Ass men, or chubby chasers?

It's hardly a secret that black men love women with huge asses. Sir Mix-a-Lot even wrote a song about it way back when a lot of us were still in grade school. But has anyone ever stopped to wonder why it is that black men are so fascinated  by women with huge asses?

Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate a woman with a nice ass, regardless of race. But at the same time, I'll insist on drawing a distinction between a nicely-shaped, well-toned ass and what I like to refer to as a tank ass. In general, I guess I don't buy into the theory that, when it comes to asses, bigger is better.

That does, however, seem to be the prevailing aesthetic sensibility in the hip-hop community. Case in point: the career of someone like Buffie the Body, who really doesn't have a whole lot going for her other than a ridonkulously large ass, and yet has managed to become one of the most popular models in all of hip-hop.

What gives?

My boy Ben Westhoff, who once wrote a story about yours truly, has a story in this week's Village Voice in which he attempts to get to the bottom (no pun intended) of the black man's fascination with women with huge asses.

According to one guy quoted in the story, a barber named Lenny Hansen, women with huge asses are just that much better for fuckin'.

To wit:

"If a girl walks by, you really get a good idea from her back of what it would be like to have sex with them," he says. "Not from the front. If she has a fat ass, there's just a lot more to work with."

Admittedly, it's hard to argue with that kind of logic. But still...

One thing that I thought was kinda glossed over in the story is that there probably is a class element at play in all of this. I'm not sure how you'd go about proving this, but, in general, I do find that the more unfortunate a man's upbringing is, the more likely he is to be a chubby chaser.

But this can be proved anecdotally by visiting any Wal-Mart in a rural area. There was one in the shithole of a town where I went to college, and I remember all you would see was rail thin white guys walking around with these huge, tick-like white bitches. Don't even get me started on the Mexicans.

Could it be that what we're witnessing in the hip-hop community is more or less the same thing? I'm gonna go ahead and put forth that it is. One of the reasons I know this is true is that in so many cases, a black man with a little money in his pocket, and hence the means to pull any number of broads with ridonkulously large asses, will end up with a skinny white chick.

Would any of you 'bags mind explaining why this is so, other than, of course, racism?