Recently, a friend of mine was caught staring. Not at a movie poster. Not at food. At another woman. It was brief, unintentional, and meaningless... and yet his girlfriend still had issues. She was hurt by it. She felt as though he didn't like looking at her.
Now, normally, this would be where I step in and judge... but not today. On this occasion of optical analysis, I wish only to explore the various situations that would cause a man's eyes to wander. And then look at the female response.
As men, we can't help but look. Women, can you really blame us? The female gender is beautiful. And let's be honest... you wear tight revealing outfits so that we WILL look. It's a double standard. I think women devised this evil plan at some global meeting. They needed a new reason to get mad at men in public (the old 324,000 ways were getting boring).
Let's skip ahead to the real point. The way a woman responds when her man gets caught looking at someone else. Do you get mad? Do you yell? Do you ignore it?
I think it's an indicator of how strong the relationship is. If a girl gets really mad, or hurt... then she's probably not very secure. If the girl stops to gawk with you....well, then you've got something really special there...
I think the best thing to do is get it all out in the open. Men, if you see a gorgeous woman walking by, then tell your girlfriend. Staring secretly and trying to hide it is sketchy. It's time for men to stand up for their right to oogle! It's time for men to say that drooling is ok! It's time to look your girlfriend in the face and say "I love you, but I look at other women!"
...I mean, I'm not gonna do that.... what do I look like, an idiot? I don't want to start a fight.... but I think the rest of you should!
let me know how it goes.
Oh, and sorry for the randomness and jagged thought process. My mind isn't moving very linearly today.
Monday, July 24, 2006
Oogling at the opposite sex
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9 comments:
I'm lucky, Chris doesn't notice any other girls. Especially when he has beer or food in front of him. :-)
Better question. Ladies, would you rather be oogled or oggled?
My opinion on *ogling* is as follows:
1) I don't care if my boyfriend checks someone out. I do it, to guys and girls alike, and I don't think that there's anything wrong with momentarily appreciating a good-looking stranger.
2) Staring is NOT the same as glancing over to check someone out. If I catch you, I'm going to call you out...and then I'm going to tease you...FOR-E-VER.
Now about being *ogled*- like my position on looking, I'm okay with being checked out nonchalantly. I find it flattering. However, I HATE being stared at like I'm a piece of meat. It makes me uncomfortable, annoyed, angry, disgusted...
I'd also like to note that I don't "dress in tight revealing outfits" so guys will look at me either. That's skanky.
While I'll admit that some tight revealing outfits can be skanky, just because something is tight and revealing doesn't make it so. Given the recent heat wave, I've seen a variety of manners of dress that are perfectly reasonable given the weather, but are fairly revealing and tight.
That's leaving aside the entire realm of clothing which is neither tight nor revealing, but is quite good at showcasing the female form.
I agree with you. I was referring to the act of wearing tight and revealing clothing for the purpose of getting men to stare at me as skanky. It's that sole purpose of action that I find questionable, not wearing tight or revealing clothes because that's in what one would be most comfortably attired in the summer, etc. I do plenty of the latter.
ever see that episode of the West Wing where they talk about Lipstick Feminism? Nothing wrong with being appreciated for your feminine form. What's wrong with revealing? As long as you aren't sporting thigh high leather boots to work, I think the occasional scoop top that's a little too scoopy is fine. Especially if you're doing it so your boyfriend can oggle you. :)
*removes thigh-high leather boots in shame*
Ahhhahahahahaha!
Gene Weingarten, a Washington Post columnist, writes about this phenomenon a lot in his weekly chats. I highly recommend you check them out...
and I'm with Dottie - ogling fine, staring creepy.
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