Front Butt: The Back Story

It’s a story I’ve threatened to tell many times.

In my mind.

But, really, now that I’ve sat down to finally write it, I’m not sure it’s all that interesting. Still, with an incredible THREE commenters feeling it worthy of a mention, I feel I must. Because it's all about YOU, dear readers! For serious!

When I was but a wee lass, probably somewhere around the time of the Summer of Love, I hit on the phrase. Having inescapably noted the bodily functions associated with my private parts, and knowing that, well, your butt is your butt, duh, I drew the next logical conclusion. That since both panty parts are used for toileting, are located just around the corner from one another, and, in my case at least at that time, they both looked remarkably similar, I concluded that I had not one but two butts: a front and a back. And I only needed a simple modifier to differentiate one from the other.

And it stuck. It still sticks. Because, through the years, when I lay the term “front butt” on a person for the first time, be they male or female, they all know exactly what I’m talking about. Oh sure, there may be a long pause, they may get a funny look on their face, they may laugh, (usually all three actually), but in the end? It’s a term that works. A person just knows what a front butt is. Like many simple and elegant language solutions, it has stood the test of time. More time, really, than I’d care to admit.

I’d like to be able to say that the “front butt” has never been questioned and wrap this post up right here.

But, sadly, that wouldn’t be true either.

The truth is that I was once in a close personal relationship with someone (who shall remain nameless) who had the audacity to question the front butt.

Oh, he didn’t question the phrase. In fact, he rather liked it. But he sought to redefine it.

His inexplicable desire to modify the time-tested term (alliteration points!), could probably easily constitute the basis for an even larger and more far-reaching metaphor about all sorts of things about this particular unidentified person. But I digress.

The conversation that happened went a little something like this:

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON OF THE MALE PERSUASION
So, yah, I was thinking about the “front butt”

ME
It’s front butt. Not front butt. There’s a slight emphasis there.

UPOTMP
Ahem, like I said, I was thinking about the term and I think it’s good, really good even, but there’s definitely room for improvement.

ME
(???)
Say what?

UPOTMP
You know, it’s good, it really is. You’ve just got the wrong definition.

ME
Well, gee, that would be quite impossible since, you see, I coined the phrase.

UPOTMP
I’m thinking of overweight people, you know, that you see around sometimes whose protruding stomachs hang down so low, over their crotches really, that it could actually be mistaken for another butt. A front butt. (UPOTMP finishes, a very self-satisfied look on his face.)

ME
(Stupified.)

UPOTMP
It’s a great term, really. Just needed a little tweaking.

ME
Oh, yes, forty years later, the front butt totally needs your approval.

UPOTMP
(shrugging)
I’m afraid so.

ME
Dude. First off? The “front butt” is not a term that is open to interpretation or reinvention. It IS what it IS. Get it? The ship? It has sailed. And, secondly? What you’re referring to now would be a “double butt”.

UPOTMP
A what?

ME
A double butt. You heard me. Yet another term I coined several years after my initial scientific butt related observations. It is, in fact, the perfect descriptor for the condition you refer to.

UPOTMP
No, the descriptor here would be “front butt”. I’m telling you. (Pauses. Stares off into space clearly reciting the phrase silently to himself.) Yes, definitely, “front butt”.

ME
I’m afraid that’s quite impossible because, as you well know, the term “front butt” is ALREADY TAKEN.

***

Does it really surprise you to learn that me and that particular UPOTMP were in the very end stages of the relationship by the time that conversation took place? And, while I'm not prepared to blame the break-up on this particular issue, I will say this:

Guys? Word to the wise: don’t question a sister’s term for her business, okay? After all, we don’t tend to question what you call your front butt do we? No, we just accept it. And we don’t accept it because we LIKE it, trust me. We’re just mature enough to figure that sort of thing is up to you. We’d like to be shown the same courtesy.

Otherwise, a guy runs the risk of becoming a major pain in the back butt. The sort of pain that can preclude any kind of future relationship with the front one. Is all I'm saying.