Men check women out, and having discussed this truth with several friends, I have yet to find one male or female willing to say, "Yes, I agree that men like to observe the female body, but I do not think men get condemned for that."
Yeah, right -- men are notorious for ogling anything with two breasts, two legs and hips (although hips are not always crucial). You would think from such negativity that every male was a Bill Clinton or hooting construction worker, and since women do not have such a bad reputation, every female must be a Sister Chastity.
I hate to admit this, but I check men out. Shocking, I know, but I have actually said to friends, "Wow, did you notice the guy in the red sweater?" and a friend would actually reply, "Damn, now that's a nice ass." Men are accused of ogling women, but women ogle just as much as men do.
Sometimes, I think we ogle more.
And why shouldn't we look? If we are going to study economics, Russian literature and earth sciences during the day (and night), we might as well study the male body during dinner. It makes for entertaining conversation. After a long day or before a long night, my friends and I would rather compare our tastes in men than have the "Let me tell you about this calculus problem" conversation. For example, two of my best friends like BIG men. I, however, am frightened by the football player type; I prefer guys more in my height range. Two of my friends yelled at me for this while we were gorging ourselves before finals at Westside. Why? They showed me a guy in their math class -- I thought he was big and not that hot, and so they thought I was crazy.
I feel as if I have betrayed some sacred secret in admitting that other females and I check guys out, but, oh well, I was not harboring any hopes of being a Secret Service Agent. Besides, we cannot condemn and condone the same act just because of gender unless we want to be guilty of the double standard. As it is, the double standard exists enough in issues such as the workplace and parenthood. Let's eliminate a little hypocrisy, if only in the shallow issue of checking people out.
However, I am not condoning blatant ogling; I would love to bulldoze such ogling off the face of the earth. I believe that guys are condemned more for looking at the opposite sex because they are more obvious than woman. We women have more refined "checking out" techniques.
Let's say I'm eating dinner with Jane (Jane is hypothetical; don't think I'm betraying a friend). Jane whispers, "Hey, the hot guy from my philosophy class I was telling you about, he just sat down behind you." Now, my impulse might be to swing around in my seat, stare at the dude behind me, point and audibly ask my friend, "Is that the guy?" However, I resist this temptation and instead coolly drop my napkin on the ground. As I go to pick it up, I glance up and note the hot guy. Here lies the essential difference between me and my guy friends: I am subtle, they are not.
A friend recently told me a story which confirms all my convictions about how obvious guys can be when checking out a female. "Peter" was visiting his friend at his college. While the two walked across a dorm's common area, Peter noticed that his friend was staring intently at something. Peter inferred that it must be an exceptional woman, and indeed it was. Peter also noted that his friend was walking directly for a pillar but could not tear his attention from such a fine creature. Being such a great friend, Peter chose to say nothing and BAM his friend walked smacked into the pillar and fell to the ground. I thought such blatant ogling only existed in the movies and comic strips, but Peter's friend has demonstrated otherwise.
However, when all is said and done, ogling is not a terrible crime. Guys could learn how to be a little more subtle, but they do not need to abandon this extracurricular activity in order to be upstanding citizens. Yet let's not call it ogling or checking out. The connotation of those words makes it seem so shallow. Let's call it "admiration." Men admire women; women admire men; I don't think we're all going to burn in hell.
