On bodies and such

I originally posted this on Tumblr. But I thought it might be a bit tl;dr for over there.

I am a cis-gendered hetro man. I have been known to see a lady in passing and notice that they have fantastic eyes, or great hair, or a nice body. I’ve been known to think to myself “mmm, nice x”. X could be hair, eyes, butt, smile, boobs, or something else.

I like to think of myself as a “progressive man of the world”, whatever that means. I would like to think that I’m a feminist, at least in training. And yet I’m still out there noticing women and going “mmm, nice x”.

When I catch myself, I feel a little guilty on the inside. On the other side of the coin, I figure that it is natural to notice people around you and to find some features of a person attractive. I think it would be totally awful to wolf whistle or cat call or whatever anyone, or to stare at someone and make them uncomfortable. Basically I wouldn’t want to be a creep.

So that leaves me with the thought that perhaps even seeing someone and thinking that they look nice could be considered creepy. Where’s the line? The obvious line to me is at least taking any action that makes someone uncomfortable. But is there a line that is even earlier than that – is thinking that someone is attractive, or a feature of their body is nice, crossing the line?

Just the stuff that goes through my head from time to time, that’s all.