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Scared of dating today’s younger African women? Try these.

By Bola Omotosho

Dating a younger woman can be fun and exciting. Just remember there is a fine line between that great older man who just gets her and that creepy guy at the end of the bar every woman in the place is carefully avoiding. To give her the right impression, try following these simple tips.

Be yourself: You are who you are and you know who that is, so be proud of it. There is no need to act like one of her friends the same age. She will know you are a fake and worse, so will you.

Do not try to buy her attentions: Buying her a drink to let her know you’re interested or taking her to dinner to get to know her better is one thing, but buying fancy gifts or showing off your car, house or other material objects is not how to win her affections. Doing that will only leave you broken hearted and with an empty wallet.

Try to understand her: Younger women usually want excitement in their lives. If you are going to be part of her life, you will probably spend your nights in clubs with her friends. She will expect you to dance with her and have a good time, and not be a wall flower or just hang by your drink at their table.

This is going to seem contradictory, but it isn’t: While we just said not to buy her fancy gifts, and we mean that, that does not mean do not buy her gifts. Be reasonable and fun with them. Send her a bouquet of flowers or balloons to her work place with a sweet note. If you know she loves a certain chocolate, buy her a box for a small occasion or no occasion at all, but save those expensive, showy gifts for the important dates and super special occasions.

Show your maturity by staying calm when she is upset: This does not mean that you are supposed be unemotional, but rather that you stay in control of your emotions, especially when it has nothing to do with your relationship. For example, she may get upset that her best friend was cheat on, but your best bet is to listen and be supportive; only offering advice when asked for.

Do not be a creep: Younger women generally date older men because older men have more self control that their younger counterparts. Prove this to her by keeping your hands to yourself and allowing her to start the physical side of your relationship. No one likes that creepy older guy whose hands are everywhere at once.

Let her have some freedom: You may want to spend every waking moment with your younger beauty, but many younger women are out on their own for the first time and are just discovering the freedom that being an adult offers. Be understanding of this and let her have her girls nights, spa days, and shopping trips. She may not say how she appreciates it, but she will show you.

Let inform her on time for a date: She may enjoy hanging out with her friends with you, but every once in a while take charge of the relationship. Depending on where your relationship is, take the time and plan out a nice night on the town for just the two of you or a quiet weekend away from it all. Just be sure to ask her ahead of time and let her know that you will be making plans for the two of you then or you may be disappointed that she has already filled her time.

Be prepared to be spontaneous: I know that sounds a bit weird, but younger women sometimes hear an idea and decide that they want to do it now and want you to do it with them. That means that you have to be ready to say yes to them and go with the flow and have fun.

Lastly, do not ignore your obligations: While going out and having fun is a great thing, as an older man you have obligations in your life. The most notable is probably your job, which keeps you in the nice older man column and out of the unemployed creep column for most women. If you need to stay in to work on a project, say so. She may be initially disappointed but will respect you in the long run.

 

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Today in fashion: Flatter your face with earrings

by KATE HALIM

Do you believe that wearing a pair of earrings could flatter your face? There are few women who have perfect face shapes, others who are not so lucky think of changing their hair styles often to make them look great.

Earrings are a popular piece of jewellery and it is essential to choose the right ones for your face shape, because wearing the right earrings will lift and define your facial features. To determine your face shape, start by pulling your hair away from your forehead with a hair band, stand in front of a mirror and trace the outline of your face with a soap bar or lipstick in the mirror.

Below are some face shapes and best earrings to flatter your face:
The oval face is the ideal shape, and many kinds of earrings could go for this shape perfectly. You can try some sterling silver earrings, but avoid sporting a too-long face, don’t wear incredibly long shapes that will pull the face down.
Ladies who have round faces will have to make their face look slimmer, and the long length earrings are really helpful. Circular earrings, such as hoops, as well as tiny studs and button earrings are a no-no for this face shape.

To balance the wide forehead for the heart face, you should wear chandelier and teardrop earrings. Avoid earrings that have the same shape as your face, like heart-shaped hoops and short earrings. For ladies endowed with square face, which is characterized by strong and broad forehead with angular jaw and a square hair line, circular earrings, such as hoops do the magic. Square, rectangular or harshly angled earrings that echo your face shape should be done away with.

The oblong face shape is longer than it is wide, ladies with this face should lift their faces with statement chandelier earrings, as well as studs because they create appeal. Avoid long and angular earrings that echo your face shape. With the above tips, you are ready to flatter your face with the right earrings.

 

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Would you rather marry a virgin? An African perpective

African wedding
 
GIDEON OPARINDE (odili.net)
(views expressed are those of the responders and not necessarily of TalkAfrique)
In the past, it was expected that a maiden must go into marriage as a virgin. If on the first night, her husband found her not to be so, the family suffered instant condemnation.
 
But civilization has substantially changed the way people perceive virginity. At one time, it was even thought to be ‘bush’ if a girl dared reveal to her peers that she was still a virgin. Some girls even competed to be the first to lose their virginity to a boyfriend.
Once again, attitudes are changing, and it is becoming fashionable to be a virgin. This new development is driven more by the Pentecostal revival spreading through the world. Virginity, at least among Pentecostal Christians and fundamentalist Muslims, is being appreciated again.
Being a virgin is good, these people argue, saying that it is a key factor to whether there would be deep trust between the couple. However, there are women who were married as virgins but are now worse than whores. But then, the issue of virginity is like a two-sided coin as it also applies to men who go into marriage without having ever had sex with a woman. For women who marry such men, and considering the realities of the present time, when women have become bolder and assertive, they expect to be sexually satisfied by their husbands. So would you, whether as a man or lady prefer marrying a virgin?
 
Edna
Marrying a female virgin is an advantage to a man because you will know she has never been touched by any man and she is free from sexually transmitted diseases, but the other part is that when you have let her loose and she happens to have funny friends, they might talk her into testing the waters, except she is a true child of God.
 
Afolabi
I really would love marry a virgin, but looking at the percentage of people who are lucky enough to have virgins today, they are very few. A number of men today would not want to marry any lady without having an affair with her. When a man marries a woman who is not a virgin and he is not the first man in her life, it becomes a stigma on her. But men cause most of theses things.
Definitely, not all deflowered ladies are irresponsible, some could be victims of circumstance like rape, sweet coated men who may have promised them marriage, but determined to exploit her first. Should she not get married again?
How many women today got married as virgins? The same applies to men.
I believe if there is virginity test for men, many ladies/ women too would not want to marry an experienced man due to fear of sexually transmitted diseases. But the point is that hardly would you find a man that would satisfy an experienced lady in bed and you would hardly have rest of mind that she is still faithful to you alone.
 
Samuel
Yes I would like to marry a virgin because a virgin has a higher tendency to be faithful. But it is important to note that when a man marries a virgin, the lady may be tempted to stray outside to see what she missed out during her youthful days. If a man marries a woman as a virgin, it might turn out a problem to the man because of lack of experience and not knowing what to do or expect. Living in complete control of her sexuality, she might not like it but she got no choice since she is new in the game.
 
Ola
I would like to marry a virgin presuming that she has second hand experience on the bedmatics of sex and how to handle her man in bed. These days, virgins are hard to come by and even if there are, a large percentage of them are light years behind their peers when it comes to knowledge on the dynamics of sex.
As for me, when it comes to the issue of marriage, the most important thing is the question of sexual satisfaction. I can’t imagine my newly wedded wife on the wedding night lying down like a log of wood in bed, awaiting the long old missionary style position. Kai…what an anachronism!
There is nothing wrong in a grown-up lady getting to learn how to satisfy her man in bed whilst she is still a virgin. Some religious women feel it is wrong or immoral to explore the wonders of sex and are in themselves unattractive and anti-sexy in nature due to their mind-set. A lot of Nigerian women out there have joined the league of ladies who have thrown their ‘husbands’ away in the guise of Christian beliefs and dignity.
I can never be attracted to a woman who dresses like her grandmother no matter how anointed she is: my woman must be hot, sexy, affable and must be vast in the things that make for life and good relationships. Even the Bible says in Proverbs 5:19 that let her breasts satisfy you at all times, meaning the man is entitled to full enjoyment of his spouse in all ramifications and it is to a large extent the onus of the woman to see to the satisfaction of her man even before marriage.
The chances are that marrying a virgin might make one a victim of unsatisfactory sex life up to certain number of months or years into the marriage depending on the willingness of the woman to learn but the friction from tightness due to the novelty of the ‘wentus’ gives the man some great initial pleasure even though the woman may lack the necessary bedmatic skills.
But frankly speaking, the advantages of marrying a virgin are not far-fetched: protection from venereal diseases as long as the virgin wife remains faithful to the man and the sense of pride being gained by the man for being the one that tore open the honey well of the virgin wife.
 
Aderibigbe
No, I would not want to marry one because marrying a virgin today can turn into marrying of a slack hole sort. Somebody that has not tasted how sweet sex is. Now you are enjoying it from one man called your husband. If that man is not good enough to satisfy her sexual needs, she may like to change her taste by giving another man a try. In this case she may not have had the experience to handle the situation and it may lead to a break-up. In this case, marrying a sexually experienced lady will be better because they have all it takes to be a married woman.
 
Omole
Yes, I would love to marry a virgin, likewise every man’s desire, but let us ask ourselves too as men; how many of us are virgins? What I am looking for is not virginity but a Godsent that would add positive values to my life; a woman of great substance, a virtuous woman. I am not interested in virginity but reliability.
Why do we capitalize on women alone, let’s clear ourselves first before others, most time we are the cause of their predicaments.
 
Dare
Definitely yes! A virgin is an innocent female that has not been spoilt and have a sense of responsibility. Besides that, I learnt when a lady loses her virginity to someone who jilted her, she goes weird and becomes derailed. I never had the opportunity of being engaged to a virgin. If I had, I would not have allowed her elude me.
 
Funke
No, I won’t like to marry any guy who is a virgin. You could hardly find about 10 percent of men who are virgins. The only advantage is that he would be well informed with loads of experiences. The disadvantage is that he could be unfaithful.
 
Yomi
If I have my way, I would marry a virgin, but sometimes virginity has nothing to do with how cultured a lady is; rather it is just a sign of being able to vouch for her. Many virgins are worse than even those we see and tag wayward. The most important thing is marrying a God-fearing lady.
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So what’s up with this one shoulder thing?

First of all let me say that I’m not a journalist. I’m a chemist. What I do here is called blogging. Blogging gives me more latitude to cover whatever crosses my mind hoping somebody will read them.
For the past few weeks, I have been writing heavily on malaria, Robert and Grace Mugabe, poverty in Africa and the responsibilities of developed nations towards Africa.
I would like to digress today. I’ll attempt to talk about fashion.
As we say, ladies first. I’ve being observing this one shoulder bandwagon for a while. As a disclaimer, let me say that I find them cool, cute, and flirty- all at the same time (in fact, most of the time). I always thought this one shoulder thing was an American trend until I visited Ghana in March/April this year. I was there for a few weeks but I had the opportunity to attend a funeral one Saturday. By the way, if you’re uniformed, Saturday’s are for funeral in Ghana, unless you’re an Adventist.
one shoulder
]It was at this funeral that I realized how mistaken I was. As a scientist, I hate to give unsubstantiated percentages unless I have the figures to calculate them. However, from my ‘guesstimation’, l can say that half of the women I saw at the funeral were one-shoulder moms. So it wasn’t an American thing, after all. Another surprising observation I made was that, this one-shoulder phenomenon is no respecter of age. I could easily spot one shoulders among teens, twenty somethings, thirty somethings, all the way into the seventy somethings.
“Ok so this one-shoulder trend is a global phenomenon”. I accepted with some childlike guilt.
One shoulder stuff 2
And those women 5000 miles away even know how to make it extra youthful and classy than their western counterparts. I never knew you could combine a one-shoulder dress and a head scarf and blow it up with a bold belt. What a new twist. I saw it live and they looked kind of neat. What they probably need is some tight strapless bras to go with their one shoulders, and they’ll surely be unstoppable.

If air tickets down a little bit, I”ll repeat my adventure next spring. I’ll report back what I see. No shoulders? You bet. Perhaps, it no new thing over there.

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In Ghanaian Village, American Woman Reigns As King

An american woman installed King in a ghanaian village
It was two years ago, at 4 a.m. at her apartment in Maryland, that Peggielene Bartels got the news from West Africa. A relative called from Ghana to say that her uncle, the king of the fishing village of Otuam, had died.
The news didn’t end there. She was also informed that she had been anointed his successor: King Peggy.
“He said, ‘No, no, no, no, Nana, don’t hang up,'” Bartels recalls. “‘We chose so many names, male and everybody, and somebody suggested that we choose your name, also. And when we poured libation and did the rituals, as soon as we mentioned your name, it started vaporing and we were surprised. So we did it three times. So that’s when we got to know that you are the king.'”
Nana Amuah-Afenyi VI is Bartels’ new title, but she is better known as King Peggy. This straight-talking, 57-year-old is the first woman in her fishing community of 7,000 people in Ghana’s Central Region to be anointed a king, or “nana.”
She now juggles two lives — from the palace in Otuam and from a modest condo outside Washington, D.C. Since the 1970s, Bartels, a naturalized U.S. citizen, has been a secretary at Ghana’s Embassy in Washington where she still spends most of her time, running royal affairs back home in Otuam over the phone and on trips to Ghana.
“So, when they told me, I was a little bit reluctant to accept it, because it comes with responsibilities. And here is a secretary in the United States, I have my own obligations, bills and stuff and becoming a king, you have to be really rich,” she says.
“And then, as if someone was talking to me, a voice said, ‘Accept it, it is your destiny and you will be helped to help your people.'”
With help from her friends and scraping together her own savings, King Peggy says she is determined to help her people in Ghana to progress.
On a sweltering day in Ghana, Peggy is overseeing her uncle’s funeral. A slight breeze is blowing in from the Atlantic Ocean and the freshly painted blue and white royal residence gleams. In the sandy courtyard, drums are beating while a man in a trance performs a frenzied dance before a sea of red and black — mourners dressed for a royal burial.
The former king died in 2008, but his body was kept in a mortuary until King Peggy could save up enough money to give him a proper send-off. She’s dressed like a king — albeit with a touch of lipstick — wrapped toga-style in regal red traditional fabric and seated upon a royal stool.
Dignitaries attending the funeral include another royal, Nana Boakye Asafo Adjei, the Sanahane, or ruler, of Asamankese Traditional Area in eastern Ghana.
He said he had nothing but respect for King Peggy.
“I’ve been really surprised by what she has done because I thought being a woman, she can’t,” he said. “But she has competed with the men, so I give her congratulations. She is now a king, so she has a lot to handle.”
Bartels says most people are willing to work with a woman as their traditional ruler.
“The women are so happy for me, they are really on my side,” she says. “But it’s only a few elderly men — because they are used to bossing females around. And I don’t give them the chance. They are the people resisting me.”
She adds that during meetings, if they feel she is coming on too strong, they say: “‘Listen you’re a woman, so you listen to us.’ Then I also say, ‘I’m in the States, I’m a woman and, in the rituals with the ancestors, you chose me in the name of God, so shut up and sit down.’ And they will sit.”
Back in the U.S., King Peggy is on the lecture circuit, talking about Ghana, its traditions and her fishing community. While she’s in Otuam, she presides over fisherfolk and has confronted many hurdles, including, she says, tackling graft and dishonesty within the royal circle.
“At first when I started, it was a tough challenge because they were just collecting our family fishing fees and they were misusing the funds. But I came on so strong,” she says. “So I had a tough time straightening that out.”
Dressed in customary black and red funeral clothing, villagers from the Otuam fishing community carry the casket of their late ruler Nana Amuah-Afenyi V, who died two years ago. He is succeeded by his niece, King Peggy, a secretary at the Ghanaian embassy in Washington, who says she had to save up to give her uncle a fitting send-offKing Peggy insisted future proceeds go directly into an account in a rural bank they opened in her village. She rejuvenated her royal council to include people she trusted, and has turned her attention to improving the lives of her community.
The next project is to build a high school for students who have finished ninth grade, she says.
A villager, carrying a large basin upon her head, gives King Peggy high marks for her rule. Aba Nyame Bekyere, 51, a former fishmonger, says she’s pleased with what she hears Bartels is doing for Otuam, especially for women and children.
“Those of us who didn’t go to school, particularly the women, we’d like to learn,” she says through a translator. “And we need a high school here, so that our kids don’t have to go so far away to study.”
King Peggy is getting help from donors in the U.S., including the Shiloh Baptist Church in Landover, Md. Pastor Be Louis Colleton and his congregation heard about Bartels, met her and committed to helping her fishing community.
Colleton and more than a dozen other Americans accompanied her from Maryland to Ghana this fall and traveled to palm tree-lined Otuam, along the shores of what used to be part of West Africa’s Atlantic slave coast.
“We have covenant with Nana, the king — we as a church — to help her to better her community of people to bring fresh water,” he says. “Now we’re moving toward the possibility of establishing a school.”
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Sex Workers In Ghana Protest Against Nigerian Invasion

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sex workers in ghana protest against younger nigerian girls
Ghanaian girls who offer sex for money at Adum, a suburb of Kumasi in the Ashanti region, have expressed anger over some Nigerians importing younger and prettier girls who are gradually taking over the sex business.

If not for the intervention of the assembly member for the area, Albert Osei-Banahene, the enraged sex workers would have hit the streets in their nakedness and marched from one office building to another, just to get the authorities to come to their aide.

“It is not that they are better than us in bed but as you know, most men prefer younger girls and these Nigerian girls are younger. Some are still in their teens and their agents protect them but we do not have agents who make things easier for us so the conditions of work are not fair.

“We would start attacking any underage ashawo from Nigeria because they are spoiling the market,” one of them noted. Interestingly, though both groups are prostituting, the Ghanaian girls say they are commercial sex workers while the Nigerians are ‘ashawos.’

According to the Ghanaian sex workers, the arrival of sexier girls from Nigeria is making business very competitive and compelling them to lower their rates or lose customers. Not pleased about the development, the disillusioned sex workers have declared their preparedness to hit the streets, should authorities fail to respond to their call and put in place appropriate measures to arrest the worrying situation.

In an interview with NEWS-ONE, the stationed sex workers revealed that some Nigerians living in Kumasi have made it their business of bringing in very pretty sex workers from the oil-rich country to practice their trade in the Ghana.

“Having realized the potential in the business, some Nigerians living in the city have decided to make it their business by bringing sex workers from their country to come and work here,” one of the disgruntled sex workers observed.

“When they bring them, they initially put them in hotels, before hiring rooms for them to practice their trade but we do not have agents or promoters so we are losing the market even in our own country,” another dissatisfied sex worker noted.

According to them, they would do everything within their means to ensure that the practice was stopped, because they believe that as Ghanaians, they have exclusive right to the trade. “We cannot allow

Nigeria to take over everything in the country including the sex trade,” the sex workers emphasized.

The assembly member for the area, Hon Albert Osei-Banahene, who has being appealing to the sex workers to remain calm, appealed to the government to take up the matter and ensure that it is resolved amicably. He noted that it was important for the government to come in strongly because of the ages of the girls who are purported to have been sent into the city for sex trade.

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An African Miss World? Hold your breath!

Let’s face it. No black African woman is going to win the Miss World Finals beauty pageant outright any time soon. The facts—if we may call them that—fly in the face of the widely-held view that it is just a matter of time.
It is a contrarian view given that Afro-enthusiasts have been loudly harping the fact that Botswana’s Emma Wareus placed second, and more significantly, that Nigeria’s Agbani Darego took home the title in 2001. However, a cursory look at their frames suggests that they were one-offs. 
Three reasons inform this assertion.
First, a look at most of the contestants in the African franchises suggests a lot of the affluence associated with the emerging middle class, prevalent in many countries on the continent.
 
The winner of the 2010 edition, American Alexandria Mills, was a microcosm of what founder Eric Morley had in mind when he dreamed up the competition—a bag of bones. But despite the rather strict qualifications in place, most African contestants could barely balance on the catwalks in their home countries, badly weighed down by flabby outlines.
 
And this may not be about to change. A conference last month in the South African commercial capital of Johannesburg concluded that Africans were growing fatter. Yes, fatter. This may have been limited to the middle class but that is exactly the problem—that the African has also grown lazier, inviting lifestyle diseases that were a preserve of the West.
 
"In the past, we used to exercise without knowing it," the Associated Press quoted South African Health minister Aaron Motsoaledi as saying.
 
"You would walk a long distance to school. You would walk a long distance to work," Motsoaledi, 52, recalled of his childhood. "But now, I'm an African whose child is dropped at the gate of the school in a car, then picked up at the end of the day and put in front of the TV." Secondly, the competition has been biased against the typical African woman since its inception.
 
The rotund shapes sported by these women have never been swimsuit-wear material, despite the adoption of some Western habits such as the gym and which have over successive generations watered down the gene for portliness.
 
It is safe to say that the African woman has never really been in with a chance in the competition.
 
Lastly, the definition of beauty. The jury is still out over trailblazers—some would say the unconventional—such as Alek Wek and Kenya’s Ajuma Nasenyana. The former has been called many things, not least of all downright ugly.
 
The use of such models—cleverly called “exotic” has stoked more controversy than sold covers, with critics claiming their deployment on international runways is more a political message than a fashion statement.
 
While the story of some weather-beaten white cameraman discovering a gem from far –flung tribes such as the Turkana of Kenya, the Herero of Namibia or the Afar of Ethiopia always makes for good reading, it is in many Western views, a case of not seeing the emperor’s nakedness.
This is the controversy that has raged around the award of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiabo.
 
“If China is to advance in harmony with other countries and become a key partner in upholding the values of the world community, it must grant freedom of expression to all its citizens,” Thorbjorn Jagland, the chair of the Nobel Committee penned in the New York Times.
 
But which “world” was he referring to? The West, and its values.
Given that the judging parameters are Western, for now we can either be content with the sideline prizes such as “Beauty with a purpose’’ won by Kenya's Natasha Metto for her work with jiggers—that scourge of African children—or come up with our own competitions such as the Bobaraba— a national dance craze popular in Cote d’Ivoire.
It translates to “Big Bottom” in the local Djoula language.
 
 
Ivory Coast's 'big-bottom' craze
 Ivory Coast's 'big-bottom' craze
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