From top to bottom: fantastic bum facts!

10:37 21 April 2008

David Beckham has got himself in hot water by being caught on camera, staring at a cheerleader's derriere.

But Golden Balls isn't the only one who likes a cheeky look at a bum or two? It's only natural - a part of being a man.

The science

It seems scientists would agree tracing back the history of man's fixation with the female rear back over 15,000 years, to Caveman who worshipped statues of buttocks.

And it wasn't only cavemen. The ancient Greeks were massive fans of a big shapely bum too. It was they who popularised the term "callipygian" back in the day, meaning "one with beautiful buttocks".

The word

The word "callipygian" has now fallen out of usage, (especially in the UK were we don't speak Greek) but don't worry, we are so obsessed with the body part that we've got 49 words listed in the Oxford English dictionary to use instead.

Whose hot bot? Do you know who owns this?

49 is as many words as the Eskimo's have for snow! If that doesn't prove that the nation is obsessed with bums, and that the worship of a hot bot is part of our culture, then who knows what does?

Worldwide

It's not just in the UK either. All over the world people are becoming more proud of looking at (and showing off) their rears.

In some places bearing ones bum is even encouraged, such as in Manatee County, Florida where you may legally bare up to two-thirds of your rear in public.

And then there are the numerous competitions, the most famous of which in the UK being 'Rear of the Year'. Barbara Windsor won the first of these competitions in 1976 while weather girl, Sian Lloyd won in 2007.

Getting bigger

Crash and Burn Are you a flirting disaster?

The bum is getting bigger physically too. In 1998 a ferry in Seattle cut its maximum seating from 250 to 230 - the reason being that US bottoms had become larger.

This can only be perceived as a good thing as the bigger the bum, the more fertile the woman in question, or so a Dutch study has revealed.

Big buttocks on females are also said to represent a "powerful gender signal", giving erotic signals to men.

Praise be

With all this men should be proud to worship the female buttocks, not shamed and forced to have a sly look. And so what if people scanning their bums is the cause of 23% of photocopier breakages - that's half the fun of being proud of your rear.