WHY DO MEN OGLE CURVY WOMEN?

PHOTO ANTHONY NJOROGE

By BILLY MUIRURI
Posted Friday, August 20 2010 at 10:09

SATURDAY NATION, NAIROBI

Look at how a group of men behave every time a woman (or women) passes. Chances are that their eyes will follow the woman until she disappears.

It is as simple as that - Men will always crane their necks to give a beautiful or curvy woman a second glance. But just why do they do this?

A study in Britain and published in the Daily Mail in September last year, showed that 47 per cent of men were found to glance at women’s breasts on meeting them.

According to another study, one in every three men will have their eyes on a woman’s hips or waist while only one in every five men will remember to look at the face, according to researchers at New Zealand’s University of Wellington.

The same study revealed that men stare at a woman’s breasts longer than at any other body part.

Perry Rose, author of “Women, Sex and Dating for the Single man” says that men’s ‘love for breasts’ goes back to the days they breastfed as babies. But then she poses, “women also suckled” so why are they not obsessed with breasts?

Glan Fiero an expert in personal growth wonders whether men’s glances at particular parts of a woman’s body is instinctive, habitual, wanton lust or just male curiosity.

"Men like the aesthetic value of human anatomy. Each looks at the body part that satisfies his sexual needs,” she writes.

Still in Britain, a study by Kodak Lens Vision Centre that investigated “men’s eyeball activity” towards women showed men check out on average 10 women a day and this takes about 43 minutes of their total day in terms of time.

“This is about 11 days in a year of “undressing women with their eyes”. Just looking and admiring female anatomy,” the study noted.

So, do we have the same problem nearer home and what do the men say about it?

“Any nice looking breasts that are sparingly exposed will definitely interest my eyes,” says Charles Kanake who says he looks at a woman from the front and the first criteria he uses to determine her beauty is whether her breasts are firm and perky or not.

“But the ones that are over exposed in low cut clothes are simply off-putting and not attractive; in fact most men believe that women who over expose any part has loose morals. This may not necessarily be true but that’s what we think,” says Kanake, 23.

Kanake also confesses that he’s attracted to light-skinned women and will most likely turn to have a second glance when he passes one with a shapely figure.

For Tony Chira, it is a woman’s hips that will make him momentarily transfer all his thought to that same person.

“Ogling is not about men being immoral. And whether a man is married or not does very little to dissuade him from glueing his eyes on a curvaceous woman,” says Chira, a fashion and modelling consultant in Nairobi.

He is, however, quick to distinguish between a curvaceous woman and a fat one.

“It is not about the body size. It is about how the body is uniformly held together,” he says.

Chira’s sentiments seem to tally with the definition of curvaceous. The Chambers Dictionary terms curvaceous as “having curves or bent in regular form”. When referring to women, curvaceous means, “having shapely curves or a well-rounded body.”

Like Chira, Sylvester Rotich thinks a woman’s hips go a long to demonstrate the true face of femininity.

“After all, this is where we see the main difference between men and women,” he says.

He believes most African men like women with shapely hips due to their mentality of what a woman’s beauty is all about.

“While men say they look at a woman’s beauty from the rear, many modern women believe in the Western notion that having a slender frame is what is beautiful. Our young women are fighting weight believing men will find them more beautiful and yet this is not necessarily the case,” says Rotich.

“If you don’t believe me, then do the experiment for yourself. Sit somewhere and watch what kind of woman a man will give a second glance. It will definitely not the skinny one," adds Rotich.

Ask a woman what she feels when her man stares at another woman and she will tell you, this is the first step to infidelity.

It also makes many women feel as if the man is making a comparison which is not very comfortable for most women.

But Rotich refutes this. “Many of us just “feed the eyes” and the matter ends there, he says.

“It is wrong to assume that because we ogle other women, we want to take the ogling to another level such as infidelity. How many men do you find approaching the woman they are staring at?” he poses.

Randy Dudo, in his early 40s, admits that ogling at women is a weakness that many men have. They do it unconsciously, many times without any malice,” he says.

Dudo, confesses that it is hard these days not to stare at all the attractive women around especially seeing the way their dress codes leave little to the imagination.

“Many women are going out of their way to enhance their body shapes, especially the hips so they should not complain when we look.

“Look at all the tight fitting jeans and tight skirts being worn and how they are helping in boosting the shape and size of hips. They know men will be attracted and that is why they are investing a lot on this part of their anatomy,” says Dudo.

African men, he says, prefer women with a bit of flesh and not those mannequin-looking catwalk models but quickly adds “It is not about how big but how regular it goes in tandem with the rest of the body,” says Dudo.

John Ndogo admits he looks at a woman both from the front and the back.

“The breasts attract first, especially if they are not over-exposed. Contrary to popular belief, most men fear to be seen with a woman who is showing too much flesh as she may be mistaken for an immoral woman,” he says.

Ndogo, 32, , however, thinks there is no crime in a man looking at a woman’s body - the only challenge, according to him, would be what you do after that.

“There is a satisfaction that comes with admiring a woman’s body. But one must be careful not to make any moves that may be embarrassing or illegal,” says Ndogo.

Like Rotich, Ndogo believes a woman with curvaceous hips scores higher with men as she is seen as being more feminine.

“But of course her character also matters because it is not just a good body that makes a woman,” he observes.

Writing on how the shape of women’s bodies attracts male attention, author Michele Miller says many companies will use beautiful women in marketing blitzs.

In “Why boobs and butts will always matter in advertising”, Miller is categorical, “ they will always get people talking.”