My wife, under the normal-est of circumstances, has big nipples. Under the pregnant-est of circumstances—now, for instance—she has truly very quite big nipples. Nipples which are, these gestational days, more or less erect constantly. Throw in a general aversion to bras, and an extra sensitivity to any fabric that might cause irritation, and you (or rather she) can end up with quite a spectacle.
I mention this because it’s hot, and I enjoy that I’m finding my pregnant wife really hot—there’s something very sensual and evolutionary about knowing that she’s carrying my issue around in her belly.
I mention it also because she was walking around Town Lake the other day, with a friend of hers, and the men were staring. Not that casual, hey-you’re-kinda-cute stare, but an unapologetic, forget whatever else you’re thinking or talking about stare. They were swiveling their heads as she walked by. Downright ogling her. So much so that her friend was forced to comment on the staring, acknowledging something that women, apparently, rarely acknowledge (that guys are checking out their friend). Jess was pretty sure, she told her friend, that it was the nipples.
I found this amusing, of course. But it also reminded me of one of the most striking passages from Norah Vincent’s book, Self-Made Man (which we wrote about a few months ago). Vincent talked about how amazing it was for her, during her time pretending to be a man, when she realized that other men no longer stared at her as she moved amongst them. They didn’t look her up and down, “possess” her with their gaze, evaluate her fuck-ability and availability. She was, finally, anonymous in a way that she never was when walking the streets as a woman.
Reading it made me feel guilty, a bit, for my own staring habits. I don’t leer. I don’t stare at women’s tits while I’m talking to them. But as I move about in the world, I definitely look. I look at women’s breasts, their asses, their hips, whatever else I notice that I find worth looking at. I was at the UT gym yesterday for the first time, and there was, as my workout partner noted, quite a bit of “eye candy” around. Because of that, I suspect that I’ll go back to the gym more often than I otherwise would.
There was even a moment, yesterday, when I thought I caught a flicker of annoyance in the eyes of one particularly attractive woman who I was staring at. “Christ,” I imagined her thinking, “Can’t I just do my curls without every fuckin’ guy in the room creaming his mesh shorts.”
I haven’t lost a lot of sleep worrying about the male gaze and its role in reinforcing the patriarchy, but I do think men staring at women presents some interesting ethical questions. On the one hand, I’m sure, if I were a woman, that I’d get tired of men ogling me all the time. It would feel oppressive, and possessive, and obnoxious. On the other hand, it’s hard for me to convince myself that looking at a woman is somehow unethical. Is it wrong to appreciate beauty? Is it wrong to look at a woman and imagine that it would be exciting to touch her, to dance with her, to have sex with her?
If we lived in a more equal, less sexist culture, we’d probably all walk around ogling each other and no one would care. Unfortunately, we live in our culture, and that means that my staring, whatever my motives, can be experienced by women as part of the whole sexist shebang. I still don’t know that that means that it’s my responsibility, as a good menminist, to never stare, but it means that I should at least be aware of how I might make women feel.
I’m still gonna stare at my wife and her nipples, though.
