Here’s the weird thing: the overall trend in terms of hits to this blog is upwards, though it’s been fairly flat these past ten days. On the other hand, the overall trend in terms of number of comments is down slightly, even as the number of visitors rise. But what’s really going way up is the number of emails I’m getting from folks asking questions about various aspects of what I’ve posted about. Requests for advice have jumped from about one a week to about three a day, which still puts me way below an “Ask Amy” but does make me wonder about this shift.
“Marian” writes a long note about her husband’s habit of staring at one particular type of much younger woman:
From the beginning, my husband has had the dreadfulL penchant of ogling a very specific type woman: young, blonde and petite. Shall I describe myself? 5′10″, dark brown hair and eyes, and as I mentioned, 47. When I say ogling, I mean ogling to an extent I have never encountered. For instance… there is a blonde, young attractive woman at the church we attend and for quite some time he would sit the whole service and stare over at her. He began making a point to attend that particular service, although he knows I prefer to go to a later one. I remember one service where he missed a congregational response because he was so engrossed in looking at her. When I confronted him about this he finally did admit that he thought she was pretty, and I asked him why that would cause him to stare incessantly at her. His reply, and I quote, “it’s like having a beautiful bouquet in front of you. You don’t want to just glance at it, you want to savor it.”
Again, my question is, why would any 50 year old, happily married man, feel a compulsion to stare obsessively at ONLY young, blonde women? He does not look at attractive women our age, nor does he look at young, pretty brunettes. He has admitted that is the “type” he is attracted to. Let me state I am in fairly good shape for a woman of my age, I’m quite eclectic and tend to wear trendy clothing and jewelry, and when I dress to the nines for an evening out on the town I get enough comments from friends, including men friends, that I know I am not exactly a troll.
I am not asking what I should do to solve the problem, that will be up to me. I am merely wanting to know your opinion about why he would continue to do this.
Marian and her husband have apparently seen a counselor, and my first piece of advice is to continue to do just that. As for the attraction to much younger blondes, I’m in no position to figure out why someone has the particular “type” they do have. I’ve never had a physical type to be attracted to; have never preferred women from a particular ethnic background or with a particular hair color. I’ve always been a bit mystified by men and women whose tastes are so particularly narrow. I do know from talking to some of my friends who do have one particular “type” that many of them settled on this type in early adolescence, sometimes as a response to one particularly powerful early crush or obsession. (One of my friends in school only liked brunettes, and that, he said, had everything to do with Kate Jackson, the actress from “Charlie’s Angels”. It was the show he was obsessed with when he first hit puberty, and she became the “it” girl of his dreams.)
But while I am hopelessly unqualified to analyze the roots of an obsession, I am qualified to say that unless Marian’s husband is suffering from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, he’s got full control over his eyes and where they wander. The myth of male weakness says that “men can’t help but stare”, but the honest truth is that we long to attribute a personal unwillingness to exercise self-control to a universal masculine failing. “All men do it” and “We (men) can’t help it” are lies we tell collectively, and we say them so often and with such conviction that we do a good job of convincing ourselves (and sometimes, we convince the women in our lives as well.)
There are many versions of Marian’s husband’s remark about the beautiful bouquet. “Just because I’ve already ordered, that doesn’t mean I can’t keep staring at the menu” is one I hear quite often. These remarks are rooted in the sense that infidelity ought to be narrowly defined as a specific set of actions. But even for most folks who aren’t Christians (and bound by Matthew 5 and Jesus’s admonition about lusting in the heart), there’s a sense that we’d rather our spouses not long for and fantasize about others. Fidelity isn’t just about what we don’t do with our genitalia, it’s also about where we direct our hearts and our thoughts. As Marian’s letter makes clear, “merely” ogling has great power to wound.
But choosing a partner is not like ordering a meal in a restaurant. And women are not lovely bouquets of flowers. It’s demeaning and troubling to compare human beings to objects, even objects as lovely as roses. (Poets, of course, have free license. The rest of us don’t.) A bouquet doesn’t care how closely you scrutinize it; most women know how acutely uncomfortable it can be to have a man (particularly a man old enough to be their father) staring at them. It’s a rare young woman who has never been discomfited by the penetrating gaze of an older man. The power of that gaze to disquiet and to hurt is real. The French tulips don’t care how long you gaze; the young blonde at church being ogled by Marian’s husband very well might.
Similarly, the soup I ordered in the restaurant last night isn’t offended if I wonder out loud, even as I’m sipping it, as to whether or not I ought to have ordered the salad instead. “Continuing to look at the menu” sends a message to our partners that we’re not entirely comfortable with the finality of the decision we’ve made.
It is important to note that there’s a world of difference between the penetrating gaze and the appreciative glance. One thing we all have is a strong aesthetic sense. Most of us can appreciate beauty in another human being without experiencing actual desire for that person. Most men, for example, are much better at evaluating another man’s attractiveness than they let on. Most women know plenty of young men who fiercely deny even noticing whether their friends are handsome or not, but their denials have everything to do with homophobia and nothing to do with a genuinely impaired aesthetic sensibility. Women are allowed, in our culture, to be more open in their praise for each other’s appearance. But we don’t allow men to express aesthetic judgments unless they are accompanied by expressions of desire. Because we insist (entirely falsely) that men’s judgments about beauty must be tied to their libidos, we shame men out of praising the looks of their male peers. We also teach men that sexual attraction must go hand in hand with a recognition of female beauty. By insisting that real men only find beautiful what they also find desirable, we limit the potential of our brothers and husbands and sons to be full and complete human beings.
What all this means is that I have a great deal of difficulty in believing that Marian’s husband is ogling these young blondes out of a pure aesthetic admiration. His staring makes his wife uncomfortable, and no doubt also makes the women at whom he is gazing so intently uncomfortable. Whatever the origin of his fixation on blondes young enough to be his daughter, he owes it both to his wife and to the women he finds so fascinating to exercise control over his eyes. More importantly, we need to do a better job of equipping men to have two key things that most currently lack:
1. an honest vocabulary for beauty that allows them to develop appreciation for loveliness without sexual desire
2. a sense that they are as much in control over their eyes as over their hands.
In my own life, I have — like most folks — a keen appreciation for beauty. But I can separate an admiration for beauty from sexual desire. As a heterosexual man, I can admire the chiseled features of a handsome young athlete without wanting him sexually. I can acknowledge a beautiful woman in much the same way. But I am aware that aesthetic appreciation can slip into outright desire if I’m not careful. I remain gently vigilant, but not to the point of pretending to ignore that another human being is lovely to look at.
I’m also aware that I have a responsibility to look at other people in a way that honors all of my commitments. If my looking makes my wife uncomfortable, I need to rethink how I gaze. If my looking at someone’s outsides keeps me from caring about their insides, I need to rethink how I look. If my looking makes the object of my gaze feel awkward or confused, I need to change how I look. My right to delight in another’s beauty is not unlimited; it is restrained by my commitment to my spouse and my commitment not to reduce other human beings into mere objects. As a Christian, I am called to make a covenant with my eyes, not to cut myself off from the beauty of creation, but to make sure that my eyes do not lead me to want to appropriate that creation for my own selfish purposes.
You are so good at clarifying things. I really appreciate this post. I experimented with being the looker after years of being the lookee, so I can relate to many of the subtlties you described. The way I look at people noticibly changes my brain and while it is good to appreciate all kinds of beauty, it is damaging to your self and others to look at people the same way you would look at objects.
here, here! and amen. :)
It would seem (barring an illness of some sort) that Marian’s husband is trying his hardest to push her buttons and start a fight. If not, his behavior is completely over the top. Most men don’t do this sort of thing — and if they do, the object of their attention often perceives the behavior as threatening and creepy. What he is doing strikes me as a power play — to diminish Marian and put her in her place, and to let the young woman know that he will stare at her as long as he wants, and in church of all places.
“The myth of male weakness says that “men can’t help but stare”, but the honest truth is that we long to attribute a personal unwillingness to exercise self-control to a universal masculine failing.”
I think you just articulated the staunch resistence of many men to feminism.
“I think you just articulated the staunch resistence of many men to feminism.”
How so?
Uh, Beste, no way am I letting MRAs hijack this thread.
No anti-feminist commentary in this thread. Stay on topic, everyone.
hey hugo,
gotta say that I most definitely do not dig the new layout of the blog. my eyes, they require columns. =[
I’ve always been a bit mystified by men and women whose tastes are so particularly narrow.
I’m not sure “type” people’s tastes are necessarily more narrow. I can’t speak for you, but as someone without a “type,” I’d guess I’m attracted to roughly the same percentage of the population as someone with a “type.” It’s just that there’s no obvious or easily-describable commonality to the people I find attractive.
That may be fair, Stentor. But to me, there is something fundamentally narrower about saying “I’m only attracted to tall blondes” than saying “In general, there are very few people to whom I’m attracted.”
what i can’t get over is the imperviousness and obviousness with which men go about their staring. i imagine it’s because they have no idea what it feels like to be on the receiving end - they never could, not being codified as sex objects within the culture - that they find it all right to so blatantly stare at a woman. they have no sense - none - of how disgusting it makes you feel.
i wish that the men who stare like that could learn, if not to just quit doing it, to at least just dial it down. like you noted, there’s a world of difference between being glanced at appreciatively (which is still somewhat sexist, but again, realistic relativism kicking in here) and being leered at. women’s internal calibrators for this stuff are finely tuned. it’s hard to explain to a guy how a one second difference in a look can tip the scale into creepy. but it can!
i could go on and on about the things that seem to baffle men when women inform them of their day-to-day reality. not to thread drift, but for example, when my boyfriend and i are out in public and someone shouts “hey!”, he *always* looks up. i *never* do. just a fundamental difference in how one perceives the potential intent of that “hey!”, it would seem.
“i imagine it’s because they have no idea what it feels like to be on the receiving end - they never could, not being codified as sex objects within the culture”
I’d like to take this a step or two further. Virility, the ability to have sex (both physical and access to women) and sex appeal are indicators of traditional masculinity. Hence, for some men, being turned into a sex object by an attractive woman is a compliment because it boosts their level of “masculinity.”
The closest that I have been able to come to explaining what it feels like to be leered at and turned into a sexual object is, unfortunately, eliciting their homophobia (which itself is misogyny manifest in a different form). Even heterosexual men who would enjoy (or at least not mind) being a sex object for an attractive woman, would not like the idea of being a sex object for another man, no matter how attractive he is.
My partner and I were walking down the street and a male prostitute tried to solicit him. I said to him, “imagine that from almost every man who you walk past, no matter what you are wearing, everyday of your life since you were 13 and you will just begin to have an idea of what street harrassment is like for me.” Of all of the conversations that we have had about street harrassment, this is the one that made him think the most.
This is at the very heart of pro-feminist men’s work — transforming consciousness so that men can really begin to see what it is that they frequently do that is so immensely damaging. There are a lot of good role playing exercises around this we do on retreats, in classroom discussions, but it’s hard work, no question.
While I don’t have a strong opinion on the subject one way or another, I don’t know that your unconventional conception of how this relates to fidelity is really necessary here. As you and other commenters articulate well, the fact that Marion finds this behavior so troubling and discomfiting is entirely sufficient to explain why he ought to knock it off.
Well, of course he should knock it off because Marian doesn’t like it. But he shouldn’t do it even if she doesn’t notice. I am arguing that fidelity extends beyond our actions to our thoughts, and that is hardly unconventional — it’s deeply rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition, with the tenth commandment and Jesus’ remark about “lust in the heart.”
Hugo, I swear I am going to drive down to Pasadena and slap you upside the head everytime you use the phrase “Judeo-Christian”.
That said–this guy has way bigger problems than a thing for young blondes. He isn’t just ogling this woman–he is going out of his way to sit and stare at her long periods of time, over and over, to the point of affecting his worship as well as his marriage.
Mythago,
I second you. As a very small (4′10″) asian woman, I’ve been on the receiving end of really aggressive leering (I think my race/stature seem to embolden certain types of men), and it’s an incredibly distressing experience on the receiving end and often, it’s not innocuous- it’s threatening. After working at bars, mens that leer extensively are far more likely to attempt to follow me home, etc.
He isn’t ogling her at this point- if I was the blonde woman, I would consider his staring to be threatening.
I told one of my male friends how uncomfortable I felt with wolf whistles and catcalls, and he responded, “But you like it when I tell you you look great, right?”
“Sure,” I replied, “But I already know you value me for more than what I look like. All I know about a random man on the street calling ‘Baby, where you going?’ is he wants me sexually or at least wants me to think he does.”
My friend said I was judging the man based on too limited data. Then he said it was hypocritical to enjoy compliments from friends but reject them from strangers.
Thoughts?
Skylark, first of all, “Baby, where you going?” is not a compliment. It’s a neutral question with negative or positive connotations depending on the situation.
If your friend can place his name or a coveted object (car, coffee table, video game) in the grammatical position of the woman in that sentence, it’s hardly a compliment. How many people say to a car on the lot, “You look nice,” or “That’s a good color for you,” or “I like your hair”? “How do you get your hair to do that?” is not a compliment.
The astute reader can recognize necessary elements for a compliment, and the most basic of these is a positive statement. One may split hairs over determining the positive or negative intent of wolf whistles and catcalls, although if a man on the street sought clarity of meaning, the non-verbal option is not a well-reasoned choice.
Skylark, ask your friend
–how would you feel if your fourteen-year-old daughter had men she didn’t know wolf-whistle her or call “Baby, where you going?” to her on the street?
–how would you feel if a gay man twice your size were catcalling you, etc.?
Your friend is also an idiot because he cannot distinguish between compliments from friends, and commentary from strangers whose intent you don’t know. Is he really trying to say that he’s just as likely to be a harasser or rapist as some random guy on the street yelling “Baby, where you going”?
Considering that far more women (and children) are molested/assaulted/raped by men they know than strangers on the street, your last statement actually rings rather true, mythago.
Having been objectified and stared at by highly educated and successful men of ages ranging from 25 - 53, I have now reached a conclusion that men/people who stare have no self respect to be able to respect beauty in others. Such people behave in a desperate manner and suffer from self esteem issues. I really appreciate the above blog, coming from a man himself and would love it if men in general would learn to treat beautiful women as people rather than stare at them as objects of desire.
I can certainly appreciate that women get creeped out by ogling men, and that men are famous for inappropriate glances or gazes. No question about that.
I’d like to hear comments from women on a subject that has long been a source of confusion to me. The comments I’m hearing in this post indicate a woman’s discomfort with a man’s glance, yet with increasing frequency these days, I’m finding it hard to keep my eyes looking above the shoulders with the all the plunging necklines, lowered pant waists, short skirts, etc.
When women dress the way they do these days and then complain about men looking at them, I find it confusing (correctly or incorrectly assuming by this statement, that some women who have posted dress this way). What are the expectations of women who dress like this? What are the motives behind it?
I would like to broach the subject of why an attractive young woman of South Asian origin would want to be obsessed with ogling European men or men with very fair skin despite having a very healthy and satisfying sexual relationship with her partner of the same ethnic origin.
While a quick furtive glance at an attractive male is said to be adequate from a woman’s perspective, to assess or “enjoy” the momentary vision of someone of the opposite sex, this type of compulsive obsession to stare intently at (mostly) young white skinned males would seem like a borderline personality disorder where the resistance to this urge might result in uncontrolled levels of distress or anxiety.
I would like to hear of any others who might have personal experience of this or know of instances where it has been evident, as the medical/ psychological fraternity does not seem to have much data of clinical evidence in this area.