Is looking at other girls/guys THAT normal??

I feel very insecure. I know that problem is my own, but my bf is the type of guy that looks at nearly every woman that walks nearby (or on tv), and this increases my insecurity.

He says that he's a guy. ALL guys supposedly can't help but look at legs, breasts, buns, or whatever nearby. It's in their nature, according to my bf.

Is this true? Or is my bf a little too open about appreciating the beauty of women?

He'll go on to say that I'm a knock-out, and have a beautiful body, he loves me, etc....I don't freaking get it!!! How am I supposed to know if he actually means what he says about me?? Please help!!

Hi dear Shezbut ~ Doing this so overtly is really cruel. It would hurt ANY woman's feelings.

Talk to him, and tell him that he can do that on his OWN time, but when you're with him you'd appreciate it if he would NOT ogle every woman he sees as it hurts you and effects your self-esteem. And tell him you've talked to other women and they feel the same way.

Tell him that he has PLENTY of time to do it when he's not with you -- go ahead and ogle all he wants, but just don't touch.

If he can't understand this, and continues to ogle when you're with him, then he's a pretty darn cruel man. My late husband would NEVER do this cause he KNEW it hurt me. He cared enough to never want to hurt my feelings or cause me to feel insecure.

Talk to him. I hope it works. God bless Shezbut! Love, Lee

And all men are NOT like this! Sure, a lot are, but there is nothing that is true of all of any group. My husband is definitely not like this by nature. But apart from that, what Leed said.

No we are not all like this. I find what your BF is doing is very disrespectful in my opinion

Men vary widely in this regard, as a matter of nature and not out of will/malice/determination etc. So the bf is wrong by using the word "ALL".

Examples on two ends of the spectrum:

- current guy. I point out beautiful women on screen or an unusually cute girl selling the tickets at the movie theater (I do not have your type of insecurity) and he gives me a blank stare.

- a man I had an unconsummated but, let us put it this way, very much "requited" relationship with many years ago. He would sometimes go on and on about female beauty. He had a good esthetic taste, though, and commented on truly exemplary specimens of female beauty, and did not look at nearly every random woman on the streets.

Both are/were very much into me. Let us even say "are", because although I have not seen the latter guy since 1997 (but resumed infrequent phone contact a couple of months ago), the intonation with which he mentioned how much he misses me was very genuine. I miss him too. Some other mentions were moving and genuine as well. To sum up without going into details, the guy was not and is not in any way guilty of the crime called "not being into H-B enough".
But he did appreciate female beauty, and spoke of blonde women in the past with a heightened sense of appreciation, and I have dark hair, and I was not in anyway slighted by his comments about the blonde women.

The former guy also was not and is not guilty of the aforementioned crime, because he fell me in the summer of 2000, after a very brief meeting when we were both married (we now are not), and then many years later, he invited himself for dinner in November of 2012, immediately (same day) after learning that I became available, so ... that is a good thing when men can retain their interest for so long, right?

So they are both equally innocent, and both treat/treated me with great respect and adoration, so I cannot complain, but they happen to one have a roving eye (in his case, just the noticing/admiring part but not the active flirting part of the roving eye) and the other not have it. HAPPEN - not by making a conscious choice, but just HAPPEN.

You are making an error of judgment and are also asking a practical question here.

The practical question is, to restate: "How am I supposed to know if he actually means what he says about me??" This question has a very easy answer: you look for signs of his being genuine, and that is ALL you need to look for. The signs of being genuine are (in no particular order and not an exhaustive list): the intonation in his voice when he says these things, the presence of erections to accompany the verbal utterances such as "knock-out" (not all the time, but frequently enough), the sparkle in his eyes (if he gazes at you intently, that is also a sign), the changes in the breathing pattern. Those are all observable signs of his being genuine (or, what you would call "yes, he actually means it").

The error in judgment in that you seem to believe that in order to stop doubting that you indeed have a beautiful body, you need some sort of proof that you are the ONLY WOMAN ON EARTH with a beautiful body. I am sure that if you think about it for a second, you will realize that you are not - it is just completely impossible that you would happen to have been born the only woman with a beautiful body on the whole planet. So to expect him to believe that is both silly and unrealistic.

Shezbut, you can also immediately start feeling better by proactively mentioning women on screen whom you find esthetically beautiful, to him, because doing so would give you a sense of power and control.

I personally do not believe that there are beautiful women on TV (from what little TV I sometimes am forced to watch while in the gym), unless the bf enjoys staring at silicone implants, extra rows of teeth that are so uniformly white that it gives their owners a robotic look, and serious overuse of make-up , but there are beautiful women in good quality movies.

Yeah, oggling is too much. My fella will occasionally glance at another woman, esp if she's a stunner, or mention someone on telly he thinks is yum. But its so rare I don't care, plus I trust him not to touch! To do it too much, too obviously and to do it when he knows it upsets you isn't so nice. How about turning the tables? Next time you walk past a man who's a bit yum, make it obvious that he's hot! I wonder if he'd like a taste of it back....

Shezbut,

Just two more things:

- not to sound discriminating on the basis of disability - a guy is allowed erectile dysfunction for reasons of depression, side effects of medications, diabetes, etc. In that particular case, you look for other signs of his being genuine enthusiastic about you.

- even more generously, a guy is allowed to (temporarily) show NO signs of being enthusiastic about you if he is suffering from major depression and his whole outlook on life is negative and he thinks that his current state is that of abjection, but then he needs to be seeking treatment in order to find relief and regain vitality; in that state, a guy should not be paying attention to ANY woman, though.

But with those two exceptions, signs of enthusiasm should be present. I think in the case of your bf, they clearly are! His choice of words bespeaks his attraction unequivocally - KNOCK-OUT is a very strong term... it is not some tepid "cute" whose genuineness you can doubt.

To sum up, as long as he uses terms as strong as KNOCK-OUT to refer to you, you should not feel insecure.

And, lastly, in my two extreme examples, the guys are equally good to me - the lack of roving eye on the part of the former guy does not make him in any way better. It does not add any value.

Theoretically, I really like the idea of turning the tables, because:

- it is fair
- it is equitable
- it promotes gender equality
- it restores the balance of power to a relationship

and so for all of those reasons it is a superb idea.

I personally though would not be able to implement it in practice, even if I did feel slighted when men acknowledge attractive women (I do not, but I can definitely imagine myself feeling slighted - it is not difficult). This is because I happen to pay attention to female beauty much more, while being clearly straight. I do not know why, but when I try to spend more times looking at the faces of men in movies, I fail. I find female beauty (on rare occasions, not frequently) much more enthralling. So even I try very hard, I still fail to notice hot men. Maybe one day, if I keep working hard at it...

But if a woman CAN implement riotgrrl's idea about turning the tables, she most definitely should.

That, and the rarity of those mentions also bespeaks his esthetic taste and high standards, right? I have never been with a man who would look at every other random woman. I don't know how I would react to that kind of 24/7 trigger-happiness... it is sort of undiscriminating... plus, if he really does notice every other random woman, AND he has chosen you, and you put two and two together... well, this train of thought can lead you to conclude that you are random yourself, as in "not extra special". Not good, not good...

Our sexual relationship is complicated by his disability. {I don't think that my disability is a major factor, other than my tendency to blame and hate myself.} Eric is paralyzed from the chest down ~ but he still has desires, fantasies, and so forth. A big bummer of his disability is my inability to bring him to orgasm. While Eric still has the ability to get hard, he has to be fully present in the moment, to gain some psychological fulfillment.

While I know (realistically) that being unable to bring Eric to orgasm isn't my fault, I am still hard on myself. Eric tries hard to bring me to satisfaction & enjoys doing so, yet I have to fight my inner demons to simply stay present in the moment and allow myself to sit back & relax. It isn't an easy task!

All of these thoughts overwhelm me and I just want to stop. Everything feels really complicated! Eric and I have been together for over 3 years now, we still share very passionate days/evenings together. That is special for me. However, I just can't rid of this fear that while Eric appreciates my affection & efforts, I'm still no different than most other women. The only difference is that he can touch me. woo-hoo

Shezbut, this must be really difficult for you. You are being kind and compassionate to him, for sure.

I have only heard about... that disabled people develop the ability to orgasm from having non-genital body parts stimulated.

Sort of like a person who is going blind and whose hearing is becoming keener and keener, as a nature's mechanism to compensate.

Is it true?

I've tried everything to allow Eric to physically enjoy being touched. His face and head is now his erogenous zone ~ that's where he can feel. I do whatever I can to stimulate his senses, but he does have limits & often becomes VERY frustrated with himself for being unable to reach orgasm. It's been many years since he's had an orgasm (over 15).

Not uncommon, due to his neck injury. But he remembers what it was like before his accident, 20 years ago. I can imagine that the situation is very difficult and frustrating for Eric.

I think it's normal to look at other people and think to yourself yes they're attractive, no they're not my type etc but there is such thing as doing it discreetly. In my opinion, he's lacking respect for your feelings by being so obvious.
I don't think there's anything wrong at all with appreciating that someone may be attractive, but like I said, if you're with someone then they should be appreciated discreetly and not rubbing it in your face that he's looking at someone. TV is different, I think that's harmless because he can't have them, they're on TV not in front of him in the flesh. But I can see also how it may upset you if he's forever eyeing someone up or making comments.
Perhaps you could explain that you feel insecure and this isn't helping, maybe say to him how would he feel if the roles were reversed. Or if guys were very obviously looking at you all the time he might feel angry. I'm not saying they don't look at you as I'm sure they do, but perhaps a lot of guys are a bit more discreet about it, especially if they clearly see you're with someone. If every guy were like him, I think he'd have something to say about it! I think it's definitely something you've got to talk to him about. It is normal yes, but he needs to respect your feelings because I'm sure he wouldn't like it much if you were doing the same.

Or, you could say that the only difference between you and random women is he has chosen to be with you, no one else. That makes you special, he doesn't have to be with you. Any difficulties he has sexually he would have no matter who he was with so it's not a case of other women turning him on more than yourself. If you didn't do it for him and he didn't want to be with you, then he wouldn't be.

Random, run-of-the-mill women are not all "knock-outs". And you are a knock-out.

So, you are not a random run-of-the-mill woman who just happens to share his bed.

shezbut ... Reading all this is can't help but wonder if you are a bit like me....hurt more by things that happened in my past than by the current oggling. "Triggers" is what a friend called it.

I have been thinking about this...I know there is some sort of evolutionary biology attached to this type of behaviour so I am willing to cut dudes a little slack. BUT if it bothers you and you have talked about it, and he continues to do it in an obvious, oogggly way, I find it disrespectful (sorry hon).

I think the main thing to keep top of mind, though, is that it is about him...if he knows it bothers you, makes excuses and continues to do it, despite your feelings... that seems just cruel and kind of immature (sorry).

I agree.

There may be some sensitivity on your part due to what you called lack of confidence... but don't beat yourself up over what is not your doing. You sound very considerate of him.

I wish you the best

I am married and have been since I was very young. I am now 42.

I still find my husband sexually attractive and am turned on by him. I have to admit that I notice if a guy is hot. I like a guy who is big and tall and somewhere around my age, and I'm a sucker for brown eyes, though my husband's eyes are green. I NEVER would stare at a guy in front of him, but I might have a glimpse out of the corner of my eye.

I think it is rude to ogle someone though, unless maybe it is Mark Wahlberg, or Robert Downey Jr. Lol.

I think you are a very giving person being concerned for his pleasure as you obviously are. I am sure he appreciates and treasures you, I hope so!

Oh my, though, I feel so bad that he hasn't been able to have an orgasm for so long. Oh my God. That is awful. I feel so horrible for him. I am glad at least he can feel you touch him and enjoy that. That is rough, though.

You are a very kind and selfless person I think!

I think it's normal but it's disrespectful that he does it in front of you and I think you should ask him to stop it when you're around.

I look at women all the time and I'm attached. I also look at men, and I'm not gay. Sometimes it's a pretty asexual assessment of another person, their level of physical fitness and attractiveness.

My psychologist told me it was normal even when I wasn't doing it and in fact was avoiding looking at women, and since then I have been checking them out, although not openly. I don't want to make people uncomfortable.