# Heart or Buttocks? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [March 17, 2005, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heart-or-buttocks/294950 "2005-03-17T05:35:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Butters](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Butters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Butters)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2005, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heart-or-buttocks/294950/1 "2005-03-17T05:35:11Z")
The article to which I am referring to is this one from 1986: [http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2\_146.html](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_146.html) It’s about why Valentine’s Day hearts are shaped the way they are, and I just wanted to add one tiny thing - I’ve heard that the ‘heart shape’ comes from a certain type of old runic symbol that means roughly (I’m not kidding) ‘booty’ and/or getting said booty - for lack of more tasteful terms. I hear that it’s purposely meant to look that way, and was meant for casting erotic love spells or fertility spells or something. Then, the Christians adopted it and said ‘let’s pretend this represents a heart.’ I would ‘\<3’ to be proven wrong, by the way. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2005, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heart-or-buttocks/294950/2 "2005-03-17T07:47:09Z")
I too remember Desmond Morris putting forth the claim that the stylized cardiovascular muscle of St. Valentine’s Day is actually an upside down gluteus maximus muscle of previous pagan worship. Of course this is another example of the Early Church Fathers efforts to turn the Erotic into the Agape (“Fleshy” into “Soulful”), with all good intentions in oppostion to human nature. In all fairness, the pagans produced stacks of scrolls in contemplation of the perfect human spirit (“heart,”), but for the perfect set of buttocks were satisfied with the simply beautiful term “callipygian.” The problem with Morris’s theory is twofold: the heart symbol resembles an actual heart only slightly less than it does an actuall human butt. If you were drawing a butt-symbol, would you choose this? There are plenty of buttock-symbols from the pre-Christian era, and they do not resemble an upside down “heart” shape. Peaches are a more common theme. And, if indeed meant to resemble a butt, it’s clearly a female set. And the Pagans definately did not limit their admiration of this attribute only to their females’. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2005, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heart-or-buttocks/294950/3 "2005-03-17T23:23:06Z")
I used to watch Cybill Shepherd’s sitcom, _Cybill_ I believe it was called. In one episode, her character was convinced the iconic heart-shape was actually based on a vagina, & was trying to get someone else to recognize this with an upside-down cardboard heart-shape. That this someone else was, IIRC, a friend’s date was a bit distressing to the friend. ---
**Author:** ![Butters](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Butters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Butters)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2005, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heart-or-buttocks/294950/4 "2005-03-19T10:38:51Z")
> [@Slithy Tove](#): > > The problem with Morris’s theory is twofold: the heart symbol resembles an actual heart only slightly less than it does an actuall human butt. If you were drawing a butt-symbol, would you choose this? There are plenty of buttock-symbols from the pre-Christian era, and they do not resemble an upside down “heart” shape. Noted! (Scribble, scribble!) Tove, you are the Slithiest!