The Female Gaze

Boys, men, and males. Listen up and just bear with me for moment. I want you to close your eyes, and place yourself on a street corner. You may make this any particular corner in any particular place, any place you want, because you are a man and the world is your oyster, and there is nowhere you cant go, nowhere you are told not to go because of the shape of your body. Anyway, just picture yourself. 

You are standing on this street corner, and you are waiting for the crosswalk light to turn green. The light turns green, and you begin to walk. You are wearing a nice pair of khaki shorts and a t-shirt with some sandals. You feel great. You feel comfortable, confident, and handsome. As you walk down the street ahead of you, you glance from side to side. It's dusk. It's getting darker and darker and you start to feel a little tickle of uneasiness. You pass by stoop after stoop and you begin to feel eyes on you. It makes you uncomfortable, but you shrug it off. After all, you are just walking, not bothering anyone, you aren't even wearing anything risque. Twenty feet ahead you see the outline of several tall women lounging by the crosswalk. You slow down, and glance nervously behind you. These women are not moving, they seem to be staring at you, and you are only feet away from the crosswalk. You subconciously pull down your comfortable t-shirt to cover your crotch area because you don't want them to see what you've had since birth. You can't let them see what marks you as male. 

It's no use. 

You approach the green walk sign and your heart sinks as it turns red. The women are emerging from the shadows and inching towards you, laughing, nudging each other, gradually growing in volume and staggering towards you. You want to move, but you're stuck. You are a law abiding citizen, you wont cross at a red. You would turn, but the women are coming from all sides. These are the kind of women who linger on empty subway cars and stare at men, making obscene hand gestures. The kind of women who visit strip clubs daily, and who jeer the men who work there with lewd suggestions. These types of women are the kind every man fears. You feel your heart speed up.

The women begin to call out; 

"Hey Boy!"

You can feel one woman's whiskey breath on the back of your neck. You're too scared to move.

"Hey handsome boy! Smile! Work what god gave you, show us how handsome you are." she says in your ear.

Another woman comes from the side and you can smell her yellow sweat sticking to her twisted leathery face and alcohol coming from her mouth full of rotten brown teeth. She places her greasy dirty hand on your shoulder and squeezes. You jump. 

"Please stop bothering me." You beg.

The woman grips tighter.

"Don't be such a frigid asshole!" The woman snarls.

Her friends begin laughing and grunting agreement. They inch closer to you and you can see that one woman is hairy and muscular, and another is fat and doughy and smells like rot. They stare at you. Not at your face. They smile with their thin lips and don't look away.

You regret not buying a gun when you turned 18. You chide yourself for putting on those khaki shorts, because they are very short and you do indeed look too handsome. You can't look handsome. You can't tempt these women. It is your fault. You can't wear plaid pants because perverted old women will harass you with their schoolboy fantasies. You cant wear a low cut shirt in school because chest hair is distracting to women. It is your fault that women can't get their school work done, because you wore that low cut shirt and forced these women to look at a natural part of you. You shouldn't even have chest hair. If it is so scandalous then you should shave it off, or hide it under baggy sweatshirts. This is your fault. You deserve what these women might do to you, because you made the stupid mistake of walking down a street at night when there might be dangerous women around. You are an idiot.

This is your fault.