Humans logo

How do I deal with other men staring at my partner when I’m with her?

The disrespectful objectification of women, its consequences and how to deal with it.

By 21st Century ManPublished 4 years ago 14 min read
4
How do I deal with other men staring at my partner when I’m with her?
Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

It is a beautiful warm Sunday afternoon so my partner and I decide to walk to the beach for a swim, heading through town on our way. She is wearing a beautiful airy summer dress over her swimwear which flows effortlessly in the breeze, I am wearing my swim shorts and a t-shirt so that I can get straight into the sea when we find our spot on the warm sand. The sun is beaming in a cloudless pale blue sky giving us a skip in our step and a light feeling in our souls. We happily chat away as we stroll along the busy pavements, chuckling to each other at the holiday makers stopping dead in their tracks in-front of us, oblivious to the ‘people-jam’ that they create as they peruse shop windows for treasures and trinkets to take back home to loved ones; maybe an I love Paignton t-shirt or key-ring, possibly some fudge for grandma. We continue on our way holding hands, exchanging glances and little kisses as we go. We are in love and its plain to see.

Approaching the beach excited screams of children can be heard amongst the talking and laughing of people enjoying the bright summers day. Families are covering the green beside the beach playing and laughing in the midday sun. A group of boys are playing a tentative game of football, aware of not kicking the ball into one of the groups dotted around them. As we reach the sand wisps of smoke from sizzling barbecues punctuate the sprawl of people and the sounds of children playing becomes louder. The beach is full of mums, dads, grandparents, teens and children enjoying their day off in the Devon sunshine.

My partner and I aren’t stopping at this beach though as there are way too many people for us. We much prefer a smaller crowd. Thankfully we know of a smaller less well-known beach around the other side of the harbour. Passing the groups of people enjoying their dose of vitamin D and fun we continue our conversations on life the universe and everything, holding hands and enjoying the walk.

We arrive at the beach and set up our temporary camp, kicking off our shoes and stripping to our swim wear eager to get into the sea and have a much-needed swim in its cooling crystal waters. The beach is busy but nowhere near as busy as the stretch we have just come from. A few families are dotted around us and a group of teenagers’ laze on the periphery with their music playing softly, only just audible over the lapping of the sea upon the shore. Marvelling at how lucky we are to live in such a beautiful part of the world, we enjoy our beach day together. A couple very much in love and happy in the moment.

This sounds amazing doesn’t it? In all honesty reading this back it sounds like a Hollywood romance film, but it’s not a fictionalised account, this is true life. I am not saying that every day is like this, we are a real couple. We love one and other and as any couple does we have our moments, but this is a real account of how we would spend a day together in the beautiful seaside town that we call home.

What I haven’t mentioned here is an unfortunate ugly truth of the things that happened during our pleasant stroll to the beach…. The stares, comments and actions of men, adult and adolescent, that were encountered on this day and in all honesty a great many other days; The man holding his wife’s hand who stared at my partners body so hard that he missed what his own partner had said. The nudges of twenty something guys to each other who say “Whoa, check out that!”. The guy stood with a beer in his hand who moved so that he could get a better look at my partners behind as we walked past. The guy who looked into my partners eyes grinning hungrily as we walked past him. This is not a joke or an exaggeration and is the pinnacle of disrespect towards my partner, me and our relationship.

On one occasion when I wasn’t with my partner an elderly man who was pushing a child in a stroller through the park that she was walking through actually stared directly at my partners crotch as he walked towards her. Not even her face, her crotch! She has been beeped at, whistled at, shouted at, and had crude gestures or words aimed at her. The amount of times that we have been holding hands together on a walk such as I described previously men have stared at her as we walked past, they have checked out her behind and I have seen them whispering things to one and other. For me, the worst culprits are those holding hands with their ‘beloved’; how must your partner feel if you are holding their hand, telling them that you love them, showing the world that you are together, yet you are staring unabashedly at another woman? What kind of man could do that? Normally when one of these ‘men’ notice that I have seen what they are doing they become red faced and look away quickly, avoiding even a glance in our direction again. If what they are doing is innocent, why would they feel the need to do this? If my partner should catch them in their moment of voyeurism, they either look away sharply or smile suggestively. An almost palpable over confidence that she is thinking the same about the. Can I tell you something guys, she is not.

I am not naive. My partner is a beautiful woman on the outside as well as the inside and I am not saying anything as ridiculous as “She’s mine so stop looking”. This is about respect, or the lack there of.

The most respectful situation we have ever encountered was when I spotted a gentleman looked over at us with an actual double take. I was expecting the same furtive embarrassed look away that I had become accustomed to, but he smiled and began heading towards us, a beautiful full toothed grin beaming across his face. As he reached where we were sitting, he said excitedly that we were a beautiful couple, that he could see how in love we were, even adding that one day we will be married. It was lovely and a much-needed affirmation that not all guys are ass-holes!

My Love

I have a partner who is a strong, beautiful and independent person in a great many ways; intelligent, spiritual, interesting, knowledgeable, humble, classy, articulate, silly, fun, sensual, kind, talented, hilarious, and caring to name but a few. It’s no surprise that I have fallen completely in love with such a strong enthusiastic woman who has built her businesses from the ground up by herself, also working as an actress and model, whilst following her great many hobbies and interests. She is an amazing person in so many ways and I know that I am a lucky man indeed to have such a woman as my partner. I love her completely and to have men objectify and reduce her to a ‘thing’ to be stared at and regarded as an object quite frankly enrages me. Knowing all of these wonderful attributes to her personality compounds how I feel. How could I not feel angry when such a deep and complex individual whom I love dearly with all of my heart is reduced simply to how she looks. It is bad enough that social media plays a massive part in this objectification, but to step away from the digital world and be greeted with it head on in an entirely different matter.

I know that my partner is a beautiful and sexually attractive woman who's confident demeaner is a compelling sight. I have often noticed that when she enters a room she is not just admired by a people who see her, but is ogled by men and is looked at with disdain and in all frankness jealousy by other women. This might I add is just as distasteful as the objectification by men. Just because a woman is attractive does not give anyone the right to place judgements upon or objectify her. She is a human being and deserves respect.

How this impacts my partner

The one thing that men do not realise is the detrimental effect that their behaviour has on the woman they are gawping at. It causes them to feel cheap, self-conscious and demeaned. My partner has expressed to me in no uncertain terms how unwanted this unsolicited attention makes her feel. Like me she is not naïve to the fact that people will look at a person whom they find attractive, it’s natural after all. What is not ok is the way in which these men make her feel with their stares, gawps and reactions, whether she has a partner or not.

My partner does not dress in a way that is to attract men. Realistically I don’t think that many women do in their day to day lives, I don’t imagine anyone gets up in the morning and gets dressed thinking ‘I hope that I get lots of people staring at me today!’. She wears clothes which she feels comfortable and confident in as is her right to do. Nothing risqué or inappropriate, she is a proud woman who is full of class. Last week she wore a long black flowing dress that had a split up the leg to just above her knee. The sleeves were long and she happened to be wearing a jacket too as it was raining. No exposed cleavage, a dress that was not screaming look at me in any way, shape or form. You would not believe the amount of gawping bug-eyed stares she was subjected to. It was ridiculous! Anybody would think that the men in the town had never seen a woman’s leg before, it was disgusting. She was absolutely enraged and incensed at the amount of men who stood and ogled at her one slightly revealed leg because it made her feel incredibly uncomfortable and self-conscious. She was merely walking around town popping into a couple of shops. Even if she were to wear clothes that were revealing in any way, does that give anybody the right to look at her as a piece of meat or make assumptions upon her character as a result? I think not. I mention this instance because it reflects the ridiculousness of this whole issue.

Research

As you can guess this topic of conversation has come up between the two of us on multiple occasions so my partner decided to look up what kind of advice there was online, not for herself but for me as I have begun to get quite angry about it, hence this article. The sad thing is that the only thing she can do to avoid these perverts realistically is go out in a burka and that would gain another kind of attention entirely!

She typed into her search engine ‘How do I deal with other men staring at my girlfriend when I am with her?’ and was greeted by a popular chat forum. The first comment shocked her, even more so as it was from a woman. Here is a screen shot of the answer:

What on earth is this woman saying to this poor guy looking for some helpful advice? Basically it suggests that his partner should be happy, grateful even for the attention as her looks won’t be there for forever and he should pat here on the head and congratulate her for the unwanted gaze of guys who cannot hold themselves together enough to pass a pretty woman without losing their shit. How degrading is that and what kind of message does it send to this couple?

Another comment was actually worse:

This one had me floored. What the guy is essentially doing is marking his territory of which he is encompassing his partner as a part of, completely negating her individuality and essentially treating her as a commodity himself. I know that on a basic level we are all animals and that the Alpha mentality is still strong in us as humans. It does have its place in our behaviours during certain situations and realistically a woman wants a man who can stand up and protect her on a basic subconscious level. I know that women can handle themselves and that they don’t need a man to do this!! I am talking as a level of a basic, instinctual, sub-conscious attraction. This kind of behaviour however is demeaning and childish, giving the woman in this situation the impression that without her ‘alpha male’ she is weakened and without him she could be a victim of this wolf so to speak. I asked my partner what she would do in this situation if I reacted in that way. She told me in no uncertain terms that she would be horrified and ask me what the hell I thought I was doing reducing her to exactly what this other man thought she was, a piece of meat.

What is the answer?

This whole issue stems from the men who act in this way placing a low value on women, reducing them to an object. It is a commentary on who they are and what they believe, unfortunately reinforcing the issue of toxic masculinity. They do not realise that men have subjugated women in ways such as these for hundreds of years and that it is wrong. You will hear them touting that they’ve always done it, women love it, there’s nothing wrong with a little look, all assumptions based upon a lack of empathy or understanding.

For myself, ‘What is the answer?’ has been a big question. The truth is that realistically there is not much that we can do to deal with the men in these situations other than confront or ignore them. The resolution of this behaviour needs to be societal, coming from the education of men who are acting in such a toxic manner. I have confronted people in the past who have been persistent in their advances towards my partner, but this has led to an argument of some sort between myself and the other man or with my partner. If I try to ‘fix’ the problem without letting her deal with it herself I am taking away from her own sense of self, weakening her. My partner is a proud independent woman who is perfectly capable of fighting her own battles and disrespecting this makes me just as guilty as the perpetrators. However, if it gets to a point that she feels I should intervene and I do, the men then become aggressive towards us both. Either way it takes away from us an puts pressure upon our relationship. They do not deserve that power.

The only way to deal effectively with this is actually incredibly simple. Have each other’s backs and communicate, don’t let these men threaten your relationship and trust each other. Confidence in your relationship and who you both are is key. These men deserve none of your energy or time. Obviously if somebody is blatantly disrespectful, that kind of situation needs to be dealt with immediately but on a joint front with your partner. Other than that, keep communicating, stay calm and keep level headed. You don’t need to out alpha these guys by putting your ‘SHE IS MINE’ stamp on your partner, and you certainly shouldn’t patronise your partner with a complimentary pat on the head.

The resolution of this issue is attainable only by the relinquishing of toxic masculinity, through dropping the old mentality of women being objects or less than. The feminist movement has been attempting to achieve this for decades and for a big part it is working in various aspects of society, but it taking longer to take a foot hold on the basic levels of respect and integrity. I am no male apologist or feminist; I simply believe in equality. I feel that there is too much objectification between the sexes in general, but I feel that on a blatant and disrespectful level men take up the largest proportion of these instances.

I know that my own relationship with my partner is strong and can stand up to the unhealthy actions of a subsection of men. We chose to be with each other, we are in love and committed to one and other. We will never allow their actions to threaten or damage us in any way. It doesn’t stop these behaviours making either of us feel uncomfortable or frustrated at times, however we know who we are and we will not let them intrude in any way into our lives.

The bottom line here is all about respect;

Respect yourself and your partner enough to not lower yourself to these toxic men and their lack of self-control and respect.

Men, respect yourself enough to not lose your shit over an attractive person, and respect that person’s right not to be objectified and made to feel uncomfortable because of your inability to act as an evolved human being.

advice
4

About the Creator

21st Century Man

The thoughts, ideas and feelings of a 21st century man

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments (1)

Sign in to comment
  • Omolola Osunde7 months ago

    Spot on. This is completely awesome. Thank you

Find us on social media

Miscellaneous links

  • Explore
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • Support

© 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.