Fashion
Because many cultures have a nudity taboo, which usually applies specifically to the buttocks (as usually to the most erogenous zones), mainstream garments generally cover the buttocks completely, even when it is not a practical requirement. Nevertheless male and female clothing is often designed in a way that reveals the shape of the buttocks under the clothing.
Some articles of clothing are designed to expose the buttocks. Such clothing is not generally worn in public situations; however, it is sometimes considered appropriate to wear such clothing at swimming facilities or at the beach.
Emphasis on one part or another of the body tends to shift with generations. The 1880s were well-known for the fashion trend among women called the bustle, which made even the smallest buttocks appear huge. The popularity of this fashion is shown in the famous Georges Seurat painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte in the two women to the far left and right. Like long underwear with the ubiquitous 'butt flap' (used to allow baring only the bottom with a simple gesture, as for hygiene), this clothing style was acknowledged in popular media such as cartoons and comics for generations afterward.
More recently, the cleavage of the buttocks is sometimes exposed by some women, deliberately or accidentally, as fashion dictated trousers be worn lower, as with hip-hugger pants.
An example of another attitude in an otherwise hardly exhibitionist culture is the Japanese fundoshi.
Read more about this topic: Buttocks
Famous quotes containing the word fashion:
“He who goes against the fashion is himself its slave.”
—Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946)
“Women who are devoted to causes, such as overpopulation and the underprivileged [sic], are much less interested in fashion than, let’s say, those who lunch at La Grenouille and Le Cirque.”
—Ann Landers (b. 1918)
“I fear animals regard man as a creature of their own kind which has in a highly dangerous fashion lost its healthy animal reason—as the mad animal, as the laughing animal, as the weeping animal, as the unhappy animal.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)