Hiney whining

After reading a delightful article recently about the author's perceived lack of personal gluteal protuberance (translated, she thinks she has no butt), I am thinking about all the synonyms associated with said rear region and how verbally unsatisfying they seem to be.

I must confess, I don't much care how one refers to the male human backside. Being a hetero human male, my hard-wired, evolved-ape interests naturally include the female human backside, which deserves its own proper and attractive terminology.

Specifically, there is no sweet, soft, gentle word for this important secondary sexual characteristic. Topside, she has breasts -- a lovely, romantic word, IMHO, a lot better than the stupid and infantile slang of "boobies" or the grotesque t-word, which is suitable for dairy cows, not Ladies. May my tongue be ripped out of my head and fried on a hot rock if ever I lower myself to such verbal ugliness.

But under and yon, what options are there? Butt is short for buttocks, which just sounds ugly and clinical. Ass is just crude and no synonym for a stubborn, hairy beast of burden belongs on a woman's body. Only fitness freaks talk about buns anymore. Derriere is as close to a lovely lilt as we seem to have available, but it still sounds like some foreign car or an old-fashioned dueling weapon to me. Hips are for grandmothers. Fanny, behind, rear end, hiney, backside -- all these fail to satisfy. And "Where the Good Lord split you" should never have escaped the Tennessee hills.

Tsukas or whatever they say in Yiddish, sounds like a disease. Nalgas may work in Spanish but to my English ear, it sounds like a relative of nopalitos, which are canned cactus slices.

As a lover of words and of Womankind, too, I find this deficit disturbing. Whatever shall we do?