Girl Gone Wild: The art of ogling

By Loki Ferris

"Can you please pop your eyeballs back into your skull?" I once said this to my date as he followed the waitress from table to table. I had never felt so embarrassed. Did anyone else notice that he found the waitress so enticing as to break eye contact with me on several occasions? I couldn't believe his blatant ogling.

The imaginary voices of pity echoed in my brain. "What is she doing with that guy? All he does is check out other women--in front of her!" I was a little upset that all the world knew I was on a date with a man who couldn't stop looking. When I did my imitation of his ogling ways, he rebutted that he just likes to "people watch" and "observe."

I asked my friends what the consensus was on ogling. We all agreed that there was nothing wrong with looking per se, but staring repeatedly at the opposite sex was just plain rude to your date.

There is a part of me that feels badly for the woman if the man she is with, whether it is her husband or boyfriend, has no shame when it comes to ogling other women, especially if I am that other woman. At a dinner party, my friend was busy keeping everyone entertained, while her new husband devoted an uncomfortable amount of attention to making sure I was okay. If I stood up or shifted my seat, his eyes were there, following me up and down, all around. There were six other single women there, and I even had a date, but nothing thwarted his focus on me, and it made the evening awkward for everyone. I wanted so much for her to kick him under the dinner table. After a year of holding back my concerns, my friend finally filed for a divorce.

"I should have known it wasn't going to work. Any man who doesn't have the decency to hide his arousal around my friends is not a good man," she later confessed.

"Really stupid too," I added. "Did he think that nobody was going to notice?"

Women know that men are visual creatures; "looking" is a natural response to stimuli. Women are the same. We like to look at attractive men. I've undressed many men with my eyes and tried to guess how tight their asses really are under their work slacks. I have no shame when I see unaccompanied men meander into my path. Admiring a nice sculpted set of pecs or calves or noticing a bulge beneath a pair of khakis is one of my favorite treats when I'm waiting in a long line at Costco. On occasion, my chin has hit the floor. But never, ever ever do I ogle other men in front of a date.

Now, if the man excuses himself to the restroom, and there happens to be some eye candy just begging to be noticed, I'll look at it, appreciate it and move on. But the man I've chosen to spend time with is given my undivided attention, and I expect the same. Ogling is an art, and if it is done properly, it will go unnoticed by your date and the object of your ogling eye, offending no one.

That covers the men who ogle and don't realize they are doing it. There is a category of oglers that is worse. These men ogle on purpose, and repeatedly offend the woman they are with because it gives them power.

One of my guyfriends has a girlfriend who would scratch my eyes out if given the opportunity. I've always been cordial toward her, and thought maybe a double date would put her at ease. Whenever he spoke to me, she was on the other side of him, pinching his arm as a signal to him that he needed to pay attention to her. As much as I don't agree with that kind of behavior, I understood why she did it. He is very easily distracted when he is out in the public eye, and has taken careful measures to control her by ogling and commenting about how fine other women are and how he wonders how they'd be in bed. But instead of having the gumption to leave him, she bides his manipulations by getting pissed off at the object of his attention and resorts to feeble attempts at making him jealous. She seethes and he laughs. It's a sick game that I refuse to play.