Businesses cash in as women chase bigger butts

GYM CLASSES that promise a plump posterior are in high demand. A surgery that pumps fat into the buttocks is gaining popularity. And padded panties that give the appearance of a rounder rump are selling out.

The U.S. booty business is in the midst of a big bump.

Companies are cashing in on growing demand from women seeking the more curvaceous figures of their favorite stars, who flaunt their fuller rear ends.

Nicki Minaj, for instance, raps about her "big fat" butt in "Anaconda." Reality star Kim Kardashian posts photos of hers on Instagram - and tried to "break the Internet" last week with a revealing photo shoot for Paper magazine's winter issue. In the music video for "Booty," Jennifer Lopez and Iggy Azalea, wearing leotards, spend four minutes rubbing their curvy bottoms together. At one point, they slap each other on the booty.

Sales for Booty Pop, which hawks $22 foam padded panties on its website, are up 47 percent in the last six months from the same period a year earlier. The company, which declined to give sales figures, has sold out of certain styles and colors this year, including its Pink Cotton Candy Boy Shorts.

Susan Bloomstone, Booty Pop's co-founder, said that customers have asked for larger sizes. So the Boston-based company plans to begin selling pads that are 25 percent larger this month.

"People just want more booty," she says.

Feel Foxy, another maker of padded panties, says that 2014 has been its best year since launching nearly a decade ago. Sales are up 40 percent from a year ago, but the company declined to give sales figures.

"The Nicki Minaj song gave women the idea to pay attention to their rear end," says Jessica Asmar, co-owner of the Houston company.

Deborah Santiago squeezed into a $40 Feel Foxy one-piece for her 30th birthday. The shapewear flattened Santiago's waist and boosted her back side. A flat butt can ruin an outfit, said the New York stay-at-home mother of two. Lopez is her butt idol, but she also covets the bottoms of reality TV stars on "The Real Housewives of Atlanta" and "Love & Hip Hop."

"I always wanted a big butt," Santiago said. "Something you could look twice at."

To be sure, the desire for big butts isn't new. Large booties long have been preferable in Latino and black communities, according to Dionne Stephens, an associate psychology professor at Florida International University who has researched sexuality in popular culture. And this isn't the first time big butts have been in songs. Remember the 1996 hit "Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-A-Lot?

But recently, the desire for a bigger bottom became more mainstream, in large part due to pop culture influences. Mainstream celebrities like Lopez and Minaj accepting their ample assets on camera have given the butt cachet.

"When people see things repeated on TV more and more, it becomes normalized," Stephens said.

French sociologist Jean-Claude Kaufmann confirmed that this is true overseas, too: "In Europe, and in France especially, there's a trend to show off the buttocks in place of breasts. This has to do with Latin American influences, but also the rise of Beyonce and stars like Rihanna."

Kaufmann, author of Women's Bodies, Men's Gaze. Sociology of Naked Breasts, also suggested that economic reasons are at play: "In uncertain times, people look for security. Men are attracted to women's hips and the buttocks for security and reassurance. Women respond to this. It's deeply psychological."

Whatever the reason, widespread interest in larger hind parts began growing when Kardashian's reality-TV show, "Keeping up with the Kardashians," went on the air seven years ago.

In a 2011 episode, she had an X-ray to prove she didn't have butt implants.

This summer, the music video for "Anaconda" that showed Minaj in a pink thong, was viewed 19.6 million times within 24 hours of its release - a record for music video site Vevo. It has racked up more than 300 million views. The song has been on the top of the Billboard charts, too, right behind another anthem for curvy women, Meghan Trainor's "All About That Bass."

Some businesses that specialize in butts say that pop culture has had a direct impact on their bottom line.

A Brazilian butt lift, in which fat is sucked from a patient's stomach, love handles or back and put into their buttocks and hips, is increasingly popular in the U.S. This type of surgery, along with buttock implants, was the fastest-growing plastic surgery last year, with more than 11,000 procedures, up 58 percent from 2012, according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.

Dr. Steven Davis, of Davis Cosmetic Surgery, in Cherry Hill, charges around $4,000 and up for a Brazilian butt lift, depending on the amount of liposuction required. He said he does about six procedures a month.

When the Daily News reached him Friday, he had already done one that day on a woman who came out of anesthesia and the first thing she asked was, "'Do I have a butt like Beyonce?' My anesthesiologist [told her], 'No but it looks like Kim Kardashian's.' "

The downside of the new interest is that women desperate for cheap options have risked their lives, going to phony doctors who illegally inject silicone, and even bathroom caulk, into their buttocks.

Here in Philadelphia, Victoria Windslowe - a/k/a the "Black Madam" - is in jail awaiting trial in the 2011 death of a woman injected with cosmetic silicone. Deaths also have been reported in Miami, New York, Las Vegas and Mississippi.

Not everyone is trying surgery, though. Those looking for more natural ways to enhance their derriere are attending workout classes and watching workout videos that target the butt.

DailyBurn, which streams workout videos, said that views for its "Butt, Hips and Thighs" video doubled in January and have remained popular. The video is so popular that DailyBurn is adding another butt workout clip in December.