Beauty and Booty - In the eye of the beholder

Everyone’s a little bit of a pervert – few will admit it but all partake in it because most of us are visual creatures happy to analyse, attract or aspire to look like the aesthetically supreme beings that fill this great earth. This week I wondered if there was more to a stare than just the instant thrill of feeling attractive?

My job this week was not to judge the perverts around me but rather to character analyse their gaze. This was inspired by a recent ploy of two New Zealander girls living in the United States. These actresses and models, conscious of the attention they attracted sought to see what no eye could but every woman’s eye desires – their rear view. By discreetly placing a hidden camera in their denim back pocket, they captured those enraptured by their bottoms. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1357939/Girls-install-camera-jeans-catch-men-ogling-bottoms-LA.html)

These women were already attractive – models even so I imagined they’d have no junk in their trunk but that didn’t stop men from oggling and the rest of the world from Googling and hitting up YouTube for a bootycall.

Without the technological means/ desire to play butt camera-dominos – I spent this week looking at the way men look at women and I guess became a pervert in the process (I suffer for my art).

This was my hall pass if you wish to look at men looking at me looking at them and looking at others. If eyes are the window to the soul then this week’s assignment was not about perversion it was about soul-searching. I learnt a thing or two.

Where else to start but public transport…

The learned game player – this man reads on the train, with full knowledge that every woman appreciates a literary man. He skim reads each page, I wonder if there’s any text in it like this new bestseller labelled “What Every Man Thinks About Apart From Sex”. The book has a cover and then is filled with 200 blank pages, outselling ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘The DaVinci Code’. This book has soared in sales, reaching number 744 on the Amazon bestseller list and retails at an affordable $7.95. It’s a cheap thrill, but cheaper than $7.95 is staring at a passersby for FREE!!!

 With each turn of the page he glances up to see women biting their lips, flicking their hair, curious about this Mr.Darcy and wondering if they can be his Emma Woodhouse. Suddenly every woman in the carriage is Jane Austen writing their future in her head. This boy does read, he reads women and with each flick of the page he glances over to a different woman – a place to rest his tired eyes from all of that intense concentration.

Lesson 1 # Women in suits like men with books. Boys pick a book, ANY book and guarantee yourself a look!

 Next is the predator – not in a criminal way, this man is just the king of his jungle. With precision and prowess he circles his prey, maintaining a watchful eye. The woman blushes a little but is first to look away, this is the first indication that she is yielding to his power, alternatively, she was well taught in the school of etiquette and gets that it’s rude to stare – but if she chose to, she’d have great reason to - this man is quite the looker, tall, dark, handsome AND in a suit in the CBD – oddly he just stares and circles.

You may bump into this fella a few times, he floats wherever single ladies flock, he plays his game well and certainly has your attention, and the only problem is you only have his attention for a fleeting second. He craves more than just your cushy tush.

Lesson 2 # Ladies beware of the predator, he looks to fill his own desire, an egotistical ploy to assert his reign over your kingdom but he is always looking for the next big thing…that means, like all women, to him you are just a phase, so be UNPHASED by his fleeting flirtation.

Next up is the feely pervert. He leans on your hand as you hold the railing; he ‘accidentally’ puts a hand over yours as you grab the nearest pole to avoid falling. Any excuse for a chat. The girl I’m looking at seems a little hot and flustered. He uses this discomfort to his advantage. “Life can’t be that bad” he sympathises. She half-smiles, unsure whether to succumb to his charm(or lack of from where I’m sitting) or shove him off. He looks a little defeated. The whole train is watching - me included.

As pitiful as I find his ploy, their’s merit in all of these people’s efforts to catch the gaze of the opposite sex. It’s been said that ‘you’re nobody till somebody loves you,’ so maybe amidst the shy flirtation, the half-smiles, the literary pursuits and the blatant stares, are people looking for purpose. The suit does not make the man as far as I could see, it’s more the woman suited to him that does.