Published on
updated on
Reading 2 min.
Plump, bulky or muscular? You are not there. According to a new study, what makes a “butt” attractive to others is another, more “central” detail of the silhouette. Explanations.
Faced with silhouettes like those of Kim Kardashian or Jennifer Lopez, how many of us deplore a lack of volume or curve on our own butt? The question is not so trivial, when we know that interventions to modify one’s buttocks have increased by 20% over the last five years, according to data from the International Society of Plastic and Aesthetic Surgery (ISAPS) (with consequences sometimes serious). However, and against all expectations, it would not necessarily be this curve that external eyes judge first on a buttocks.
The gaze attracted by this physical “trait”
According to a study carried out in Europe, the big butt/thin waist ratio that today’s stars seem to be looking for is not the one we look at first in real life. A team of scientists recruited 67 heterosexual people, around 60% of whom were women, and showed them images of seven female buttocks, in order to see where the gaze was placed. Each of these pairs of buttocks was presented from five different angles, from the side, on a light axis and also from a direct “front” perspective. Meanwhile, a special camera monitored the volunteers’ eye movements, tracking which areas of the buttocks they looked at first and for how long.
The result may be surprising: the eyes of both men and women did not judge the volume or loss of the kidneys as one might think but were more likely to focus on… the intergluteal groove. The gluteal cleft (or less elegantly the “split”) was not only the area that men and women looked at first, but also the one where they lingered the longest: a second or so, then another. For example, the gaze of men and women only remained for 0.2 seconds on what is called the “thigh gap”, or the space between the inner thighs.
A biological explanation?
In the article devoted to this study in the journal Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, the authors stated that they saw a biological imperative in these results.
“Biologically, humans can be programmed to notice specific physical attributes that historically signified reproductive fitness”they wrote.
But they were also surprised by the findings, which ran counter to previous research that suggested men were more attracted to the combination of a narrow feminine waist and… a big butt. “In numerous studies, this ratio has been highlighted as a key component of female attractiveness from a male perspective, primarily due to its potential associations with reproductive health. they wrote.
“This unexpected discovery challenges long-held assumptions and highlights the complexity and multifaceted nature of human attraction,” they wrote.
Last detail, this study could also put into perspective the fashion for rounded buttocks in cosmetic surgeries. Because what we seem to be looking at is a little more central than a generous posterior.
Slide: What you don’t know about the buttocks