Despite the fact that men’s tastes and preferences for boobs vary according to size and shape, there is no doubt that most of them are madly in love with the ‘nyonyos’. Little wonder that ladies always catch them staring at their chests instead of their faces whenever they are having face to face conversations. Women know too well about this male fascination, hence their obsession with the size, shape and general appearance of their milk boxes because they play a big role in accentuating their beauty.
This state of affairs has brought a lot of confusion to the womenfolk. So much that those with larger ones (associated with more sex appeal) wish they had smaller and perkier ones, while those with small and perky ones wish they had a bigger and more voluptuous bosom. Whatever the case, it is a win-win situation for men. I mean, virtually every man, including the holiest of them all, fall into the ‘booby’ trap: They just can’t resist lowering their gazes to take in an exposed cleavage.
“We (men) all love breasts. Despite being married, whenever I see a bra advert on TV or even a feature on breast cancer or bra size, I instinctively turn up the volume,” giggles Abdul*, a self-proclaimed connoisseur before further joking: “Apparently, a good number of Kenyan women have no clue about their right bra size. This partly explains why there are many painful and constricted female faces on our streets.”
The 36-year-old jokes that whenever there is a bra ad or health news feature about breast on TV, he always prays and hopes they show topless models, just to provide a live and realistic demo of sorts of what they are trying to explain. For Oscar Olunga, one of the things that attract him to a woman besides her looks are the ‘mammary glands’. “I am not a bum kind of guy. Once I check out her face, the second part my eyes automatically drift to is her chest,” laughs the 24-year-old university student.
“I am sure am not alone, just ask around and you will be shocked. It’s a reality most men don’t publicly say, but they discuss it among themselves. Men are so fascinated by boobs that they at times go bonkers over them, you would think breasts are the seat of a woman’s soul,” chuckles the young lad. A keen observation at a lingerie shop will reveal that the mere sight of a shop attendant delicately dangling a sexy bra is sufficient to get the average man blushing, with arousal written all over their face.
“Besides offering visual stimulation, big, nice breasts represent fertility in a woman. They somehow portray the notion that the lady can bear as many children as possible and as well as nourish them,” says John Kariuki, a city-based 32-year-old second hand clothes dealer who happens to be a big fan of breasts. Staring at nice boobs makes men healthier, increases life expectancy.
According to Amos Mwita, 41, even older men are obsessed with breasts. Hear him: “I won’t talk for myself, but what I know is that even older folks like them (breasts) for they are nice to touch. Men like how they feel in their hands. Their softness and suppleness always tempt men to grab them and want to hold onto them forever”.
Mwita jokes by saying that there would be none of these ‘award-winning cleavages’ men like staring at in low-cut tops and dresses on the streets and in offices if breasts were nonexistent in the first place. “Men are merely paying homage. There are some who don’t necessarily like them, but because it’s breast that form those seductive cleavages, men have to show some respect to the whole package,” laughs Mwita.
Some said they generally find breasts comforting. They like resting their hands on them and that the mere sight of nice, perky set can make a bad mood disappear. In fact, some scientific studies claim that men who stare at a woman’s breasts or just the cleavage for at least 15 minutes a day live slightly longer and healthier! Not long ago, it was reported that men in Butere, Kakamega County compete with babies to breastfeed. The area public health officer Oliver Walutila confirmed the report, saying he had heard several similar complaints from lactating mothers. He went on to make a passionate appeal to farmers to increase milk production in Butere “so that fathers can leave mothers’ milk to their children”. Walutila said that mothers in Butere breastfeed their children on one breast and spare the other for their husbands.
Reportedly, there is a myth among local men there that consuming breast milk, among other things, increases their power in bed and brings good luck. Crazy stories of breasts abound. Take, traditional feminists, for instance. They used to have some sentimental attachment to breasts and anything said or done to them. They, for instance, saw bras as a symbol of repression or attempt to control women’s bodies. Some went as far as setting their own bras ablaze to protest the repression in a fit of rage.
Look, just the same way a Mercedes Benz or Range Rover sport car compensates for some men’s bad looks on the dating scene, bras enhances a woman’s figure and sex appeal. After their short-lived prime, breasts, sadly, are not very attractive to stare at and that’s where bras come in. Just the same way women prefer men with gonads that can ‘fill up’ their hands, so do men prefer big and firm ‘mammary glands’!
Before men discovered boobs as sex appeal symbols, ‘nyonyos’ sort of represented comfort. They were known to be just a soft, supple place where the boy child found peace, warmth and, of course, food. With time, men’s attachment to breasts became so intense that they began seeking women to turn them into life-long partners to perhaps remind them of the good old days they experienced on their mothers’ laps as babies.
Unfortunately, this remained an aspiration that life’s realities never mimicked, forcing men to resort to other ‘warmer’ substitutes like cigarettes to help them reminisce, you know. You are still wondering why men like smoking and sucking beer bottles? Go figure!
Horace Omondi, a sociologist, alludes men’s fascination with breasts to the unique biological linkage, which attracts people of the opposite gender to each other’s differences. “Boobs are the first erogenous zone that men come in contact with when they reach puberty, hence the attachment. Despite the restriction against touching them, men are drawn to them because they are shapely and soft and take them way back in the day when they were suckling as babies,” says Omondi.
The sociologist says human being tend to be attracted to what they don’t have on their bodies.
“Women know men can’t resist boobs and hips. That is why, when flirting or seducing men, women deliberately display their cleavages or seductively dress their bums in figure-hugging outfits. What I’m yet to understand is why they pretend to be offended when men check them out. A bit unfair,” says Omondi, adding that exposed cleavages have everything to do with the Pavlovian law of conditioning written all over them.
“If ladies were to be serious about not wanting stares from men, then they would be walking around in huge tents,” he says.
When putting together this report, it emerged that besides things men do to their women’s breasts, there are others they would love to do, but only if they had had full VIP access of them 24/7. For Paul Ndungu’s, a university student, if his girlfriend would allow him, he would love to be using them as pillows! Others, like a certain Juma said when he sees nice pair of big breasts he always wishes the owner would allow him to hold them forever and toy with them by jingling them.
Some said they would like to stare at the ‘milk boxes’ for a long, long time without being given ‘that look’ or sneered at. However, after all is said and done about male idolisation of breats, nothings perks up a Kenyan man’s attention and throws his mind into a riot of wild thoughts and imagination than ample, killer hips and bum. Real talk. No debate on that.