Look and learn?
I was talking to Jordan yesterday and she made a remark in talking about little girls dressing up in revealing clothes that made me start thinking along a completely different track. What she said was (and I quote) "Men will always look. Period. Always. It’s a thing with you guys – you are visual creatures. Many years of study and porn have proven this." But what started me thinking was not so much the "little girl" angle as much as the "men will always look" bit. I told her at that point that as a person who does not *always* look, I resented her remark and no, I’m not trying to sound holier-than-thou or to say that I’m some kind of a saint (far from it :p) but I was curious as to how others looked at this particular issue – both men and women.
Now when I’m in love with somebody, I just don’t look – it’s automatic … not something I force myself to do consciously. And to me, that seems natural – if you love somebody, you obviously should be happy being with that person, want to be with that person – so why would you go looking at anybody else? Of course, I too look at a pretty girl if I’m not otherwise attached and as Jordan said, I think that bit at least is natural – it’s just the *always* look part that bothered me 🙂 Incidentally, this is something that I’ve noticed about other people – that they might be in love with somebody but that does not stop them from drooling over somebody else. Is that normal? Is that how everybody else behaves? I don’t know … I’m just confused and trying to understand. I can always argue on the other hand that there is nothing wrong in just looking – it’s just that I don’t know how a majority of people look at this issue.
Now I’m not talking about being possessive and not wanting your partner to look at anybody else. I’ve gone through that in my own time. I have been in a relationship where I was faced with both extremes – this girl didn’t want me to even talk to any girl online (let alone look mind you) while she wanted to be free to do whatever she wanted to do – including go out to bars and dance with other guys … all this while claiming passionate love for me mind you. I never could reconcile that attitude with love. And of course, in my time, I’ve been guilty of being extremely possessive so I certainly can’t claim to have been so innocent myself but again, this is not what I’m talking about when I talk about the "looking" thing. I’m not talking about not doing something because your partner does not like it or because it is considered bad form – but rather, not doing it because you naturally don’t feel like it. But again, this might simply be a matter of individual preference and if so, all I can say is each to their own 🙂
I think there’s a big difference between acknowledging the physical prettiness of another human being and actively lusting after them – you made that point already, I believe. Context in which I said that aside, everyone looks. I think it’s maybe a bit unnatural to *not* look at someone that’s pretty just because you’re already attached – the human body is one helluva piece of art, and there’s no reason to deny ourselves the optical pleasure of it. Actually, this is going to turn into a huge ramble, so I’ll just blog it out on my own. =P
My point was not about *denying* ourselves anything – just that *I* automatically seem to go into non-browse mode when in a relationship :p Just wondering if there were others like that or not … though I do have questions about where does enjoying the human body for it’s beauty stop and where does lechery begin :p
Just to put in my two cents….
not so much on looking, not looking and the rightness and wrongness of it, but on generalizations in general. (ha). Generalizations of any group of poeple, men, women, gay, straight, religious group… is a bit dangerous.
Maybe it’s fairer to say.. some poeple look some times, some poeple don’t look ever, some people look all the time.. but people, not just men, not just women.
That be my two cents anyway. 🙂
But in general, I’m sensitive to generalizations. 😉
Trish, You generally summed up one of the points I was trying to make in just a few words without all the rambling I did :p
But in fairness to Jordan, I should mention a few things that I had not thought of when I made the post – the whole comment about “men looking” was taken out of context since she was talking about something else altogher – it’s just that I have a habit of launching my rants from the point which got me thinking and so I needed to include this particular comment but without all the background info. So my fault 🙂 Plus, Jordan genrally does not generalize <g> and she herself agreed she was generaliziging when I commented on her remark later on and that it was made to make a point and that that wasn’t how she *really* felt 🙂 I just don’t want to unintentionally villify somebody … so now that is out of the way .. back to your regularly scheduled programming :p
Aw, Fahim, you’re too sweet in defending a po’ defenseless dame. *smirk*
Thank you, though, for clearing that up. Yeesh, even I didn’t like me after reading that taken out of context. =P
oops.. didn’t mean to sound like I was chastising or anything.. just a general comment on generalizations, which I have been known to make myself from time to time. 🙂 Sorry if I offended anyone!
LOL, this post is becoming a quagmire of generalities and perhaps the highest commented post ever on SM :p I *know* that you didn’t mean to chastise anyone and you were speaking generally on generalities but since the original remark was made by Jordan and I quoted her out of context, I felt guilty lest others *think* that she was guilty of generalizations and so made my clarification :p Hope that clears out all of that … Hmm … maybe I should make a new post? :p
Alot of comments?! That get lost in some other realm than the original topic?! Who ever heard of that?!
And who was offended? I thought it was funny, actually. =)