Thursday 3 July 2003

Pic of the day: OK, not big and squishy yet, but give her another 20 years ... Anyway, this picture is from the anime Boys Be... and comes before (and is the cause of) the picture on my June 19 journal.

Big squishy backside day

Actually, the official name in English would be something like "trade day", or literally "the trade's day". The first Thursday in July, merchants in the city of Kristiansand move cheap goods out on the street, and people from the city and the countryside around come and crowd the place to get to the goods. It used to be pretty panicky, but it seems to have calmed down a bit. Even the local newspaper comments that people are more selective now. That, however, says quite a bit about how it used to be.

For some obscure reason, this event seems to draw in a large number of women with unusually large bottoms. It never ceases to amaze me. Where do they all come from? Is it the countryside around this city that for some reason produce these people? Something in the drinking water perhaps? Or do they live here, but just stay indoors the rest of the year, hiding from public view until dire need (or dire greed) draws them out on the street to jostle over cheap pots and pans?

The latter of the theories seems unlikely because they do not dress or move as if it was of great importance to them to hide the hindquarters. Well, some do, but a lot do not. Wherever I turn there are big, soft, squishy bottoms. In skirts (mercifully the skirts are long this year), in trousers, even jeans. (When did they start making them in those shapes?) They stick up from crates of unsellable goods that are literally ringed with women in different ages, sizes and shapes standing with their heads down in the books, videos, clothes or whatever. They block narrow passages. It's like it's not really Trade Day, but Squishy Backside Day. Mysterious. Very mysterious.

The last couple years I have been at home on Trade Day, but this time I was there again. They were definitely out in force. But I have a new theory this time. Perhaps it is not them. Perhaps it is me. No, not my backside. It is quite nice, in my humble opinion, but it just doesn't stand up to this kind of competition. There is a lack of approximately 1 X chromosome per cell for that. No, what I think is that perhaps they are there usually too interspersed with the general flow of people. But due to the dense population, the number of them within the field of view crosses some critical threshold and causes me to fail my subliminal resistance roll. So, like, my Soft Body Part Filter gets clogged and some objects start to overflow, the largest first ...

***

And in eerily related news, a court decision from northern Norway rules that grabbing and pinching buttocks is not sexual harassment. (I suppose it could still be harassment, at least if it hurts.) The court ruled that it was neither a sexual act nor indecent behavior. It was not in the same class as touching the genital area, which even with clothes on was definitely sexual.

It bears mention, I guess, that the girls who were suing were both 14 years old. I suppose there isn't much sexual about those tight little buns that children tend to sport in that age. You can barely see what sex some of them are. But unless overturned, I guess this ruling will become a precedence. In that case, I suppose we should update our tourist brochures accordingly. "Welcome to Norway, land of the midnight butt-grab!"