Art Historian Sylvia Boone research on women in Mende and Malian culture:

“Movement, not nudity, is crucial to understanding the poetics of African women’s bodies….

The principal appeal of the behind is in the liveliness of its action. The buttocks must have a strong movement: they must wiggle rhythmically as the woman walks, either alternatively bumping up and down with each step, swivelling in. A large or rounded backside that does not dance about when the girl walks is dismissed as a fraud….everyone male and female, observes the buttocks of girls and women and is really excited when a good pair of hips goes by.”