I was sitting next to a boy/man (he seemed to be older than 18, he was unshaven but quite boyish still). He was reading a magazine, which I really had no interest in. I had my iPod and I read for a short time. I believe it’s quite common on the train to glance up and look around every now and again, observe the people that are reading, those who are sleeping, spy out who has their music turned up so loud that you can hear what they’re listening to over what you’re listening to, and then get back to your own thing. When I did this yesterday the guy happened to be at the centre-fold of the magazine. Yes, he was looking at naked ladies. For the remainder of the trip he was overly protective of what he was looking at (I may have been asleep before this so he wasn’t so worried). When he dropped his phone it was quite the drama to keep his page while not letting me see what was on those pages and trying to pick up his phone and gather his earphone cord.
I don’t necessarily think it’s a great thing to be doing, looking at naked women, those women obviously want to be looked at since they give permission to have their pictures published so whatever. I don’t think it’s necessarily productive for guys to look either though, are they setting themselves up for disappointment, if they find their own woman what if she’s not as airbrushed as in the pictures? Or perhaps I’m insulting men’s intelligence by thinking that they can’t be realistic. I have heard that pornography (I don’t know if these pictures count, there wasn’t any actual sex acts going on) is addictive and sometimes it gets so bad that real women can’t do it for those guys any more.
My real question is: if you are embarrassed or ashamed of what you are doing, is that a sign that you shouldn’t be doing it? One could argue that he was hiding his magazine for my benefit but to be honest, I don’t really care. I don’t really find it offensive that he was looking at those magazines, it’s better than drilling a hole in someone’s shower wall to get your jollies. I’m just glad he wasn’t doing anything else while looking (breathing heavily is one I’ve heard from male friends at the movies – ugh). I was just thinking maybe shame is there for a reason, if you want to hide it then maybe it’s not really supposed to be done.
Personally, I’m of the mind that there’s a time and a place for things. I don’t think that was the place for him to be reading that magazine. What if there had been under-aged children around?
I ran into that train of thought a few times on the tube in London, but I guess they’re less worried about such things over there.
I didn’t even think of the kids, that would have been very inappropriate!
I used to be embarassed for reading the Maxim’s on the plane, until I was married. It was almost like I was overcompensating, “look at me, single guy here”.