Not many people say the word “buns” anymore and I say, Thank Goodness.
The other night on Fox News, Greta Van Susteren was talking up Donald Trump’s new book with its dignified, typically Trump-esque title, Think Big and Kick A-- . Trump, on the phone with Greta, mentioned he’d been advised to “tone down” the title a tad – maybe to “Kick Butt” instead – but to his ear, Think Big and Kick Butt just didn’t have that literary-classic-sounding flow that “Kick A—“ did. Isn’t that shocking?
Bri and I discussed this and I said, “He should have called it Think Big and Kick Buns.” Then I thought, Ewwww, buns. I hate the word “buns.” It’s right up there with “panties.”
“Buns” is a word I hadn’t heard on television for years, until I caught an episode of VH-1’s “I Love the 80s,” when the sight of two middle-aged hausfraus singing the praises of some male celebrity’s “buns” brought back some powerful, and not pleasant, memories. All the embarrassing giggly simpering that once accompanied the word “buns” came slamming back like a car door on an ankle bone.
In the 80s, “buns” became a popular word. Right about the time a certain high school flame was wearing holey-butted Levis with red boxers underneath (“cuz I gotta have faith! Faith! Faith!”), they were on almost every woman’s mind: Buns and the Men Who Had Nice Ones. Everywhere you looked, there they were – hanging out of David Lee Roth’s and Prince’s buttless pants… quivering beneath Tom Cruise’s tighty whities in “Risky Business”… even The Missionary's mother commented that Billy Ray Cyrus, of “Achy Breaky Heart” fame, had nice buns (the statement “At this, I became overwhelmingly nauseated” is not an exaggeration).
What could account for this sudden buns interest? I can blame only one thing: the Women’s Liberation Movement. Yes, now follow along. Women weren’t content with voting, straddling horses, wearing pants or chewing tobacco like a man anymore. There was another, as-yet-uncrossed female frontier: the objectifying of men. Sure, men had been eyeballing us and making lewd comments for centuries, but women? No way. Nice women – LADIES – did not notice men’s behinds, nor comment about them. Not once did I ever hear my mother or aunts or (heaven forbid) grandmothers say, “That Frank Sinatra has a nice pair” or “Boy, wouldn’t I love to be Elvis’ black leather pants” or “Look at Tom Selleck’s eensy weensy little shorts! You can see every detail!”
But by the 1980s, the wheels of progress had turned. FINALLY! Women were free to notice – and when I say “notice,” I mean “gleefully discuss, lust over, and froth at the mouth about” – men’s hineys. The shorts were on the other cheek; frantic female fans declared their Man-Buns-Hankering independence. No longer could men say to their wives, “Myrtle! Stop staring at Willie Nelson’s keister! Get your big white can out to the kitchen and make me some gravy!” and get away with it.
By the end of the decade, no man’s buns were safe. Even my father was a buns-lover’s gawking victim. One morning, as Dad was standing beside his bread truck, taking bread products into a store, the town crazy lady, Betty Bonkers, caught up with him and hissed witlessly, “Nice buns!” To this day, no one in the family can decide if Betty had her eye on Dad or his bread.
After living through that decade, I’m happy to see that “buns” has largely been dropped as a term for “buttocks.” I can’t bring myself to say “buns” anymore – at least, not to anyone older than 5-year-old Carter and 3-year-old Rosalind, whose sweet little buns I still pinch semi-regularly. If I must refer to anyone’s posterior, I will most likely call it/them “cheeks” or “tushie” or “self” (as in, “No Cool Story, you have chalk dust on your little self”) or, depending on whom I’m with, “bunzolas.”
Think Big and Kick Bunzolas… Trump should call me for title ideas next time.