We are supposed to agree with DD that having full-on SURGERY to put something completely UN-NATURAL in our bodies is safer than having a God-given big butt?

Such a ridiculous idea completely discredits the whole article.

Salon features the cutting edge in political writing. Kamiya, Greenwald, Walsh and others offer intelligent incisive articles about politics and the media.

However, as much as I love Salon, it's coverage of issues of race, sexism, class and culture is sloppy and regressive. What saddens me most is that Salon's writers on these issues are women. Earlier, I wrote my own attack on Ms. Dickerson for this piece. I've certainly written my share of letters countering Ms. Paglia's often strange perceptions.

Yet in a way I love these women for their outlandishness and daring on a liberal/mainstream website. I suppose I wouldn't be as offended if they were not the only writers covering these issues.

I find it hard to take much of Salon's coverage of racism, sexism and culture seriously. The Broadsheet may be excellent, I don't know. I've never gotten beyond the stereotypically pink-with-thin-white-woman logo. The one time I read it, the letters forum degenerated into a bitter attack against a black woman who had dared to go to the police to report a rape. I haven't returned since.

And when other writers touch on issues of culture and race, they too seem to suddenly become regressive. I'm still saddened by the attack pieces written about Gore Vidal and Edward Said.

Salon seems to inadvertantly spin racism, sexism, classism and homophobia much more than question or counter them. I emphasize 'inadvertantly,' for I believe Salon to be a thought provoking, intelligent publication.

Could Salon hire writers who write articles based on sound analysis of the issues and who are experts in these areas? (Strangely, these would be people like those who have been attacked. Edward Said and Gore Vidal dedicated years to studying race, sex and culture.)

Could Salon offer more coverage on issues of race, sexism and class?

Thanks for your wonderful publication.

This article puts to mind the story of the Hottentot Venus:

"Saarjite Baartman, a young Khosian woman from Southern Africa whose body was the main attraction at public spectacles in both England and France for over five years, is perhaps the most infamous case of a Khosian body on display. Baartman, who became known as the Hottentot Venus, was brought to Europe from Cape Town in 1810 by an English ship's surgeon who wished to publicly exhibit the woman's steatopygia, her enlarged buttocks. Her physique, particularly her steatopygic appendage, became the object of popular fascination when Baartman was exhibited naked in a cage at Piccadilly, England. When abolitionists mobilized to put an end Baartman's public display, she informed them that she participated in the spectacles of her own volition. She even shared in profits with her exhibitor."

Rather than comment on all the ways that the author fails to situate the big booty phenomenon in any sort of historical, medical, anthropological or even extra-cultural context, I'll just refer you to the rest of this article:

http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Exhibition.html)

Size 13 to 15 is NOT slim!

It depends on the brand of clothes you buy. The cheaper the garment, the more honest the sizing.

Example:

I am 33, 5'5", I weigh around 130. Tragically, I'm more of a "bowling pin" shape rather than a coke bottle, but if I had a normal size bosom for a woman my age I'd have some smokin' curves. In the interest of full disclosure, I come from a long line of "fat-bottomed girls" and while we do indeed make the rockin' world go 'round it makes clothes shopping kind of a chore.

I went to buy a pair of jeans at Target a few weeks ago, and I could barely squeeze my thighs and tush into a size 9, although the waist was gappy and huge because I actually have one, instead of being built like a brick like most designers seem to think women are. I went to Macys and tried on a pair of designer jeans and had to drop down to a size 5, and even those are loose in the thigh.

I promise you I did not lose 20 pounds in the 25 minutes it took me to walk from Target to the mall, so which am I? A size 5/6 or a size 9/10? Am I slim because I wear a size 5, or am I on the chubby side because a size 9 is tight on me?

If you want to see what's wrong with the left these days, look no farther than this Debra Dickerson column -- and Mikes Pace's posts in defense of it. This kind of P.C. "lifestyle" busybodyness isn't just annoying, it's a waste of energy. Dickerson's approach is hardly an original one. Our culture thrives on butting into everyone else's business these days, from celebrity-watch websites to rightwing neanderthals' gay-bashing to busybody lefties meddling in someone else's habits. Deliberately minding your own business -- an attitude of "to each his/her own" -- is a basic tenet of any truly civil, free society. People who won't mind their own business are usually insecure about something. Either their own lives are boring and they have to live vicariously through others, or they have a narrow, constipated view of life (no matter how healthily they may eat) and are afraid someone's going to get "out of line" with their limited take on the world. Enough, already.

I am appalled that out of all of the letters only two point out that this insane woman is saying that breast implants are healthier than a naturally large behind! ARE YOU KIDDING ME??!

I don't understand how the editors of Salon allow this. Obviously Ms. Dickerson either did no research or if she did it is seriously flawed. How can putting plastic bags filled with salt water or silicone near your heart via incisions that could sever the sensation in your nipples forever be healthier than having a big butt, which by the way could be caused by having larger muscles in that particular body part. Does she think that because having large "fun bags" is much more widely accepted in white America than having a big butt it therefore makes it healthier? Never mind the fact that having a large middle section is what is indeed more dangerous as far as developing diseases such as high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease etc, which many have pointed out Buffie does not have. This article was obviously a piece of crap unlike any I've seen here before in Salon (seems I missed her previous, equally crappy articles)and it worries me that the feelings it brings out are similar to those I feel when I see Anne Coulter.

Please Salon, take a higher road.