OK, this
is going to come as a shock to a lot of you. It is not the kind of thing
I ordinarily discuss here. In fact the only reason I'm doing it at all
is that, now that President Obama has everything in the world pretty
much under control and Sarah Palin is leaving the public eye to spend
more time with her family, there is not really all that much for us to
talk about. So here goes:
Men look at women! They do it a lot!
I know, right?
And the thing is, when we do it, we are apparently just responding to
our genetic programming. In hundreds (probably) of psycho-neurological
studies (why not?), it has been proven (I'll bet) that a man's response
to visual sexual stimuli is almost completely involuntary (yeah, that's
the ticket).
What this boils down to, in layman's terms, is that guys just can't help
looking at girls. Especially when it comes to gazing at the naughty
bits.
But I have to tell you that this is a two-way
street. Here in our new age, women are taking advantage of the uplifting
technological advances that have pushed up and into the forefront of our
cultural milieu.
In case you are completely innuendo-impaired, what I'm talking about
here is the "Wonderbra" and the rise (sorry) of cleavage as a modern
fashion phenomenon. The Wonderbra has elevated us (OK, I'll stop now)
into an era of partially exposed breasts such as we have not seen since
(according to eminent French cultural historian Mel Brooks) Louie XIV
said, "It's good to be the king!"
Here's how I figure it works:
Men
like to watch women, and women like to watch men watching them. And they
will spend $34.95 (on sale) to make that happen.
But women seem to have a problem with men when "watching" crosses the
line, sneaks right on past "leering" and goes straight into "ogling."
The thing is, us guys have kind of a hard time with subtle distinctions
like that. Remember all that crap about genetic programming?
Not too long ago I experienced what is feels like to be ogled. As I was
walking through a restaurant, I noticed two attractive ladies staring at
me "below the waist." They were whispering to each other, hiding their
words behind their hands and giggling lasciviously.
I was shocked! I began to feel a slow burn of indignation that
these women might value my physical attributes over my mind or my
personality. I resented being objectified in that way. I felt totally
used.
I also made a mental note of which pants I was wearing, so I could buy
some more just like them.
I was still steaming about it when I got back to the table, where my
wife pointed out that I had come out of the men's
room with a wad of my Pink Panther boxer shorts zipped into and hanging
out of my fly.
But that's not exactly the point. For a brief moment in that restaurant,
I understood what a woman must feel like when, after putting on an
outfit that pops something like 30
percent of her bosom out into the world, the men around her notice that
they can see about a third of her bosom.
With this in mind, I have decided to put my newfound insight to work. I
want men to learn how to look at women, while still respecting their
dignity and almost completely avoiding getting tased.
Click here to talk to our writers and
editors about this column and others in our discussion forum.
To e-mail feedback
about this column,
click here. If you enjoy this writer's
work, please contact your local newspapers editors and ask them to carry
it.
