about the butt is that the gluteus maximus, the muscle responsible for those bulges, is the largest and most powerful muscle in the body. Its particular shape, along with the shape of the human pelvis—a short, shallow bowl cradling our organs and providing a secure foundation for our vertical trunks—are among the main reasons we can stand upright, walk on two legs, and climb stairs while carrying a sack of groceries in one hand and holding a phone in the other.
In other words, we have protruding butts because as true bipeds, we need them to stabilize us when standing still, move us forward, and allow us to bend. An ass as flat as the one I wanted might well be a physiological impossibility for humans.
But even if I had figured that out at age 14, I doubt it would have given me much comfort, since it wasn’t so much the musculature of my butt that tormented me as my body’s propensity to store fat there—not just enough to ensure that I’d have plenty of cushioning for sitting on, but extra. A lot extra. It’s partly my particular genetics and partly estrogen, which tends to make women accrue fat on their asses. Fat doesn’t really start accumulating there as opposed to anywhere else before girls hit puberty, while after menopause female ass fat sometimes migrates elsewhere. Which means that one thing my body was announcing through my ass was that I was fertile. Had I understood that at the time, it would have made everything worse.
In the same way it never occurred to me to think about why human buttocks have the shape they do, it never occurred to me not to care that my ass was too big. It never occurred to me that the jeans and not my body might be flawed. It never occurred to me that I didn’t have to hate myself the way I was.
I couldn’t like myself the way I was, you see, for I knew, absolutely knew, that no one else would like me that way. I mean, not plain old like me–of course people could like me even if I was disfigured, the way you could like your grandma or your fifth-grade teacher or the old man who owned the local drugstore and filled every prescription you’d been given since you were born. I had traits worth valuing, I knew. I was intelligent and diligent and forthright and liked to make people laugh. I believed in order and the rule of law. Some rules were silly, like the one about how women should just stay home and have babies, but some laws had to be accepted, like gravity. One such law was the immutable connection between love and beauty. It decreed that people could still like me, in that inferior way reserved for ugly people. But they couldn’t be attracted to me, because I wasn’t beautiful. No one could ever love someone with an ass like mine. It was simply too much to expect. People fell in love with people who were beautiful, and beautiful I was not.