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‘Men now want their bum to look good in jeans’: how male butts got bootylicious

From shapewear to surgery, the male quest to build the perfect behind has become a super-sized business

Her exaggerated hourglass silhouette changed the shape of the “ideal” woman’s body; a decade later, buttock augmentations are the fastest-growing procedure worldwide, with the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery reporting a 137% increase since 2018. ‘These days, they are developing their butts as a showpiece muscle.’ Photograph: 20th Century Fox Nick Finney is a personal trainer whose clients have included 1999 Rear of the Year winner Robbie Williams, and Jennifer Lopez, whose buttocks were once described by Vanity Fair as “in and of themselves, a cultural icon”. Perhaps as gender fluidity has become more normative, it’s seen as less transgressive for a man to want something previously associated with femininity Heather Radke is the author of Butts: A Backstory, a cultural history tracking the evolution of our attitudes towards our backsides.

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