Swimsuits and beauty pageants
By Jacqui Iwu (jackie@sunnewsonline.com)
Saturday September 22, 2007

In my quest to understand people better, how they feel about life and things happening in their society, I always talk with men and women who have really tasted life, men and women who have seen it all be it in area of poverty, wealth, glamour, morals, social status etc.
Not just organizing interviews with them. Infact when you plan an interview with some people, you hardly get the ‘plain truth’ of issue. I extract the real feelings of people through casual meetings everywhere I go without disclosing my identity.

Some time ago, I was at an eatery and sitting at the same table with very elegant women and their husbands and, on the television was one of the beauty pageants organized here in Nigeria and all of us were eating and watching.

When it got to the swim suit parade, there was commotion among us (though we did not know ourselves). The men were frowning and smiling at the same time. There were frowns and disgust written all over the faces of the women including mine. Why? It got to a stage, one of the men frowned and said, e-eh, look at this one, what exactly is attractive about her brown black patched skin? Just-look at her… before he could finish one of the women interrupted her and for the first time focused her gaze at me and said – my dear, you see what you young ladies are doing these days, disgracing woman hood in the name of glamour and money making.

What all of them did not know was that I was also disgusted (even more then them). We talked extensively on the issue of beauty pageants and its negative effects on our younger generation and society as a whole. I also learnt a lot from the men who most times, the ladies think appreciate such things more. They do not! Before we said our goodbyes that day, one of the men said “I wish we could have more reasonable and virtuous women columnist and journalist as well as television presenters who can really educate our women more on such misguided issue”. Another one said -how about their parents? What roles have parents been playing to train their daughters? (I never disclose my identity to them) but I learnt a lot from all of them.

Now, beauty pageant is all about entertainment. Abroad where it originated, the ladies in swim suit come out with smooth clear skins. In their own culture also, such extreme body exposure is nothing to them, if you go to beaches over there, you see a lot of men and women half naked baking their bodies under the sun (sun tanning) That is no big deal to them because it is their tradition and no body cares about what your body look like over there, no fuss about it.
Here in Nigeria majority of people simply detest beauty pageant because of the “swim suit section”.

It is not generally acceptable here! Again, if you are crazy about exposing your body that much, you should ensure you expose clean, clear healthy skin and not coke and fanta – stretch marked – skin. Moreover, there are beautiful designed swim suits like Tankinis, and brief shorts which can also be worn by our contestants and they will still come out looking attractive. Must a lady expose her breasts and buttocks to win the crown? Beauty pageant can still be entertaining without the swim suits parade. Infact if you have been following the Nigeria beauty parades, you will discover that ladies that come out looking very ravishing in traditional and evening gowns turn out with wrinkled, ashy buttocks and ugly legs when they appear in swim suits.

So, what is the beauty in them? Abroad, such ladies take time out to pamper their overall body. When preparing for such contest, they spend months in health farms and Spas nourishing and pampering their entire body but, how many of the girls here can afford to do this? I feel our beauty pageant organizers should try to allow their contestants choose proper swim suits to at least cover their breasts and buttocks.

Those of you girls who do not think twice before parading your naked body on the stage, should know that, you are just there to entertain men and, there is no amount of gift or money you can get to equal the shame you have brought upon your self – exposing your entire womanhood pride to all and sundry. All those men you are entertaining, none of them will ever agree to allow their sister, wife or daughter to do such a thing.

FITNESS WATCH: If you are on diet, skip full cream milk. Alternate with good skimmed milk.
BEAUTY SPLASH: If you have very dry skin, avoid mud mask

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

If you are beautiful, you are beautiful. Exposing parts of your body as an attraction sucks!! No bonus!!