The pursuit of a plump butt has never been more popular, thanks to celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Cardi B frequently flaunting their ample assets.
And now experts have identified exactly what makes the butt so attractive to a romantic interest. And it’s not necessarily the size.
An intriguing study by a team of European scientists has discovered that, contrary to popular belief, it is not the combination of large buttocks and a small waist that attracts us most.
In fact, both men and women are more obsessed with the space between the buttocks, known medically as the intergluteal cleft.
The experts came to this conclusion after following the eye movements of volunteers who were shown a series of images of women’s butts from different angles.
The data was then analyzed to find out not only which areas of the buttocks drew the most attention, but also how long people stayed on specific areas of the butt.
The findings come amid an explosion in demand for butt-enhancing procedures such as filler and the deadly Brazilian butt lift operation.
The number of people undergoing this risky surgery worldwide has increased by 20 percent in the last five years, according to data from the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ISAPS).
The explosion in popularity of the Brazilian butt lift has been attributed to the emergence of celebrities such as Kim Kardashian, pictured here in 2017.
For the experiment, a team of European experts recruited 67 heterosexual people, about 60 percent of whom were women, and showed them images of seven female bottoms.
Each of them was presented from five different angles, from the side, on a slight axis and also from a direct “head-on” perspective.
During this process, a special camera monitored the volunteers’ eye movements, tracking which areas of their butts they looked at first and for how long.
The results showed that the intergluteal cleft (often called the “crack”) was not only the area that both men and women looked at first, but also where they stayed the longest.
Both men and women focused on the butt crack for about a second and then stayed there for another second, the fastest and longest periods of any area, respectively.
On the contrary, the ‘thigh gap’, the space between the inner part of the thighs of some women, came in last place.
Men and women stayed in this zone for less than 0.2 seconds.
Writing in the diary, Aesthetic Plastic SurgeryThe authors said their findings could be explained by a biological imperative.
The experts tracked the eye movements of volunteers who were shown a series of female butts from different angles. In the photo: one of the rears used in the study.
Experts mapped the backgrounds in different regions and software was used to track where men and women first looked and where their eyes stopped.
The intergluteal cleft was the area that attracted attention the quickest and maintained it the longest, while the thigh gap was the one that was avoided the most and looked at the least. Pictured: A heat map of the results, red areas show where attention was held most frequently and for the longest.
“Biologically, humans may be programmed to notice specific physical attributes that historically signified reproductive fitness,” they wrote.
They added that the results contradicted previous research that suggested men were more attracted to the combination of a narrow female waist and large buttocks.
“In numerous studies, this ratio has been highlighted as a key element of female attractiveness from a male perspective, primarily due to its potential associations with reproductive health,” they wrote.
But, on the contrary, the study found that these areas did not seem to have special meaning for men.
“This unexpected finding challenges long-held assumptions and underscores the complexity and multifaceted nature of human attraction,” they wrote.
They added: “It could also indicate the changing nature of attraction metrics in contemporary society, where other factors could be overshadowing traditional evolutionary signals.”
The authors said their findings have implications for cosmetic surgery aimed at improving the appearance of the buttocks.
“When evaluating the glutes, it is essential to take a holistic approach that emphasizes the importance of the intergluteal cleft and lower sections,” they wrote.
The authors noted that their study had several limitations, the most obvious being the small number of participants, and said that further research should seek to replicate their work in larger, more diverse groups.
They added another factor to consider is that the images showed buttocks in underwear, which could potentially have attracted attention and influenced the results.