How torn underwear tears LOVE

JECKONIA OTIENO and SOPHIA KHAKASA expose the dirty little secrets we hide beneath our fashionable clothes

Underwear, believe it or not, comes in all shapes, colours and sizes — many of them a walking disaster. So in case you are wondering why your newly found lover suddenly disappeared — no more phone calls and text messages — blame it on that black nylon underwear you wore on your last date.

For all their dirt, men admire clean white underwear. In fact, many of them dream of a romantic night with a partner in sexy underwear. No wonder a few years back, the hit song Adhiambo Sianda (translated Adhiambo’s bottoms) became one of the most popular songs in Nyanza because the musician, Otieno Rachar, sings in praise of a woman’s white underwear.

But a Facebook post recently revealed that if people were to be stripped naked, more than three-quarters of the handsome and beautiful people walking on the streets would be accused of witchcraft on account of their underwear. The post even accused some Kenyan men of not washing their innerwear — which quite often are just rags — for weeks on ends. Surprisingly, it also said that some women are shockingly dirty.

Wanjugu, 27, an accountant with a law firm in Nairobi, got the shock of his life when he visited a woman he had been chasing for weeks.

"When I went to her bathroom, I noticed that she’d hang a panty that was old and terribly stained to dry on a nail. I was disgusted. I pretended to have a headache and left an hour later. I just couldn’t touch her and have never called her again," says Wanjugu.

While most men won’t be bothered to buy new underwear and can wear the same rags for years, the worrying trend among women is that many of them walk around with a hole in their underwear.

Rotten

"Nothing puts a man off than a well dressed woman wearing torn stuff underneath. It smacks of carelessness and irresponsibility. I would not associate with such a woman," says Makali Otswila, a musician in Mombasa.

Makali wonders why a woman would invest thousands in her hair but neglect her most prized possession. "It means she is just pretending to be nice on the outside but is actually rotten on the inside."

Second wife

Silas, a technician who is married with one child, says he is on the verge of marrying a second wife because he does not like what his current wife wears.

Claims Silas: "When we were dating, and just when we married, she always wore classy stuff. It’s actually one of the reasons she drove me crazy. But as soon as we got married, everything changed. She no longer gives a damn."

What angers Silas is that she has a pretty good job, making him wonder why she insists on wearing cheap old things with a hole in them or this funny habit she has developed of buying second hand innerwear and bras.

"I frankly don’t understand why she would want to buy something another woman has worn for years and discarded, when new panties go for as little as Sh100 in the shop. It’s such a turn off," Silas says with a frown.

Embarrass

But asked why he just couldn’t walk into a clothing store and buy sexy underwear for his wife, Silas says he fears that would embarrass her.

"How do you honestly tell your wife that her underwear is bad? Besides, women are crazy. She might accuse me of having another woman. I mean, how would a man be expected to know the latest fashion trends for an item that he is only expected to see on his wife — especially if her taste is awful?" he poses.

Jeff, a hotelier, has no such qualms. "I studied the situation quietly and took charge. So every Valentine’s Day, I buy a handful of those things in the guise of ‘love’. But the truth is the situation was bad. You don’t want to know how embarrassed I got when she went into labour suddenly and had to be undressed by nurses in my presence."

Women, however, argue that it is men who are the biggest culprits because most of them only got to wear that garment for the first time when they joined secondary school.

From wearing dirty, tattered strings, most men — some who buy beer for their friends daily and drive nice cars — spend as little as Sh50 on underwear, yet they would never be caught dead wearing ‘cheap’ shoes or suits.

"Men never create time to buy underwear, hence the sorry rags they hide underneath their crisp suits," Rose, a marketing executive, notes, adding that men only style up when they get married.

Untidy

According to Atieno, a primary school teacher in Umoja, Nairobi, most men, unlike women, simply don’t care about what they wear inside.

"They expect us to understand that men are naturally untidy, but they have no idea how much it puts us off," says Atieno. "In fact, married men are only better off either because their wives buy them innerwear, quarrel and nag them to style up or simply gather those old discoloured rags and throw them in the dustbin!"

But the men that Crazy Monday spoke to argue that what a man wears inside shouldn’t be a big deal.

"Underwear is basically ‘non essential’ stuff. I would rather buy a nice watch than waste Sh1,000 on something no one sees. It is not like women undress us anyway. In fact, casual girlfriends never even get to see our underwear because we remove ‘everything’ at once," chuckles Sam, a cyber cafÈ operator.

What Sam may not, however, appreciate is that certain situations force men and women to undress — like accidents. In fact, were it not that medics are cold blooded professionals, they would be breaking into laughter each time an expensively dressed man was wheeled into the emergency wing only for his dirty little secret to emerge.

Jacinta from Karen swears she would never date such a man.

"A man who cannot take care of small things like his underwear cannot be trusted to take care of a woman, leave alone children or a home, so he might as well go to hell," asserts Jacinta.

Her disdain originates from the first man she dated, a clumsy fellow who nearly put her off men and sex.

Cheap

"He was wearing this horrible looking orange thing. It made me wonder what I had got myself into. I never spoke to him after that because he made me feel cheap and dirty. To this day, I can never think of him without the image of that orange thing crossing my mind," adds Jacinta.

Those who neglect this little item of clothing could, however, do themselves a favour by listening to hawkers. At busy bus stops, naughty hawkers, obviously male, often display new underwear through bus windows chanting "Kifuli ya boma (a padlock for the homestead)!"

In their cheeky way, and much as everyone pretends not to notice their colourful wares, they announce one fact; that genitals are, to the body, what a door or gate is to a home. And just like it is ridiculous to build an expensive house with a cheap door, it is similarly crazy to trot around with an expensive handbag yet you are dressed in a second hand innerwear with a hole in it.

As for men and their rags, maybe it is time for their wives and girlfriends — like Maendeleo ya Wanaume’s Nderitu Njoka — to give them a red card.