Posted by Karly Wood on Monday, May 30, 2016 in Blog posts.

As I spent my time lounging under the sun on the Cefalú lungomare, I quietly observed the population around me. My ultimate conclusion from this activity was that Sicilian men’s favorite pastime is women. I first noticed females coming to the beach often alone, just to tan for a few hours and mind their own business, while groups of men collected, eying them. This observation did not discriminate against age, as I noticed clusters of teenaged boys on the steps, younger and middle aged men together on the beach, and a few elderly men pacing around. The traditional garb that the men would sport was a particularly clingy speedo. Almost all of the men over around 30 years old wore these speedos, while a few of the younger boys sported swim shorts or remained completely dressed on the beach. It appears as though some of the younger boys would dress for fashion, not function, often wearing darker colors with thicker jeans and boots despite the beating sun. Younger boys also had many piercings and very clean-cut European haircuts, indicating their focus on appearance. The fact that the older men wore speedos to the beach also indicated this vanity as they maximized square inches exposed to the sun for optimal tanning.

As the women lay under the sun with their eyes closed, I watched the men nearby. Some workers would take a break from their day, stopping on the steps above the beach to check in that the female population still existed. The younger group of boys stationed themselves at the top of these steps, sitting on a circular concrete bench, facing all directions. When a group of girls would pass by on the street, one boy would notify the others and their heads would whip around to observe together. No interactions took place. If there was a woman of interest spotted on the beach, the boys would nudge each other and a domino effect took place until they all were facing the beach, too. They had a very efficient system down that suggested a high frequency of this activity.

The more shameless demonstration of women watching occurred back on the beach. Two men, one in his 20’s and another in his 50’s perhaps, were sunbathing directly ahead of me. The younger man was pretending to be asleep, but actually had one eye open, squinting, and checking out the group of girls I was with. I then watched the older man unabashedly stand up, walk to the water, turn around, point his camera phone at two women on the sand, snap a photo, return to his spot, and begin zooming in on the photo! I was a little shocked at how nobody seemed to notice or care about the scene. I then began to see how perhaps that was because it is normalized relative to the US. Men ogle over women enough that it becomes just a bit of background noise, something that women are more used to and don’t pay much attention to now. As somebody from a different culture, this behavior contrasts starkly to my experience on an American beach and likely why I noticed it so much. The Sicilian culture is more accepting that men observe the women around them. Rather than be offended, I have to remind myself of the cultural differences and understand their daily choice of activity from a different perspective.