"Fill
'er up?" the gas station attendant asked, as I rolled down my window.
I
started to answer when I thought I caught his eyes looking at my bare
legs. (I cling to the notion that shorts
shouldn't cover your ankles). It was
more than visual information randomly gathered by his optic nerves; it was the look.
I've
been on the other side of that look; hopefully unnoticed, but I've checked out
women that way.
I
felt as though his eyes were a burning laser, right on my skin. Seeing me,
seeing through me. Taking something from me.
This
was a novel experience. When I walk down
the street with my wife, Marlene, men look at her with the usual drool, and women look at her as though she were a
walking clothes mannequin. I manage to
escape notice.
But
now I was being looked at. A part
of me, that is. And I felt violated, demeaned. The fact that, in my mind at least, he was using my presence, made me furious. I had no say in this.
And
then I felt something unexpected. I
wouldn't say this if you could see me, but it's radio, and they'll probably
misspell my name. I experienced a sharp
little thrill. I think, ultimately, it
was the thrill of being able to impact
someone in this way; of being the object of desire.
It
felt like a super power. Quite impersonal, obviously, but I had it.
And then, to my amazement, I had a flash of concern about the quality of my legs. I felt attractive and powerful, used and vulnerable.
How
wondrous and tempting, this power.
But
how passive and alienating, this power; for being the object of visual desire
involves nothing more than having flesh-tone shapes that excite.
How
odd to experience this every day!
I
instantly understood the extreme raucousness heaped on women fortunate enough
to walk by groups of men. It is a
reaction to perceived power. Examine
the look on an individual man in the
throes of that attraction. It is often
inappropriately hard and angry; how dare
she have this power over me!
That
power may be embellished individually and nourished culturally, but it is experienced by men as an imperative they
are powerless to ignore. It is an
imperative they resent, as they come to resent the women who appear to command
and manipulate it.
Hence,
in the safety and comfort of their shared misery, an adolescent mocking that
mimics the mocking and vulnerability they
feel when alone and faced with an attractive woman.
But
women know how superficial and passive this power is and how little it brings
them in the long run. And they feel resentment at not being able
to move in their own space without some man using
them, even from a distance. I tried to
imagine what it would be like to continually embody an appeal whose impact cannot fully predicted or understood;
an appeal which brings apparent power but real peril.
* *
* *
"Fill
'er up?" the attendant repeated impatiently, his bored eyes locked hard
onto mine.
"No!"
I thought.
"Yes,"
I said.