The Butt of the Joke

My ass needs no enhancement, thank you. It's as enhanced as it needs to be. I didn't want to really talk about my posterior in Smug yet again this month, but I've been looking at this ad for a year now and thinking "Okay, it's bound to go out of vogue soon." Yet, every month, it appears - in Details, the Globe it appears over and over again and that leads me to believe that someone is buying these things. Ads cost money, and when one is unsuccessful, it's unlikely to see several more follow it, at least without revision, and this one has been running in it's current form for eons. Someone is buying these things, apparently, lots of someones.

Simulacra aside, it amuses me to no end to think that this is a popular item. It makes me want to go around patting the tushes of all the men I know to see who the audience really is, but last time I did that, Todd sued me for both my dollars and Brian followed me around for days. Men won't admit their vanities like women will. My friend - we'll call her "Eva" for artistic purposes, freely admits that her best friend is her Irish cousin "Paddy O'Bra" - a padded bra, but a man who say, wore a modern day codpiece is open far wider to ridicule. You know why? Because it's funnier to pad your package than your chest, that's why.

The image is funny. The longer I stare at it, the more it looks like woman - wasp waisted, bubble butt, a feminine ideal. What happens when it's time to put out. I fear the day I'm removing someone's garments to find I've been fooled. What to say when the moment happens? There's got to be a funny line in there about not writing checks your ass can't cash, but it evades me now.

The copy is poetry, it promises a perfectly proportioned "all around" look (quotes are theirs - not mine) and I'm asking you, what is this "all around" look? Could the all around look be achieved without spending the extra five bucks for the snap fly front endowment pad to accentuate his manhood?

The inecurities of men are finally starting the meteoric rise that the insecurities of women have been enjoying through media pressure all along. Cosmetic surgery was one of the largest growth industries of 1997 and this is due to a 600% increase in the amount of men doing things like pectoral enhancement and tummy tucks. There was a 300% increase in men's cosmetics - bronzing gel, eyeliner, blemish coverup creme, and I'd be lying if I said that didn't make me smile. Soon, we'll all be meat, and it will not be uncommon to hear women lament the way men used to before the advent of sexual harrassment suits "He was gorgeous when I met him, but when I woke up, the pillow was covered in makeup and he was a beast!" We all have our little dreams.

leslie@smug.com

in the junk drawer:

December 1997
November 1997
October 1997
September 1997
August 1997
July 1997
June 1997
May 1997
April 1997
March 1997
February 1997
January 1997