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Rihanna always leaves nothing to the imagination

Ignatius Mabasa Shelling The Nuts
I WAS at a funeral recently when one woman arrived to commiserate. When she arrived, all the people who were sitting outside the house suddenly went quiet. This woman had a very low-cut blouse, which made her chest seductively grin and greet everybody. I was seated with a group of men, and

when she came to shake our hands as per tradition, she bent down to offer us her hand. When she did that, her breasts were not only in the faces of the mourners, but they nearly spilled out like disobedient goblins that have chosen an inappropriate time to appear in public. When her breasts almost tumbled out, the woman quickly stood up straight and tucked them in. Because she still had to shake the hands of all the other people who were outside before going into the house, she devised a plan. With one hand tightly gripping the gaping part of her blouse, she completed the hand-shaking process. By the time she finished shaking hands, she was also finished like she had been running a marathon. Beads of sweat were decorating her forehead and nose.

Eventually she shuffled and disappeared into the house where the women were. As soon as she was gone, she became the subject of our discussion. She had succeeded in stealing attention and the agenda from the deceased. For close to an hour, the men discussed how women are dressing inappropriately these days. But, what was interesting was how the other women in the house noticed the unsuitability of this woman’s dressing.

As a result, they gave her a scarf to cover her shame. One man with a shiny clean-shaven head and a pointed beard commented that outrageous dressing like we had just witnessed was like watching pornography on a big public television. He swore by his dead mother that he would rather be single than marry such a woman.

It is important for some of our women to know that even if they own their bodies and can do whatever they want with them — tattoos, nose-rings, powders, oils, sexy dressing and so forth, decency is of essence.

I am particularly inspired by a story told by one of Muhammad Ali’s daughters taken from the book: More than a hero: Muhammad Ali’s Life Lessons Through His Daughter’s Eyes. Ali’s daughter had arrived home wearing clothes that were not modest. She says, “When we finally arrived, the chauffeur escorted my younger sister, Laila, and me to my father’s suite. As usual, he was hiding behind the door waiting to scare us. We exchanged many hugs and kisses as we could possibly give in one day.

“My father took a good look at us. Then he sat me down on his lap and said something that I will never forget. He looked me straight in the eyes and said, ‘Hana, everything that God made valuable in the world is covered and hard to get to. Where do you find diamonds? Deep down in the ground, covered and protected. Where do you find pearls? Deep down at the bottom of the ocean, covered up and protected in a beautiful shell. Where do you find gold? Way down in the mine, covered over with layers and layers of rock. You’ve got to work hard to get to them.’”

“He looked at me with serious eyes. ‘Your body is sacred. You’re far more precious than diamonds and pearls, and you should be covered too.’”

I just love the beauty and simplicity of this story and how it seeks to give priceless value to the female body. I may be old fashioned, but old fashioned makes sense to me. It is very clear that the traditional and original purpose of the breast was not to advertise the body or to seduce. A couple of months ago, Rihanna went to some restaurant wearing an unbuttoned blouse and without a bra. The responses to that behaviour were condemnation, and most Americans described the event as an attempt to go to extremes in order to get attention.

In Harare, some women walk with breasts that shout and attempt to greet people before their owners even open their mouths or stretch out their hands. When breasts smile at people, running ahead before words and hands, how are people supposed to react? What kind of mobile shops are these that use flesh to draw attention? Traditionally and culturally — breasts were not tools to be flaunted in order to seduce or show off. Breasts were primarily viewed as a source of life through the provision of milk. A children’s game had words which said: Chidhange chidhange. Zamu ramai mukaka muchena. (Mother’s breast the source of pure milk).

Traditionally, a woman’s breasts were an extended form of identity and a source of pride by association. People would talk of kunaka kana kuipa kwezamu rakayamwa munhu. And when boys wanted others to fight, they simply created two small heaps of soil. Each soil heap representing each of the boys’ mothers’ breasts. What made a fight to start was when one of the boys kicked and destroyed the small mound of soil representing the breast of the other’s mother. One defended their mother and her dignity by not accepting another boy to “touch her breasts and rubbish them.”

Medically, the female breasts are accessory reproductive organs whose function is to produce milk. Breasts are an amazing creation that shows God’s ingenuity. Even before the scientists and nutritionists discovered that breast milk is best for a baby, folk knowledge showed a great understanding of the importance of breast milk. The Shona for example will say, “Kururama semukaka unoraramisa rusvava.” The breast produces antibodies and a special kind of fat that helps a child with digestion and the building of the body’s immune system. The breast’s primary function is to produce milk to feed a baby, to give them life and good health. If a breast fails to produce milk, then there is a serious malfunction of the organ. A breast that doesn’t produce milk only remains a symbol that speaks and shows the inherent potential.

It is not the woman who benefits from the milk that is produced by her breasts. Women are just custodians of the breasts so that when needed, they are used to produce milk, feed and give life to a baby. However, with breast enlargement becoming fashionable, it seems women who can flaunt their breasts get the most attention. Unfortunately, viewing breasts as a tool to draw attention is a perverted way of looking at the female body.

One woman, Maureen Rice, writing for the UK Daily Mail, once told the story of a young woman who submitted a pitch-perfect application letter and one of the best CVs she had seen. This young woman had been one of almost 70 applicants for a job on the magazine where Maureen was editor. She said looking at her application alone, the young woman “should have been my star candidate. But the minute she walked into my office, and before she even opened her mouth, she failed the interview.”

According to the prospective employer, the young woman was wearing a ‘spray-on’ dress, cut low enough to reveal yards of cleavage and high enough to barely skim her thighs, with shoes so high she had trouble walking in them. Maureen Rice concluded that, “Those clothes spoke volumes more than the carefully crafted CV and told me two essential things: this woman is not intelligent, and she does not respect me or herself.

My star candidate in the sexy dress, for example, may have looked in her mirror that morning and seen ‘confident, individual, fashionable’. I saw ‘bimbo, trying too hard, someone who doesn’t have the sense to dress for the context in which she’s going to be seen.”

I now command my mouth to shut up, but my plea to women is to be reasonable because an ill-advised fly will follow a corpse into the grave. The woman who shamelessly stole all the attention from the dead at the funeral I attended was “dressed to kill or spill.” The reason why she drew so much attention to the extent of making people talk about her more than the deceased was because of her dressing. She may have achieved her goal, but she also made her fellow women feel naked and stupid in the process!