I’m saying there’s room for interpretation over what constitutes a leer, and what constitutes a glance.
Great, now I’m threatening because I’m old. You’ve just confirmed my contention, it is about who’s doing the looking, at least sometimes. It’s not even all that bad of a thing, but not all women are as honest about it as you are.
Jesus, don’t do that. You scared the hell out of me. I have a very tenuous hold on the most basic fashion rules and live in fear that someone is going to go change them on me and I will have to go buy new clothes.
Next thing you are going to tell me that whole pleat/nonpleat thing has flipped again. Every 20 years is way too frequent.
I should have qualified “threatening”. I meant that someone much older may be in a senior position and/or have old fashioned ideas about “women these days”. Most younger guys are much less flummoxed by women’s bodies and are more likely to shrug off a peep show than an older man who will assign nefarious intention to a low cut shirt. (Durn these fast women!! I blame that Gidget for inspiring such scandalous fashions!!)
It’s like the difference between interacting with one of my brother’s friends or my church’s pastor. I could care less if bro’s friend sees down my shirt when I’m playing with the dog, but if the preacher comes over I’m going to grab a jacket.
Well, now you are getting into “life isn’t fair”. Hot young things get peeks where old well intentioned perverts get shut out. Men perceived as wealthy get to ogle and homeless people are perceived as nearly universally creepy when they wolf whistle. male peacocks with lovely tails get more tail from the peahens than those whose tail has been shredded by a fox. - it’s the natural order 
And it works both ways. If I go out with friends, I - a relatively good looking women (though now “of a certain age”) dressed in expensive clothes- get more attention from wait staff and sales clerks, get my doors opened for me by strangers, I get asked for my phone number (still). My friends whose beauty is more internal than external find this deference I get remarkable. To me, it’s how it always has been.
And women walk the line between professional and hot to get ahead. If you don’t see it in your nerd factory, check out the sales teams that come through. Not a profession for fifty year old women showing their age.
Mmmm…underthoughts. So sexy. 
And I thought I was good at sneaking glances.
Women, would you say you’re good at noticing these glances? As a guy, I kind of thought the whole coming in and leaning slightly over your back to glance down at your shirt thing was a pretty crafty move, but you knew about it the whole time?! And maneuvering ourselves to your left so we can see through the gaps of your buttoned up shirt, you knew about that too? I may have to rethink my whole arsenal.
Surely you guys don’t notice when you’re going up stairs or the escalator and a young man just happens to get on right after you, do you? Or the old check out this thing on my desk/monitor while you lean over and we take a quick peek? My best move is if I’m already crouching, or leaning over, and somehow plant myself in a position where I knew you needed to lean or move over so that I’m already in position (field of view). That’s like the Enigma code! Its unbreakable! You guys can’t have known about all of that?
If you did, then I need to commence an emergency meeting of men, we need to come up with some new moves! :eek:
That’s something we learn right around puberty. Nothing more interesting to all ages of men and boys than budding breasts, and man… you guys sure grossed us out during that awkward transition between developing and knowing. We start making minute, discreet attempts to conceal our breasts about the same time they begin to develop. A slight adjustment of the shoulder when walking past a group of boys, holding the books up to our chests, pretending to fidget with a necklace when we’re actually covering up.
Your post is funny, but I’m betting that a few other women will chime in that some of the evasive maneuvers we practice range from painful to defiant. Painful when we were kids and not prepared for attention from teenagers, from older men, from *old *men, from teachers, from grandfathers, from gross old uncles. Unwanted attention aroused feelings of shame and a lot of disgust. It wasn’t our fault. It still isn’t our fault.
The diving board at the pool became off limits to me around 11, because I couldn’t bear the stares, catcalls, or nasty comments about my hard nipples that happened between the pool steps and the walk to the deep end of the pool. I’m grown and I no longer feel fear, generally I don’t give a shit. Now, when I’m being tracked by an annoying man I don’t find threatening, I tug my shirt up or block the view with my hand, usually with my middle finger extended. <Soup nazi> No boobs for you!! </Boob nazi>
99% of the time, this is nothing more than a nuisance not worthy of comment. We make adjustments, freeze you out, and continue with our day. But collectively… yeah, the actions and wrong ideas guys have heavily color our choices in wardrobe, activities, and attitudes. In my neighborhood, I go running in a compression tank and a pair of shorts. In a strange neighborhood or park: baggy sweats. In my neighborhood pool, I wear a bikini that covers everything. On the river away from prying eyes, I wear dental floss. My favorite, most comfortable bra is an underwire that holds everything still but props it all up, so that bra is for home use only, never for work. At home I jog up and down the stairs, never in public. I rarely pick up dropped change. You get the picture. We’re on to you. Ain’t no big deal, but you definitely have a negative influence on our behavior and fashion choices.
+1. Look, I’ve got big breasts, and I’ve been hyper-aware of that fact since they started developing at 9 years old. You can’t hide them, much as you would like to at times. I’m so self-conscious that I rarely deliberately display cleavage, but the reality is, I look better in a v-neck than a scoop neck, and some v-necks are lower cut than others. Until this thread I honest-to-god never even thought about it. I have lived my life blissfully ignorant of the fact that even still I am apparently putting my chest on display every time I walk out the door. The idea that adult men are trying to sneak a peek at my boobs on a regular basis, like when I’m at the grocery store or at work or something, is beyond bizarre to me. I thought that was just something that happened in junior high.
Holy crap! I’m not alone!
My husband too. And all his socks are the same color. Can you believe it?
+1. They are just something I lived with all my life, to when I had small breasts as a teenager to now, when they are much larger. I hate closed-neck shirts so almost always wear round neck shirts and sometimes v-neck, and I am very aware of how much cleavage I am showing. Of course we are aware when men try to be oh-so-sneaky and look down our tops; it’s been happening since we were teens and as Troppus says, from EVERYONE. Even inappropriate people.
I can’t imagine how really beautiful women put up with the leers and the stares, day in and day out. I get them and I’m nowhere near that level of good looks. Sometimes, sure, you like it and you eat it up. Sometimes you’re like “I’m just trying to show a fucking Powerpoint here”.
Or how about this? This question “Is she hot?” “My professor posted a picture of herself on the message board.” “Is she hot?” “So and so finally shared a picture.” “Is she hot?”
It’s disgusting and even the really good and decent men do it sometimes. It’s just ingrained I guess.
Aw c’mon. “Is she hot?” is popular among some of us because (and only when) it’s inappropriate. Around here you’ll get a thread about some woman who ran over 9 children at a bus stop, exited the car and killed 3 more with a shotgun before doing herself in…etc. and the very best, catharticly humorous comment will always be, “Is/Was she hot?” Same thing goes for a nun who personally donated 4 pints of blood a month for 6 years to help a war-ravaged village in Noplaceistan, a highly honored professor and nobel laureate, The First Lady, your best friend’s grandma who just had surgery on her varicose veins…
Oh, and as the only guy on the planet who actively avoids glancing (no really, I’m only an asshole here; in real life I’m a prince), if you need to enter my cube at work to look at something on computer monitor, Keep. Your. Titties. Out. Of. My. Ear! It takes some really quick thinking to override the reflex to turn and face something creeping into your peripheral vision and I for one am almost NEVER in the mood to have a face full of strange while I’m at work.
A woman adjusting her own clothing is not being an asshole or blaming you for anything.
Agreed. This thread is… disquieting.
Oh, I know, and most of the time I understand it’s just a joke (albeit not a very funny one) but sometimes it’s just annoying.
But not unexpected.
But more thought than I’ve ever put into it. If a woman’s cleavage is on display, and it happens to cross my line of vision, yay…lucky me (stoic expression). I found a $5 bill on the floor the other day-- yay, lucky me. If I find her attractive, yes, more so, but such is life and you go about your business.
I certainly won’t stare, but I also don’t have some overly aggressive hangup about the situation. Every woman I know has breasts, things happen, sometimes they cover them up, other times they don’t, sometimes they earn a glance, other times I advise that they adjust things to better conceal them. There are usually other tells which determine her intentions, and unless a person were oblivious to how people work, it would be hard to overlook those, in general.
Since the vast majority of any cleavage encounters are with people I know or regularly come into contact with, it’s no harm no foul, especially since there is much more substance to our regular relationships. For all other “strangers” or casual situations, it’s a passing moment that doesn’t warrant a huge amount of afterthought. I pocket the $5 bill and move along.
That’s how the marjority of us women feel about it. What’s the big deal? Boobs are everywhere. But observers who attempt to assign or decipher intention behind a clothing mishap or the cut of a collar* make us very uncomfortable. Those observers would do well to trade places with us and consider our view: our own breasts are in our direct line of sight or peripheral vision every minute of every day. Outside of the bedroom, our own cleavage is as mundane as the back of our hands, and we rarely notice anything’s amiss until someone’s gaze lingers too long, or his attention becomes obvious.
So thanks, Krouget, for providing a male perspective that agrees with our general feelings about it; it’s nice to hear from a man who doesn’t overthink it.
*within reason; we’re talking your average woman here, not an obvious exhibitionist
Girls like to make themselves look good. While they claim it’s for themselves, it’s not, it’s for others.
The key thing to remember (and this is the answer to your question), is that they only want certain people to notice them - or at least only particular people to act on it.
Whether it’s cleavage, low cut shirts, mid drift shirts, short skirts - you find them covering, pulling, adjusting, fidgeting etc. around the majority of people.
But when that one guy in the office comes by, it all hangs out.
What annoys me about these chickees is that they let that guy practically molest them, however when a not so desirable man even tries to offer them a smile or take a second glance, the females get all upset and sometimes claim sexual harassment.
It’s like buying a Ferrari and expecting to be seen by only people who want to like you for your Ferrari.
See, this is why men and women have trouble understanding each other on this point. Even a randy lesbian has boobs herself, so I doubt that they hold the utter fascination for almost any woman that they do for almost any man, particularly those among us who are boob guys, which is seriously like 90% of us.
Someone in this thread noted that when a guy was (totally inappropriately) staring his sentences kept trailing off. That is because BREASTS TURN OFF OUR BRAINS. I never leer, but I have occasionally had to ask a female friend to button one more button on her shirt because I was having a really hard time hearing what she said. I don’t even find her that attractive and we are very close friends, but it doesn’t matter.
Seriously, pick the most interesting thing to you that is easily portable and now put two of them right on the front of half the people in the world. Then adjust clothing so that those things are just peaking out and partially visible with a distinct outline of the rest. You would think we would get use to it, but only partially. I imagine we would actually get a lot more use to it if people walked around topless all day, but limited view retains the mystery.
I am not trying to justify creepy leering jerks; that behavior is totally inappropriate. Please remember though that for most of us it takes an active thought process not to.
The thought that they are just some mundane things to women is incredibly foreign to us, just as the thought that they are almost never mundane to us is foreign to you.
OMG, girls! We’ve been found out! Who told?!
:dubious: It’s like you don’t even read threads at all.