Waist beads 3

I met one Aunty Monica who has been selling beads for over a decade. According to her, some waist beads, which she could only describe as ‘red’, are put on the waist and the legs of children who are bow-legged to straighten their legs.

“When they are on your waist, they shape your body by keeping the waist small, so the hips are more accentuated,” another bead seller named Linda told me. She added also that waist beads were traditionally used to show the difference between a male and a female.

“To show our identity as Ghanaians, we women put on waist beads.” In modern times however, gay men also buy waist beads from her and put them on to differentiate between the male and the female roles played in a homosexual relationship.

Patricia Naa Dei, a university student I met buying these jewels, told me waist beads were simply for fashion. She indicated, she didn’t like them but had to put them on to satisfy her boyfriend, who loves to see them on her.

During sexual intercourse, her boyfriend whose name she only gave as Ato, removes them and put them on his waist and takes them off after the act. Weird, I agree. But lots of people do kinky stuff in the bedroom, you know? “The rattling sound of the beads during sex urges my guy on,” she added.

Beads on the waists of women are said to possess the power to attract and evoke deep sensual feelings for men. So I decided to shift gears and speak to a few gentlemen about the subject.

Most of them including Alex Anim-Ansah stressed that waist beads make the waist of the ladies attractive. He said, “I like it on my wife and sometimes get irritated when she takes them off. It’s sexy.”


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