The body is a form that is so interesting on how it can be honored in one culture and seen as ugly in another. I think about this as I go clothes shopping. I walk around the store looking at styles that I think I would like to try on because Europe is the land of no refund just exchanges. The clothes are tight.  My chest area is stretching the material that is supposed to be my size. I tried the top that is bigger than my size and now my chest is comfortable and my waist swimming in fabric. Dresses and pants cannot not  go over my thighs. If I get pass thigh level jumping its useless because the bum is not fitting . Let’s say the jump works the waist is not for my waist. I am not that curvaceous yet clothes shopping in Italy is only for the flat and thin-thin. 

I look at people’s forms here. I see women that  have little to no shape , looking frail and clothes holding their shapeless frame. I see women that have some shape only wearing stretchy  jeans and oversized tops because form fitting has forgotten them. I mainly see women that are struggling to stay thin by smoking and counting calories; a cappuccino is empty calories and yet for some, a meal. 

I look at the men and the bodies are two big extremes: super skinny guys  or poorly shaped guys. I am conditioned by my North American understanding of good physic . I look for men that are defined and sculpted which honestly are very few in Rome and most of Italy. People workout, however, the diet and regime are not to build muscle. I miss seeing men that looked sculpted from  precious stones . I miss eye candy.  Men here wear skinny jeans no difference to the States. I miss admiring men that look physically strong, not bodybuilder but lean muscular physical trainer strong. 

In this world my frame has no placement. I am considered too big, yet I wear what is considered a small in the States. I have a beautiful face and have  high desirability features;  the problem is it’s not enough for me. I require depth of my  beauty to my mind. My mind is missing the banter of interesting wit.

Why are Italians considered good lovers when they haven’t stamina ? Like any country there are always some who have it and many who wish they did. Women here are said to be “lifeless”, not my words.  They look at foreign women as “experienced”, again not my words. The sexualization of foreign women has been the narrative here even in modern  tv shows. Foreign women are temptress corrupting the  good Italian boy. She walks around with her confidence and somehow, she is a whore on the prowl for a good Italian boy. The idea that men here call themselves boy has always been odd to me, but that is a discussion for another day.

So, the foreign woman at times plays down her sexuality that is supposedly overpowering the men so their mothers can sleep at night. Sex is not that great , it more about the affection that they give. Over the years, I have heard and experienced enough to get this idea. Affection is why they are considered lovers. He may not be good at sex because his knowledge is based on what his culture told him what it is. The overly dramatized shows with half naked women, giggling about nothing with verbally abusive men that at times got physical with them. Every film has a cheating man that the woman takes back in the last 5 minutes of a ridiculous story.  Just like men in other countries . Here the idea is affectionate men that cheat yet don’t have much to really offer sexually but give affirmations of love are enough. It makes them keepers.

In contrast, Caribbean men are mostly full of stamina and sexual pleasure but no ideology of affection . The art of tantalizing a lover is considered unmanly. The culture is bursting with  lyrics of lust however the core moralities are of religion thanks to white Christian values via the United Kingdom. The men are seen as great lovers because they can fill the gap in the bedroom. Their form is of great curiosity and fetish in foreign lands.  Whether they know it or not they can find the spot and bang it to oblivion with dedication.  They can dismantle a woman’s life with a single move of the waist, yet his tenderness is kept at a distance. His nurture is not for show or hard to find. He is not big on holding hands  or overtly eccentric words of  devotion thus their form is what takes center stage. These types of men, these Caribbean men are my lineage for I am from the land of wood and water.

My country automatically creates these 5 Italian responses that I have heard over the last 10 years:

“ Che Bella Jamaica!”

“ ma… dov è Giamaica ( where is Jamaica)?”

 “Ah, Bob Marley!”

 “Marijuana !”

     and

 “…do they all have big dicks  because I saw the documentary on the tv”. *

This line of thought has mainly been men , men curious, men wondering about women with melanated glistening skin.  They wonder how they compare and some wonder if it is even worth finding out to understand if the sexual prose of a Caribbean men is true. They all have seen this illusive documentary that I haven’t found yet. This documentary that once aired on Italian tv putting fear into men to NOT bring their partners to Jamaica.  Since I have a form they are attracted to  and I have been with a Caribbean man that has the  form they feel is threatening.  These men fixate on the exotic superfreak ideas that are innate to them and thus I am placed within their category of  women to lust and fear. I pity them and at times tell them the tales they need to hear so the legend can live on. Be aware of the Jamaican man if you want to keep your girl.

*honorable mention response: “Impossible  that Usain Bolt is fast, its drugs , no?”