Sunday, August 3, 2003
THE MIAMI HERALD

LAUNCHING A REAR-GUARD ATTACK ON A NEW PRODUCT

DAVE BARRY

Buttocks. Most of us have them. But what can we do to make them more attractive?

For centuries, the unfortunate answer has been: "Not very much." We have had to accept the buttocks we were given by Mother Nature, who is a big prankster when it comes to body parts.

For most men, this is no big deal. Men can go for decades without thinking about their buttocks. A man's buttocks could have moss growing on them (I have seen this) and he would not necessarily be aware of it.

But the same cannot be said of the opposite sex (women). Women think about their buttocks a great deal, and inevitably conclude, over the course of time, that they are hideous globs of curdled fat that must never be seen by another human. As a professional journalist, I have spent many hours professionally observing women at the beach, and I would say that, statistically, somewhere between 100 and 115 percent of all middle-aged women are using some kind of buttocks-concealment mechanism, such as a towel, or a sarong, or remaining in the car.

These women are extremely vigilant about not exposing themselves; they never emerge from the water without instantly transforming into Buttocks Concealment Mode. If a huge mutant man-eating lobster were to come lunging out of the surf, waving the Claws of Doom, I guarantee that its first victim would be a middle-aged woman, because while everybody else was sprinting away in terror, she would stop to put on her sarong.

Well, I am pleased to report that the long nightmare era of innocent women running the risk of being consumed by giant crustaceans is over. Because now there is an amazing new buttocks-enhancement product on the market called the "Biniki." What is the Biniki? It is, in a nutshell, a brassiere for the rear. At last!

The Biniki was brought to my attention by my colleague at The Miami Herald, fashion editor Shelley Acoca. Shelley is not the kind of person who casually uses the term "an amazing breakthrough product that every woman simply must have." And, sure enough, she did not use this term to describe the Biniki. I believe the term she used was "stupid."

But Shelley did send me a bunch of press information on the Biniki. According to the official website (www.biniki-fashions.com) it was invented by a Dr. Karin Hart, Ph.D., a psychologist from, of all places, California. Dr. Hart came up with the idea in 1998, when she noticed that her own personal buttocks were sagging. So she developed a support garment consisting of two loops and a waistband. She patented it, and is now generously making it available to the public in exchange for money. In the frank and unbiased opinion of whoever wrote the Biniki press release, this is a historic development in women's garments.

"Brassieres have become nearly universal since their invention in 1889, " states the release. "But no one has catered to the rear end until Biniki."

I think we should applaud Dr. Hart's effort to cater to the rear end. And I'm sure that every woman who tries this product will be as excited as "J.M. Danielle, " who, in a testimonial on the Biniki Internet site, states that she wore her Biniki to work and was pleased with the reaction of co-workers to her enhanced rear end.

"People couldn't quite put their finger on it, " she states (really), "but I definitely had a lot of compliments."

I have one concern. You may have noticed that women are wearing their pants lower and lower. At least they are here in Miami. I am seeing women - including older women - walking around in pants that are so low that they verge on not being pants at all, but are more like two independent, unconnected pants legs, also known as "chaps."

My concern is that, if female pants continue to descend at their current rate - currently estimated by government scientists at about a quarter-inch a month - and at the same time the Biniki becomes popular, resulting in a raising of the general female buttocks population . . . well, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to predict what's going to happen.

What's going to happen is that I'm going to enroll my daughter in a nunnery.

© 2003 Dave Barry. The information you receive on-line from
this site is protected by the copyright laws of the United States.
The copyright laws prohibit any copying, redistributing, retransmitting,
or repurposing of any copyright-protected material.

NOTE: We're happy to have you link to this page on your web site, or send the link to your friends in email. But please don't copy the columns and put them on your site, or send them out in email. Thanks.

Go back to Dave's Columns