anyway, please raise a glass with me in celebration of "young, fibrous and hard tails." Ain't nothin' sexier than fibrosity.*

Rob
*I'm guessing "fibrous and hard" is a poor translation of "muscular and firm."