Time to Embrace your Curves, Kitchen and Cussing, Chicas!
I was talking to The Duchess over drinks the other day who was girl crushing on a woman that had just floated past our table. ‘I want to look like that,’ my fellow Glass House Girl sighed wistfully. ‘I will never look as sexy as her! Latin ladies are lovely. Why are all you Hispanic girls so hot?’
The hot girl in question was your quintessential Spanish minx. You know, the one that dresses for the figure she wants, not the figure she has. And doesn’t care. Someone you can imagine cooking up a storm on her sun-drenched patio with just two minute’s notice; a one-pot wonder of something spicy and exotic who will have you begging for more. That girl that sashays, glides, salsas and sambas like a pro from the day she learns how to stand. A woman who only has to glance at a man for him to be tripping over his own tongue, cartoon wolf style, as her bouncing boobs, bum and brunette locks sway to the silent beat of a Spanish guitar.
So the answer to my friend was a simple one.
‘You want to be that hot? You gotta learn from the Latinas, baby!’
Before I go any further, let me explain that when I say ‘Latin Women’ I am including Spanish girls AND Central and Southern-American beauties. Basically any Spanish-speaking hot-blooded woman. No, we are not all the same – but still, us raven haired, chocolate eyed, curvy señoritas do all possess that ‘poder mágico‘ that the rest of the world’s women want. So I’m going to share our magic with you.
It’s sad that society tells us that beauty isn’t short and dark. Little girls play with stick thin Barbie figures and wear their Elsa wigs with pride, teenagers want blonde highlights and small bottoms, and catwalks models are unnaturally tall and angular. But when we grown up women think about what it means to be a powerful, sexy and irresistible Goddess, we don’t think Pamela Anderson or Kate Moss (no offence, girls). We think JLo, Shakira, Penelope Cruz, Salma Hayek, Cristina Aguilera and all those backing dancers in Mariah Carey videos. Women who say what they think and don’t give a fuck what you think!
When it comes to Latin Ladies – why exactly do men WANT them, and women want to BE them?
Well, my tall, slim, blonde friend – don’t get yourself down about your un-Latin looks. It’s actually not that difficult to possess a bit of Iberian spirit and sexiness, whatever you look like. For a touch of Lady Lolita in your life, simply follow these 5 simple steps…
1. Put Passion in Everything you do
And when I say passion, I mean passion everywhere, not just in the bedroom. Hispanic women don’t just think, they feel. If they are happy, then they are kissing-you-hugging-you-telling-the-world-about-you happy. But you piss them off? Then get out of the way quick because that same passion comes back at you threefold. In the South of Spain they call it ‘getting Flamenco’. It’s the wailing, arms flying, feet stamping, my-heart-is-breaking-in-two cries of woe that have made the Spanish gitanas famous.
Are you enjoying your dinner? Then you are fucking loving that dinner, it’s the best dinner in the world! Is your neighbour pissing you off? Then God damn it you are gonna cut that mother fucking gnome-collecting, lawnmower-borrowing hijo de puta bastard for growing his hedge ten centimeters into your garden. You get me? No half measures!
2. Love Food. Like, REALLY LOVE Food
You can’t be a true Latin woman without being obsessed with food. This has nothing to do with stuffing your face with just any old shit, it’s about respecting food and adoring it with the same passion you have for everything else that is good in your life. A Latin woman knows that food is at the heart of everything. It’s what binds a family, brings friends together, wins the heart of a man and impresses his mother. In our minds, a woman that doesn’t know her way around the kitchen is no kind of mother or daughter. You need to know how to squeeze the tomatoes in the market to choose the best ones, smell the fruit they sell on the side of the road and haggle the best price.
Neither is it about following recipes, it’s about following traditions.
Learning how to make family dishes is a right of passage for every young Spanish girl. For me it was afternoons in the kitchen of my Tia Rosa, learning how to make the best Ali Oli, Tortilla and Croquetas from scratch. Yes, men can cook too – but we don’t want them in the kitchen. This is where the women are charlando, where the gossip is ripe and the wine flowing. And the men are clever enough to stay away.
3. Cut the crap
We get to the point. In Spanish-speaking countries it isn’t rude to leave out the please, the thank you and the little chat about the weather. In fact being blunt to the point of rudeness is part of our culture. ‘Hola, gordita‘ is a term of affection, a way of telling a child they are looking well and healthy. Try saying ‘Hello, fatty’ to an English-speaking kid and tell them it’s not rude. Exactly.
Plus Spanish girls are born with an important part of their anatomy missing – they don’t possess the Brain To Mouth filter. In fact, they sometimes don’t know what they are thinking until they are listening to it coming out of their mouth… surrounded by a deluge of cuss words and exclamation marks. Or maybe that’s just me?
It’s that passion again – emotion is perpetually seeping from their pores giving them a vibrational charge, an energy that can be felt the moment a woman walks into a room. But men (real men) don’t fear her directness – they know that, although she may tell him that he can’t dance or his hair cut is crap, neither will she shy away from telling her man (loud enough for his mates to hear) that he is the best lay she’s ever had and she wants him again here and now.
Top Tip: Men LOVE that shit.
4. Talk with your body
Mouths are for kissing, we don’t waste them on just talking. For communication we also use our eyes, hands, shoulders, chin and even feet. You only have to look at the face of a Latin woman to know what she is thinking. If she’s very still she’s not happy, or worse still she’s fucking furious and about to pounce… either way, sort it out. Quick!
And if her arms are flying around then she’s animated, and it doesn’t matter about what. Maybe she’s excited about a new dish she has cooked, complaining about her boss or bollocking her man about something serious – just remember the higher and faster her arms are waving, the more important it is. So get out of the way.
Latino women’s bodies don’t move in the same way as other womens’ either. Life is a continuous dance; their full hips sway when they walk and their chest leads them proudly. Because they know the secret of being sexy – which is just knowing that you are sexy. That’s it. If you know you are sexy, you will look like you are sexy, men will think you are sexy, so you WILL be sexy. Believe me, no one likes a miserable, hungry, skinny girl.
5. Put Family first
Always. I’m not for a second saying that every woman with Spanish-blood running through her veins is desperate to be a mother straight away and surround herself with a brood of kids – Lord knows I’m not the biggest fan of kids myself. But we do love our families in the same way we love everything else, with unreserved passion and obsession. We need to be in the thick of it – the drama, commotion, excitement and craziness of big families.
If a Latin girl’s mother decides to come and stay for 6 weeks, it’s not even something to discuss with her husband… she’s family. If we get invited to an important event but it falls on the same day as our second cousin’s communion? It’s family, no competition. If there is a fall-out between our friend and someone in our family, even if your friend is in the right, it doesn’t matter – you stick with your family. Because your family is your safety net, your cushion when you fall and your biggest fans.
That energy I spoke of earlier? That emotion that glows out of us Latinos? Well imagine it multiplied and directed at you. That’s a power you can’t find anywhere else, that’s what keeps us going.
‘So there you have it,’ I said to my friend. ‘You want to be as hot as that Hispanic girl? Then just eat what you want, say what you want, feel great about yourself and most of all do it all with passion. It’s that simple!’
And with that we ordered another Mojito and got up to dance.
Because life is for living, chicas!
