I have a confession to make. When I see an attractive woman, in any context, my concentration shifts

In My Humble Opinion
121

I can’t speak for the typical male, but I can speak for myself.

When watching athletes, I might admire their body tone and temporarily lose sight of the play or feat being performed. “Look at those arms/legs, look at that form, that is really amazing and beautiful”. The same goes for dancers, even with teenagers. Most of the time (as I enter my mid-twenties) I don’t lose sight of the performance, and I think about how impressive both the athlete and her performance is. This goes for men, too. Although the thoughts and feeling are the same, I probably won’t use the word beautiful to describe men. Regardless, I do not think about having sex. (unless they are doing some sort of sex-mimicry dance, but I’m not really into that and think it is gross)

To an extent, the same thing happens when I see an attractive woman. It might be her body but more often it’s her face. I think to myself, that is a pretty face or attractive body (or both). Of course I notice, my eyes aren’t shut. I don’t think about sex, and unless it’s some sort of performance I don’t dwell on those thoughts for more than an involuntary split-second.

My father’s advice is to keep the sex-thoughts to your wife and in the bedroom, or other designated sexy places. Abandoning yourself to lustful thoughts in un-sexy places only creates a feedback loop. In the brain, I hypothesize that abandoning your thoughts to lust only serves to strengthen the neural pathways that enable lustful thinking. Whether or not lust is healthy or moral I will not consider (no idea; probably not), but it is certainly socially unacceptable. There might be a way out with therapy, and working with your wife to associate sexy thoughts with sexy places.

All of that being said, it’s not unheard of for teenage boys to say they think about sex the way you describe. I never did but some of my friends did. They grew out of it. It sounds like our friend nate gave in to desire, and it will take quite a lot of effort to “fix” that.

~Max

122

I think I misunderstood your post. I thought your final sentence about outgrowing that level was related to the 5 or 6 thoughts per day, sounds like you were really referring to the all day long non-interrupted.
Side note:
Limited research on things like sex thoughts, but the variability between individuals within a gender group was far greater than the variability between the groups.

123

You’re right, you can’t not see an attractive woman or man. What you can do is not post on a message board how you’d like to “fuck the hell out of that”, or continue to ogle even after your wife has expressed her discomfort. You’re not culpable for every sexy thought that passes through your hindbrain; but you are responsible how you act on them. Saying “Damn, I’d like to fuck the hell out of that” - and you really should go back and re-read Manda JO’s posts on how demeaning it is to be referred to as a “that” - is acting on your impulses. Which is why you’re being taken to task in this thread.

124

Can’t you take an action that lets you regain your concentration? Like, look away?

125

I’ve developed a tactic that seems to really work for me. When I encounter an attractive woman, I allow myself one good look at all of her I can see in one moment. It’s not a scan down her body, but a single, medium-range snapshot. I savor it for that instant – and then I throw it into a mental file drawer so I can focus on her as just another human being and not an object of desire.

Admittedly, it’s a lot easier at 54 than 24.

126

Suppose you have a batch of bills that need paying. Do you think you have no decision as to whether your next thought has to do with paying your bills, or whether it has to do with going swimming, or going back to sleep, or eating dinner?

I doubt any of us could get much of anything done if we had no control over our thoughts whatsoever. Yes, of course occasionally a thought’s going to get through that’s not about whatever we’re doing at the time; and of course, with people of any gender (it’s definitely not limited to men), sometimes it’s going to be a thought about sex. And sometimes there’s no reason not to let our minds wander, whether onto sex or onto any other subject. But did you learn, say, back in grade school how to keep your mind on your work? Try using that skill to keep your mind on the road, or on your wife’s conversation. If you’ve had an unusual amount of trouble with attention control in general, there may be some treatment available.

And you did say that you’re acting on it. You said you were leering at women on the street while you were driving to such an obvious extent that your wife called you out on it. That’s an action. It has an effect on your wife; an effect on you, because it affects your relationship with your wife; and in particular an effect on the woman/women you’ve been leering at, who unlike your wife didn’t volunteer for the position. It also has an effect on your driving. If you really can’t think of anything other than sex whenever you see a woman you find attractive, and you can’t keep that switch in attention from lasting more than a split second: then please don’t drive. Also please don’t operate machinery, or take any job in which a lack of attention may screw up the results in a way that affects other people’s lives, unless you can find a way to do that job in isolation someplace where you won’t see any women.

127

You can’t control every thought that flows through your brain but, believe it or not, you can control how much you engage with it. I bet tonnes of thoughts flow through your brain all the time that don’t cause you to freeze all other concerns and jumpstart your imagination machine. When you see a lottery booth is along your path, you probably think hey it’d be great to win a million bucks. With some idle time, you might fantasize about shit you’d buy. But if you were late for a meeting, you wouldn’t. There’s a choice to be made as to how much you engage random thoughts. You think it’s impossible to stop the imagination train but that isn’t true, you enjoy the imagination train. I don’t blame you, but it’s an unhealthy way to interact with people and you can change. If you want to try.

128

If someone is going to have this kind of reaction, looking away might make things worse, since the idealized image is stored. A second glance might reveal imperfections, which we all have, that could reduce the distraction.
Most men learn to hide the distraction by the end of high school.

129

That’s like saying someone on a diet should take a second look at that hamburger because it might reveal it has bad toppings. Also, we’re talking about another person, how many “second glances” do you figure they are comfortable with?

130

It’s been touched on already, but really what’s up with this

:dubious: Please. This is something that irks me whatever the subject, not just gender/sex matters but politics, social class, faith, race, religion, hard vs. soft academics – the writer/speaker who asserts that deep inside if I am true to myself I MUST agree with him and share his sentiment. Um… no. If people tell you they do not feel/believe as you do, the most straightforward conclusion to draw is that they don’t.

Most of us when encountering a scenario of attractive person of the relevant sex, just do NOT turn into Tex Avery’s Wolfie or have our world turn into a Benny Hill sketch, and we don’t become distracted to the point of dysfunctionality at work. Oh, we may *joke *about it (different debate?), but it’s not the norm IRL.
And come on nate, an attractive person is not an exploding fireworks store. Yes you can look away. Or rather, you can go “Right, so noted; now carry on with the business at hand” which is what you should do if any person you encounter is remarkable for being an attractive member of the relevant gender or for any other trait that is noticeable about them. Being sexy, being unusually tall or short, obese, bald, hairy, albino, inked/pierced, you name it.

Sure, **this **IS a feeling I sometimes get. I get over it quickly as an extension of the part about “I will not just mouth out right away whatever crosses my mind” that most of us learn sooner or later is beneficial.

131

So the lesson for the next person is to keep his or her thoughts to his or her self, and learn nothing, lest there be burning eyes. Got it.

132

At this point, it sounds like nate is describing a mental illness. Having so little control over your mental stability that a fairly common occurrence can completely throw you off your game and render you unable to function in society?

First, that ain’t 98% of people. If it were, there’d be a lot more car crashes.

Second, that’s a description of a mental problem, the sort that would probably be helped by a professional.

But you gotta admit you have a problem before you can address it. As long as nate insists that every brain works his way, he’s going to normalize his incapacitating perseveration and avoid actions that could help him overcome this debilitating condition.

nate, dude: it’s possible to have fun sexy thoughts and not perseverate on them.

I thought you couldn’t get any wronger than your first sentence, but then I read the second sentence.

133

The lesson for the next person is to think about how his words may affect those who read them (including women, or others that he doesn’t immediately identify with) and consider rephrasing his thoughts to use less offensive language. I think Nate could have shared his thoughts in a more so m sensitive way. Of course, I also think he could have moved his eyes back to the road, and away from the beautiful woman, so who knows, maybe I’m wrong about that.

134

You didn’t read my post.

135

I understand this as a dude thing, part of the spectrum of dude stuff, and I don’t know there’s an easy answer.

Though a man will respond sexually (in thought) to some of the stuff the OP describes, it’s not to such a simplistic or regressive extent. (IOW do not lump all dudes in with this response dynamic.) Most men I’ll guess have more complex/nuanced responses to the situations described, probably a mixture of sexual thoughts, physiological arousal, but with a fair amount of higher brain centers chiming in (like “this woman has her own stuff she’s doing, and sex etc. may be the farthest thing from her mind”, or, I dunno, “this woman probably doesn’t like being ogled, objectified, etc., no matter how attractive she is”, and/or “I’m in public, with expectations of behavior/decorum in context, so I need to keep my eyes inside my skull”).

Not judging the OP, but this sounds like a combination of impulse control, and a kind of lack of maturity.

I don’t know what you can do about the former (Skinnerian approach? shock collar? just kidding).

For the latter, there’s growth work you could do. Any religion has stuff to say about this, even if you just take it secularly.

For example, I believe it’s in some Eastern faiths, you have the three “lower” centers, these being health, wealth, and progeny. These are the basic, lower urges. The last is in play here with the sex response, the urge, loosely speaking, to procreate. The “higher” center is (sounds corny, yeah, but anyway) the heart center, or compassion. One of the reasons the OP’s OP rankles so much (and I’m on board with condemning the questionable judgement to post something like that, especially where you know it’s going to be viewed in mixed company), is it seems to lack compassion. So you have a lower center, unmitigated (as it might be in a more mature mindscape) with much in the way of compassion.

Some dudes, I think, for good or ill, are just wired like this. And I make no judgement whatsoever. I’d focus on the compassion end, FWIW.

136

If his problem is actually as described, then it does take professional help. I know.

For me, it’s not the sight of sexy /beautiful women which trigger me, but certain things which cause a PTSD flashback. Mine is an emotional disorder rather than a mental illness, but it would likely require a professional to diagnose someone if they actually were as actually incapable of exerting control as reported by the OP.

Because of the large number of veterans who have PTSD, there has been a considerable amount of research into the physical changes within the brain circuitry which cause this type of mental hijack.

If it’s a case of simply giving into desires, then the advice to “grow up” is right on. If it’s more serious and the OP literally has no control then it

Trained professionals can help. CBT doesn’t do anything, it took specialize therapy designed for PTSD. Fortunately, it has been quite effective.

They must have something similar for this.

137

Just noting that women in general have all these responses too. Being aroused and thinking sexual thoughts about a random attractive person, with accompanying conscious self-supervision, is not at all an exclusively “dude thing”.

Maybe becoming sexually fixated on a random attractive person to the extent of being unable to control one’s behavior is a more male than female tendency, but from the responses here it doesn’t sound at all representative of men either.

138

None of the glances should be obvious. I was just disabusing Manda JO of the notion that turning one’s head would eliminate a distraction.
And I’m not advising second glances. Men should be mature enough to get over it right away.

139

Well, to that one and to the 5 or 6 hours-long ones of our male classmates :slight_smile: That’s a big chunk of maturing as a human being, changing how much of your thinking is done by different body parts.

140

Up to this point you were normal.
But most men have the mental ability to experience that first thought, recognize it as inappropriate for the situation, and file it away so that they can continue functioning as decent human beings.
This process should take well under a second, thus it does not even distract the primary train of thought.

You might want to look up such terms as “impulse control”