2006-04-21
Bear in mind that I am writing this after a few pints, but I was musing to myself as I stumbled along the road tonight. It seems to me that there are only two sexes.OK you say that’s blindingly obvious.. But what led me into this thought was wondering whether women realise the way that men look at unknown women as they pass us in the street (maybe more so after the few pints). We appreciate shape, we admire curves, we look for (with pleasure you don’t understand) the tell tale outlines of underwear. We follow curvy bottoms and look for the shape of Y shape where pussy meets leg outline, the line of the knicker under trousers, the ratio of hip to curve, we look for the shape of bra straps across your backs, the way your breasts hang from your shoulders, the projection of bust from the frontage, the jiggle factor as you move. And only after those have been appreciated (or eve followed along a street) will we admire the cut and style of your hair and eventually the pleasure in your smile, or the colour of your eyes.
So men appreciate women as objects. But men appreciate women’s bodies as objects almost of art.. and we appreciate you with a pleasure, not necessarily a desire or lust, that you surely don’t understand. You are objects that we pass, in the same way as we pass cars and buildings, but you are objects we genuinely like looking at.
So my first cut was that the two sexes are men and women. Maybe women pass unknown men and appreciate them in the same way, maybe not. But then I moved on and thought that really this isn’t the whole truth. Men only really appreciate, in this way, the bodies of certain women. Once you are past a certain age, or once you have lost a certain curvaceous quality, whatever age you are, then you are in a different category. To be honest you’re in the same category as the men that pass us by. So it seems like the distinction isn’t really based on sex at all, it’s based on attractiveness. A man passing by will attract the same attention as a lamppost, and I’m afraid so will an old woman. And I don’t believe the female equivalent isn’t ay different. So maybe the two sexes are attractive, and unattractive.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not talking about treating the opposite sex as a sex-object, for all it sounds like that. When I’m following a curvy bottom , trying to make out the trace of the crotch of her panties, even if I am thinking about the naked version of her, I’m not really thinking about having sex with her. It’s the shape I appreciate, and that doesn’t necessarily lead to thoughts of penetration. Sure I’m treating that person as an object, but because I have no more relationship with them than I do with the post-box beside them I’m bound to treat them in that way. Everything, everyone that I pass that I don’t relate to is an object to me; some are inaminate, some are human – some are attractive, some are inattractive.
But I decided the answer to the sex distinction should be respect. There is a difference between physical attraction, or aesthetic interest, and wanting to engage sexually. There is a difference between lust and satisfaction, there is a difference between looking and love. A difference between non-sex and sex.
Obvious?