bobquasit | Ogling Boyfriend (Salon)

In Salon's advice column today there was a letter from a woman whose boyfriend was visually checking out other women - even when they were together. He was apparently trying to hide it, but I guess he wasn't good at it, because she caught him several times.

My boyfriend is checking out chicks while I'm standing right there!

My sarcasm mode immediately turned on, viz:

Dump the cheating bastard!

How DARE he obey eons of genetic selection for males who are constantly on the watch for potential mates? Doesn't he know that he's not even supposed to notice any other girl in the world, now that he's with his current girlfriend?

Even if he was surrounded by gorgeous naked starlets, it would be his basic moral duty to claw his own eyes out rather than look at him.

Nasty, dirty, filthy man. Doesn't he know that the only reason he has the instinct to appreciate female beauty was to allow him to meet his one destined soulmate? And that now that that function has been fulfilled, he must never find any other woman to be attractive?

He may whine that it's out of his control. NONSENSE! Everyone knows that the male sexual urge is totally volitional in every way.

Oh my god - I just had a horrible thought. What if he sometimes actually fantasizes about having sex with other women? That's the moral equivalent of ADULTERY! His girlfriend must sue him for divorce immediately - right after they get married, that is.

Then she can continue her search for the perfect non-girl-watching boyfriend. I'm sure he's out there somewhere!

In the meantime, I just had another horrible thought. What if her boyfriend ever decides to have a wet dream? Or even multiple wet dreams? Serial adultery - and she could catch an STD from one of those dream-sluts, to boot! She'd better get herself checked by a doctor right away. While she's at it, she could talk to her doctor about some form of medication or surgical procedure for her boyfriend which will eliminate all of those nasty, unacceptable sexual urges.

That may leave her a bit frustrated, of course, so she might also want to invest in a good vibrator. Which she will use only while fantasizing about her now-safe boyfriend, of course.

Problem solved!

What do you think - was I unfair? :D

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

That wasn't unfair in the least. Particularly when several
letters discussed "training men".

That's hillarious. My husband likes to look - he is totally a breast man - but he is very good at not being obvious. Sometimes even when I know he is doing it I can't catch him. Of course, he does not do much of looking at me or anyone else anymore. But I have lived by the "look but don't touch" idea,

The question-asker herself has now responded to that thread on Salon; I'm glad she didn't mention me specifically. :D

I knew my answer was mean and unfair, but I felt like being funny. And when I feel that way, it's awfully hard to stop myself.

The funny thing is that if most guys DIDN'T constantly look for potential mates, the odds are good that none of us would exist! And "training" him to stop (as some of the more ridiculous commenters suggested) would only train him to lie and deceive her. Fortunately she sounds pretty level-headed, so I don't think she'll blow up her relationship over all this.

A breast man? Hmm. For some reason this reminds me of a time when I was in the Boy Scouts. There was this really funny little kid, perhaps 11 or 12 years old (as was I) and I remember that one time when we were all talking he looked very serious and said "I'm a leg man". I totally cracked up, although it's hard to explain why.

A year or two later that boy was mauled by a German shepherd while delivering newspapers. It burst through a screen door and bit his upper lip off. They were able to sew it back on, but it never regained full flexibility. I know that because he'd been in my French horn class up until then.

Could this comment get any more bizarre? :D

As for myself, due to an extremely bizarre upbringing I was forced to become a "totality" man. If there is such a thing. I suppose there are worse things to be.

Jeeze, I'm totally weird today! :D

Wow! Now I am really confused! ;)

And what is wrong with a "totality" man? And how can a bizarre upbringing make you just a good man?

To be contrary ('cuz that's what I do), I'd expect that there might be a difference between noticing other women and "checking out" other women. A male human is certainly going to notice women and particularly those who dress in such a fashion as to have their goodies all out in public view but that's probably different than looking like you'd ditch the woman you're with to go at it like a bunny with somebody else if given half a chance. And given that society still largely says that a guy with multiple partners is a Stud while a woman with multiple partners is a Slut, there's a certain unfairness here.

But with modern technology progressing in a few decades men won't be necessary for reproduction. With men only really needed for recreation and opening pickle jars, there's not much reason to have more than a few (the anime "Geneshaft" had very few men, in authority positions, and with a woman monitoring them so as to shoot them if they acted in an unstable manner). Under such a circumstance, there would be a lot of sharing I'd expect (assuming that there is male-female sex, the anime setting noted seemed to not have that at all).

Even a man on a diet is still allowed to look at the menu.

I judge the sensitivity of this issue by the huge response it generated, to be a sore subject with a lot of women. Women need to get over themselves on this issue, the next time she is reading one of those trashy romance novels, or even a good one like the type Anne Rice puts out, accuse her of looking at female pornography, and of verbally ogling a man. Turn it around on them because that's what it is, thought control.

If men are dogs, then women are bitches. And what do you do with a bitch? You yank the leash, hard, to put her in check. No one has the right to ask their partner to abstain from anything less than a reasonable amount of looking at the opposite sex. Normal secure women get this. Insecure, low self esteemed women on the other hand, feel the need to control the man in their relationship, and this is one of the results. Say no to the feminazis. Not the Rush Limbaugh type, but the Andrea Dworkin type. Men are going to be men no matter what. It's in our genes, the only reasonable request is to refrain from the more socially unacceptable traits of ogling such as howling, drooling, barking, visible pup-tent, etc. As Katherine Hepburn remarked in The African Queen, and I'm paraphrasing here, Nature is something we were meant to rise above. But there's no way to remove it completely.

I understood what you were trying to say, and I share your frustration with the "anti man" rhetoric. Even so, I don't agree with the "men can't help it" line-- depending on your definition of "it".

It's important to distinguish between "noticing" and "lecherously ogling" (http://writingevolution.blogspot.com/2007/07/part-one-shit-poor-advice.html). I believe "noticing" attractive people is pretty damn natural (my husband and I both notice good-looking men and women, and I don't think it warrants "shame" or condemnation).

I don't, however, condone or support "drooling", cat-calling, or making women (or men) uncomfortable by staring. If that's the kind of behavior the Salon readers were trying to dub "biologically wired", I strongly disagree. It's insulting to lump good men into some bastardized category that doesn't exist.

Ogling Boyfriend (Salon)

spot on

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Re:Looking at other women

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