While out with a group of guys the other week, I heard an interesting conversation. One guy (in his forties) mentioned that a couple of local high school girls in the junior and senior classes are very good-looking. The other guys mocked him for being a pervert.
It kind of reminded me of an anecdote about an aloof older professor. While at dinner with his wife and other couples, the talk turned toward a famous actress. The men started debating whether the actress is “sexy.” When they asked the professor what he thought, he said, “I don’t know. I’m in love with my wife.”
The other wives were impressed. The husbands, on the other hand, scolded him for making them look bad.
But that wasn’t his intent. He merely took the question literally and narrowly — do you find her “sexy”: i.e., does she appeal to your sexual appetite — and he basically said the only woman he wants to bed is his wife. If they had asked him, “Is the girl pretty or beautiful?” I’m guessing he would’ve answered yes or no. But sexy? That struck him as inapt.
I’m with that aloof professor. There’s a world of difference between “sexy” and “pretty.”
When the guy above observed that a few teenage girls are “good looking,” the other guys automatically assumed that he found them sexually appealing. That, the guy said, wasn’t what he meant at all. He objected, “I also think my 16-year-old niece is extremely pretty. Does that mean I find her sexy?”
But the protests didn’t get far. The other guys in the group essentially said good-looking and sexy are the same thing. If you find a girl good-looking, you must sexually desire her.
Whatta sad state of affairs.
Our culture has become so sexually charged that everything has become sexually charged.
I used to listen to a local rock-n-roll station, but after awhile the morning DJs started to grate on me. Everything carried a sexual connotation.
Comedian on the show? “Do you like holding your mike?” Ha ha ha. Home improvement specialist on as a guest? “You must have a pretty good hammer.” Chuckle. Talking about the annual hot-air balloon race in a neighboring city? “We like big balloons.”
The dog-tired sexual perception hit me one day when the female sidekick made a reference to a bowl, and one of the guys said, “You have a pretty nice bowl, if you know what I mean.”
I was lost. I thought I had heard every sexual reference, but I could just only, with too much imagination, begin to fathom what they meant. After that it dawned on me that no one could say anything around these guys without them analogizing it to a body part.
Yet they were wildly popular in their time slot. While I found it tiresome, many others found it worthwhile entertainment.
I shouldn’t be too hard on those juvenile DJs. At least they were doing it for ratings. But the fellows who stabbed the guy for his harmless observation about a handful of teenage girls just assumed “good-looking” means “sexy.” That’s the mental landscape they grew up in. That’s the mental landscape they assume applies to everyone.
And when a man can no longer note a girl’s pretty looks without everyone assuming he sexually desires her, that mental landscape isn’t pretty or good-looking. It’s simply ugly.
Sexy, but ugly.
© Copyright 2006 Catholic Exchange
Eric Scheske is an attorney, the Editor of The Daily Eudemon, a Contributing Editor of Godspy, and the former editor of Gilbert Magazine.
