A couple of years ago on a redeye back from California, I found myself lusting after one of the flight attendants -- she was in her late 20s, with a face like an angel and the kind of body men start wars over. Wow. Just having her ask me what I wanted to drink turned me into a human tripod.
Well...
She just went about her business, oblivious to my overly-insistent libido. But I enjoyed myself throughout the long flight, undressing her with my eyes, and imagining the two of us entwined in a hot tangle between the sheets.
Then the plane landed and my private fantasies were jerked back to humdrum reality. We all struggled to our feet, jostling each other to recoup our carry-ons from the overhead compartments -- and that's when I happened to notice a guy a couple of rows ahead of me. He was as handsome as a movie star, in great shape, and dressed like he just stepped out of a magazine ad.
And then I saw something I'd never seen before.
SHE UNDRESSED HIM
My beautiful flight attendant was standing wedged into a row of empty seats, lost in her own private world, unmindful of the mass of passengers shouldering their way to the exit.
And she was staring at the handsome guy -- staring at him the same way I'd been staring at her for the whole flight.
I was stunned. I had no idea that women looked at men like that.
There's an old saying that men look at women and women watch themselves being looked at. In other words, they don't look. But is this true? Can women -- like my flight attendant -- be just as visual as men when it comes to the opposite sex?
The answer turned out to be "yes" -- but with qualifications.
STARIN WOMEN
Men love to stare openly at women -- it's just raw biology in action. We love the jiggle of bouncing breasts as a woman walks by; the calf muscles of an exposed pair of legs tautened by high heels; the jut of erect nipples poking out of thin fabric; camel toe. And we are more than happy to drool at the sight of a naked, female body.
Women do the same. They stare at male butts, hands, shoulders, hair -- and yes, even bulges. But the difference is, women ogle surreptitiously -- in other words, they're just better at not getting caught (as I watched the flight attendant, I realized that she thought no one was observing her). And when confronted by a naked male body, more often than not, they peek.
But wait; that's where our similarities end…
