I have had the good fortune to provide services to more than a few clients from Italy, and no, the soon-to-be ousted prime minister is NOT one of them. I'm waaaaaaaaaay too old for him, and have been for 14 years if the allegations are true.
National stereotypes are a taboo subject, and one that even I in my infinite irreverance am a little tetchy about discussing. But nevertheless I feel some need to dispel the notion of Mediterranean men as being particularly sexy and virile, if only to put at ease my readers who come from nations to which such flattering racial profiling is not applied. The fact is, Italy is a geographical expression, and I have personally found the size, talent and potency of my Italian clients are varied as those of any other nation. Bt regardless of nationality, I never see anyone who isn't polite, and I've found that the idea that Southern Europeans retain bizzarre and outdated ideas to women is most certainly untrue.
One thing that virtually all of my Italian clients tell me is that I have a bella figura. I don't speak Italian, but it's not too hard to guess that it means "beautiful figure." However after being told this on a number of occasions, I got the sense that this meant something more than just the words themselves. After many fruitless internet searches on the topic, I decided to ask my next Italian client what was meant.
Said client was just learning English, so perhaps I did not have the best luck. To be fair, his English was better than my Italian. He explained, "You know woman who has fake hair and fake brown (tan) and fake everything?" I nodded. "We call this a lady who needs a soap and wash. But you have bella figura," he said, gesturing to me wildly.
It took me a while to recover laughing about the "lady who needs a soap and wash." But on a more serious note, I got the impression that he was more than a little offended about the image of Italians that show up on the Sopranos, Goodfellas, and worst of all, Jersey Shore. Bella figura seemed to imply a degree of taste as well as just being attractive. I always knew the term was meant as a compliment, and I was glad to know it meant more than just looks. And of course if any of my readers have any additional things they can tell me about the idea of a bella figura, I'd love to hear them!
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