So is the embarrassment because you were distracted enough to be this hazard, that is your own sense of yourself, or because the had-to-dodge woman will have seen you looking and not watching were you were going?

Either way, I think of myself as a Puritan but you've got me beat; this wouldn't embarrass me in the slightest.

Give yourself a break. We are helpless in the face of womens' hotness. Just try not to actually bump in to people.

You're completely evil and I hope the woman you bumped into kneed you in the balls.

Not really.

Both, IDP. There's the embarrassment of those two things, and also the guilt of being another leering guy in the dodging woman's world.

It's no use being embarrassed and guilty about something you apparently can't help.

I take some pride in being subtle about checking people out

Anecdotally, this belief is rather widely held by men, is widely known by women to be so held, and is generaly regarded by the latter with somewhat bemused contempt.

The ultimate is crashing your car because you're checking out a woman on the sidewalk. Work toward that.

is generaly regarded by the latter with somewhat bemused contempt

Yeah yeah. B, on your honor, did you notice me checking out your veiny boobs when I saw you a couple of times ago?

The ultimate is crashing your car because you're checking out a woman on the sidewalk

Let's stipulate crashing your car into your wife, just to round out the idea. Or at a minimum your wife's cat.

It's no use being embarrassed and guilty about something you apparently can't help.

I'd think the opposite is true.

Yeah yeah. B, on your honor, did you notice me checking out your veiny boobs when I saw you a couple of times ago?

Why do you think she was wearing what she was wearing?

Yeah yeah

It's OK, most people live their whole lives not quite believing that others are people just like them.

B, on your honor

The gold standard of evidence.

I'm like other people, but more subtle.

Ben, I don't know why you'd attempt to defame the honorable Dr. BitchPhD, PhD, but what you're implying isn't even pertinent.

I'd think the opposite is true.

You'd think that just in case it's something you think you actually can help.

Of course, it sounds as though the guilt and embarrassment are simply a function of having failed to be subtle enough in the checking out.

I'm getting too old for this "trying not to be seen noticing" business. I strive to emulate the claymation figures checking out the recently beboobed Camila.

You'd think that just in case it's something you think you actually can help.

I was thinking something like: that which one does willfully, one ought to do without embarrassment or not do at all; that which one does involuntarily, one might be embarrassed about.

15: Yeah. There's not enough time left to worry about subtle. Also, I'm thinking that being subtle in L.A. is an insult to the women and their surgeons.

16: I see how you could make such a case, but I'd really go in the opposite direction altogether.

You'd need to clarify what's being done in this case though: the checking out, or the checking out with inadequate sublety?

If the latter, I'm not sure how you'd characterize a failure to be subtle enough as either willful or involuntary.

A lack of subtlety could be willful, in accord with biohazard's rules of courtesy in 17, but in this case, I just forgot myself and my surroundings, so involuntary and embarrassing.

being subtle in L.A. is an insult to the women and their surgeons

This is actually something I've been wondering about. When a woman has her boobs done, are you supposed to stare noticeably a little, just to be polite and acknowledge that it was money well spent?

in this case, I just forgot myself and my surroundings

This is really about proper etiquette, then. And the original post's reference to becoming what one despises is in relation to a failure in (of?) manners.

20: You're supposed to stare obviously, then look up at her with an expression of horror, disgust, and contempt, possibly say "god, why", and then walk away. Unless she's an ex-girlfriend.

This is really about proper etiquette, then.

Right.

In the summer of 2002, I went to Baltimore to visit my sister for a few days. She was busy one day, so I went wandering about the city, eventually ending up on the JHU Homewood campus. During my walk around there, two girls approached me, one fairly average looking (Girl A) and the other tall and stunning (Girl B). Girl A asked me a question--I think something about where such-and-such was--and I responded that I did not know, since I wasn't from there.

So all that's fine, but when I think back on this brief interaction I still feel like an ass about it, because the whole time that Girl A was talking to me I was staring at Girl B, and basically directing all the normal social behaviors of a question answerer toward B, as if she were asking the question. I imagine that it must be annoying to be treated as nonexistent when conducting routine business in the presence of one's hot friend.

Pride has kept me from posting this until I actually got home with an internet connection...

Isn't it more shame, rather than embarrassment, if you honestly can't help yourself?

And 6 gets it exactly right.

So how did her body look in clothes?

23: Well, jeez. Back to my original thought up at 5: everyone drops a fork now and then, or is taken by surprise by an unanticipated belch. Nothing more or less going on here, right?

I force myself to look at uninteresting people to cover my tracks.

So how did her body look in clothes?

It would be ungentlemanly of me to say, I believe. This woman is an odd case. Once, when one of the older male lifeguards was talking about her and I didn't know who he meant, he said "you know, the one who looks like a model." Except that she's not unhealthily thin. She has a very self-conscious manner, which isn't surprising when you're a very attractive, fairly tall young woman. But recently she actually did get implants, and not subtle ones, either. She really looks like Barbie. Seemed a strange choice for someone who already seemed self-conscious.

I force myself to look at uninteresting people to cover my tracks.

I don't think this works.

Actually, ogling isn't completely involuntary. There are involuntary ogles, but they don't last long. It's the secondary ogle one has to be subtle about.

Jesus, 28, I do that too. I don't think it works, but I feel obliged.

You guys are making 6 look righter all the time.

Walking around the city, I get a lot of entertainment out of watching straight men check out women, precisely because of how subtle it isn't. The extreme ends of the continuum between trying-to-be-subtle-and-failing and not-trying-at-all are both pretty fun to see.

On the other hand, this post feels germane to me because I just got off the train after an extended, pleasant session of flirty eyeball-swapping with some cute guy, yet it's somewhat spoiled because I really don't know whether a) had I been a little less subtle, he might be here with me now and I wouldn't be commenting on the internets; b) I wasn't half as subtle as i think, and I was actually just a leering creep all the way home, or c) the entire thing was only going on in my head and said guy mostly had other things on his mind.

Of the three, my primary fear is that I often lose out for being too subtle when I *feel* like I'm staring with lasers.

Ah, the "I was just curious" excuse. Works like a charm. A charm that is broken, that is. I find myself to be "just curious" about the way many women look.

She had a boob job, I was curious... pull the other one, it's got bells on.

Want to know what's creepy? Today at the park, we saw a guy unsubtely checking out someone's kid. Ewwwwww.

28: Apparently, we all do this. Drat.

I told you, Cala, that I see her in her bathing suit all the time, and I was checking her out from behind. You people are so cynical.

6 may indeed be true, but that doesn't affect the necessity of subtlety. On public transport, if there is an attractive woman, I must a)check out the yelling college boy b)check her out c)check out the masturbating homeless man d)check out the drunk, and e)repeat. If I am feeling especially crafty, I may scramble the order. Why do I do this? Because I am a feminist.

I find it hard to check out people who are not someone's kid.

Ooh, boob jobs with bells! Progress.

37: First of all, gross. But secondly, in an instance like that how do you actually tell the difference between "checking out" and "looking at." Little kids can be pretty amusing to watch, and maintaining a radiant "aren't they God's gifts straight from heaven" glow while doing so gets tiring after a while.

43 - AWB will totally back me up on this one: guy sitting by himself on a bench outside of the playground. Mom pushing a stroller with a toddler in it strolls by and that guy's eyes latch onto the kid and follow it sloooowly with a hunger that I've never seen in my life. It was so gross. We were both like "did you just see that?"

with a hunger

There you go, he was hungry.

44: Did he have a book or something? Smoking, maybe? Hanging out indisposed by the playground is not a good look.

Hanging out indisposed by the playground is not a good look.

Hard to argue with that.

But seriously, I try not to ogle. About a year ago, I was attending a class at Remedial Undergrad U. Also attending was a smart, home-schooled 14 year old, and by week two she was giving me the full on brave-new-world treatment. I'm flattered by the occasional regard, but this girl would not stop; for a while I thought I'd pissed her off, except she wouldn't hold eye contact, or she'd give me the contact-look down-contact routine. I became careful about every movement. I felt like I was giving myself stage direction. I imagine that if I were a hot woman this would be my default condition, so I try not to ogle.

14 year old

Doesn't that fact explain it all?

I imagine that if I were a hot woman this would be my default condition, so I try not to ogle.

You'd fuck your other-gendered clone, you're saying?

No foolishmortal! It's a trap!

I keep meaning to link to this Ruth Orkin photo whenever conversations about leering/ogling/corner dudes comes up. I assume everyone knows it.

That was up, as a big poster, in a falafel place I used to go to. The title (I don't know if it's the actual title) was something like "American Girl in Italy." It's pretty clearly a staged scene, no?

49.1 14-year old doesn't quite explain it. Home-schooled 14 year old does.

49.2 Note that I specified "hot". Yes, I would fuck a hot opposite sex clone of myself. Careful readers of the comments will remember that I just watched Pan's Labyrinth, and that the 10 year old girl protagonist looks just like me. Nice try, Spanish jailbait prosecutors, but I said "hot".

I will freely admit that I am totally unsubtle about checking out women. I try not to be too obvious about it, but I don't know how well that works.

Everyone is prone to leering a bit -- straight men, gay men, straight women, gay women, etc. I got off a bus recently with my wife and a girl at the bus stop was totally checking her out, and in an entirely non-subtle way. My wife had to ask me what I was laughing at.

her: "Oh, she was probably just looking at my shoes"
me: " she looked up and down you twice and damn near licked her lips"

The previous comment should be interpreted in light of this atrocity.

The link in 56 is perverse. I couldn't look away.

How one avoids becoming inferior to what one despises.

re: 56

Heh, it's a bit of fairly crude satire in the same vein as Goldie Looking Chain. The irony being that both my brother and my nephew dress exactly like that.

Also, there's an interview with the guy responsible on Youtube, and he's extremely unfunny. Whereas both the Interpreting for the Neds* skits on Chewin' the Fat and Goldie Looking Chain (when doing their own thing) can actually be pretty amusing.

* link to a compilation, well worth clicking. The language used by 'Rab McGlinchy' is entirely accurate. "tragic, sad ... pish"

56: What's disturbing, among many things, about that is how late into one realizes he's speaking something similar to English.

Anyway, nothing a little chocolate rain won't wash away.

Completely intelligible to me, obviously.

When a woman has her boobs done, are you supposed to stare noticeably a little, just to be polite and acknowledge that it was money well spent?

I think I solved this one awhile back. What you say is "That sweater really looks nice on you". Container for the thing contained, a form of metonymy or synecdoche.

You might put in a little emphasis, like "That sweater really looks nice on you" or maybe "That sweater looks nice on you today", but the italicized "really" should be very lightly stressed, since too much stress is crass.

However, a crass lady's feelings will be hurt by not enough stress. She might appreciate a frank "Oh my God! I just want to grab them! Mmnh! Vavavoom!"

"Ogged watches women, and women watch themselves being watched on Unfogged"

But seriously, why is it that gay men and some lesbians get to "cruise", straight women "check [that guy] out" but straight men "leer" and "ogle"? I ask this in the spirit of advancing feminist discourse on gender and representation. A lot of times, when we talked about this stuff in my cultural studies classes, the professor would try to pin it all on the "male gays". That just didn't seem right to me, first of all, because it's sort of redundant, and secondly because I think straight men are just as bad.

I don't flatter myself that I'm on the monk/priest extreme of the leering continuum, but at least I'm not prone to the eye-popping, tongue-lolling, quivering-with-electricity cartoon-wolf type of leering either.

39: and I was checking her out from behind
Like that makes it all right? Male chauvinist pig!

Ya know, Minneapolitan, these hedonistic motherfuckers slack on their commenting duties whenever there's poontang in the air. They're driven entirely by their carnal desires.

Whereas I'm just driven by dread of going back to the office. And wanting to read more Bulgakov.

Mmmm. Bulgakov.

relatedly, I was macked on by a shameless Iranian dude at the beach who was trying to explain how lonely and bored he was in town for three days, even as I repeatedly pointed out I was at the beach with my family, and Husband X and Girls X and Y frolicked in the nearby surf. this followed a good 10 minutes of unsubtly checking me out in the least subtle way ever.

20: I think if someone has obviously made a productio9n of and is obviously looking for approval in their dress and body mods, it's polite to indicate you've noticed (if you do approve). I go with a grin and nod an sometimes a "thumbs-up".

The cartoonish lock-on, track, and drool thing is silly. It doesn't take that long, and is an affectation.

68: I didn't know Ogged was in Narnia.

Alameida, he will be psychologically damaged if he loses his belief that he's irresistible. You should think of the effects that your actions have on others. It strikes me that you might be a sociopath.

You know, I'm just not that into The Master and Margarita. Maybe it was the translation I read.

I like it when the pretty girl walks down the street - the one who really fills out her sweaters - and Ogged walks into the open man-hole cover. And another copy of Ogged swings around to look while holding a ladder, and beams another copy of Ogged in the noggin. And another copy of Ogged runs his car into the fire hydrant, which goes off like a geyser, and there's another copy of Ogged balanced at the top of the spray with hearts instead of pupils, watching the girl with the filled-out sweater. Awgged!

Was Ogged nodding appreciatively while he was leering at this woman?

On my honor, Ogged (as if I needed to vow in order to be honest? I'm insulted), I did not. You are a perfect gentleman.

everyone drops a fork now and then, or is taken by surprise by an unanticipated belch. Nothing more or less going on here, right?

Parsimon, I'm surprised at you. Of course ogling is different; there's a person on the other end of that gaze.

Vindication!!!

Perfect gentleman = only leered at my butt when I was walking away/only leered at my boobs when I looked away.

The ultimate is crashing your car because you're checking out a woman on the sidewalk

I have a friend who did this.

(This is meant as a light-hearted observation - I'm really, truly not trying to dissolve the thread into gender-issues. Really-really-truly.)

But it's so weird how I feel cleaved into two pieces whenever these things come up. I either feel like a guy, rooting on the ogling, or like a girl, who either does or doesn't receive ogling. But I toggle between the two. I can't integrate them into one Heebie with shades of gray. Cleavage!

It's all because of the carnal desires, you see. More time commenting => less ogling and wolf-whistles.

I came to a realization last night about how lizard-brain level most ogling behavior is. Roberta's sister babysat the kids while we went out for a nice dinner. Roberta was wearing a low-cut blouse and, y'know, nursing mom. Now, I've got carte blanche to stare at her breasts all I like, and moreover, since she's nursing, I see them all the damn time already. AND YET, every time she'd look for the waiter or something, my eyes would instantly drop to her (admittedly impressive and eye-catching) cleavage.

I didn't even realize I was doing it until about halfway through dinner. Then I started laughing and had to explain why to her.

Oggle for your right to fight!

Eckshually, snarkout, I've started on a project to read/re-read ALL of my Bulgakov collection, which I can assure you is ... prodigious. So yesterday I started The White Guard which is about the tribulations of the Turbin family in Kiev in 1918. If you want to revisit i>The Master and Margarita the recent Burgin/Tiernan O'Connor translation is the one that wins the most praise in the Russian dept. at Minnesota. Also though, read The Heart of a Dog -- you can breeze through it pretty quickly and it's got the same dark satire of Soviet life as TM&M without as much droning religious musing. Unless it was the religious part that you really liked, in which case go back to Tolstoy, I guess.

Bulgakov was admired by Stalin during his (Stalin's) pre-Stalinist period. Fact.

I like Gombrowicz too for the E European weirdness. He spent much of his life in Argentina, where he was trapped by WWII.

Of course ogling is different; there's a person on the other end of that gaze.

Etiquette is about other people, too, which is what I thought parsimon was getting at. It's not good to burp in polite company, and rude to burp on purpose, but everyone slips up now and then. It's not good to ogle people, and really rude to be obvious about it, but noticing other people and finding them attractive is something that's going to be pretty hard to squelch all of the time.

I think I solved this one awhile back. What you say is "That sweater really looks nice on you". Container for the thing contained, a form of metonymy or synecdoche.

You might put in a little emphasis, like "That sweater really looks nice on you" or maybe "That sweater looks nice on you today", but the italicized "really" should be very lightly stressed, since too much stress is crass.

What if she's topless? Then you have to just maintain your poise.

In a given year I don't think I notice more than five instances of man checking out woman in public. I've never noticed myself being checked out by a woman. It seems like if people are noticing it so much (people who aren't on the receiving end of the ogle, that is) they are looking for it, maybe looking for something to be annoyed by.

In a given year I don't think I notice more than five instances of man checking out woman in public

Ned, you're making a serious bid to join the ranks of the robots.

"That sweater really looks nice on you".

That shirt looks good on your body.

It seems like if people are noticing it so much (people who aren't on the receiving end of the ogle, that is) they are looking for it, maybe looking for something to be annoyed by

Or maybe they are just paying more attention to the people around them than you are. Maybe they're superspy action heroes with supertalents for keeping tabs on their environment so they can notice any small false move or suspicious behavior in time to make their move and avoid capture or even death!

88 was me.

Or maybe they are just paying more attention to the people around them than you are.

Well, that goes without saying.

If I notice something like that I feel a sense of joy and kinship with the world. "Wow! At this very moment I know exactly what that stranger is thinking about!"

You can achieve the same feeling of insight into a stranger's mental processes by unexpectedly walking up to them and kneeing them in the groin.

It's not hard to notice guys leering, but I suspect women are better at picking up on it because they're more likely to be the target of inappropriate leering.

75:

Parsimon, I'm surprised at you. Of course ogling is different; there's a person on the other end of that gaze.

I was being snotty in the most veiled way I could manage, by leaving room for Cala's interpretation in 84:

It's not good to ogle people, and really rude to be obvious about it, but noticing other people and finding them attractive is something that's going to be pretty hard to squelch all of the time.

If the question of becoming what one despises is simply about a failure of etiquette, a post about an infelicitous belch would have served as well. But of course the stakes in the two cases are different, and while one can try to treat the question of ogling as nothing more than one of bad manners, I want to say that it doesn't really fly.

Frankly, though, I'm having a hard time parsing that when I consider real life examples.

73: Ogged walks into the open man-hole cover.

Christ, I've done that. I wasn't ogling: I was running after a cute boy (with whom I was friends, mind you), and I stepped straight into an open man-hole cover and nearly broke my femur. My only excuse is that it was dark out, and the manhole was full of water and thus sneakily disguised as a puddle. Still, the salad plate-sized bruise hurt and lasted about two weeks.

Anytime you're in public space, you're in an anarchic battleground of roving gazes. Sexuality is only part of it. If you're a straight man, you need to be be careful not to meet another man's eyes for too long, lest it be construed as a challenge. Some people use this as a form of aggression (actually do challenge you by staring at you), it's especially noticeable when you're a young man.

Its almost like humans are social apes, always living in the mesh of other's realities. almost. But that would go against one's existential right to be exactly as one wants to be without even the work of constructing a robust ego.

96 is a great, great comment. In so many ways.

the full on brave-new-world treatment.

Do you mean she thought you were very pneumatic or that she made you feel like a newly decanted beta-minus?

re your reply #4:

But you are --- another leering guy in the dodging woman's world, that is. There are worse things to be found gulity of. don't be so hard on yourself. Oh, another thing. Your illusion about priding yourself in being a subtle rubbernecker. Sorry, pal, but ain't no such thing. No matter how stealthily you may try to mask it, they know. They just know. Not only the lookee, but any woman with whom you are in the company of and for whose sake you are trying to be subtle.

re 69's I go with a grin and nod an sometimes a "thumbs-up" : You didn't say what the usual response to that is though. Favorable? or none at all? I'm going to try that here in Dallas. Will report back with results.