Some men really can’t cope with summer. The heat rises, and suddenly it’s open season for poetic reflections on women’s bodies, as if every braless stroll past a café is an art exhibition they’ve been personally invited to critique.
Today brought a few new faces into the chat room – always an adventure. One in particular stood out: a profile picture of a chilli pepper shaded in seductive gradients of heat, paired with the tagline “Here to meet, PM always open.” It was less ‘spicy metaphor’ and more of a ‘red flag’ and I was not proved wrong.
He began with that familiar declaration: how boobs are a beautiful part of a woman’s body, especially braless in summer.
I told him he was sexualising things. To make the point gently, I even added, “Rubens painted them.” Because context matters; beauty belongs in art, not casual objectification by a newbie in group chat.
He came back with,
“With respect. All women are beautiful and sexy. I’m left-handed, I can’t paint lol.”
That was my cue.
“And I thought boys grew out of making it through summer by turning basic anatomy into a hobby once they were over thirty. But there’s a difference between admiring and objectifying. You seem confused 🤔.”
He didn’t quite know what to do with that, so I decided to help him out:
Leonardo da Vinci, Toulouse-Lautrec, Escher, all left-handers. And so was Rubens.
You’d think that would have been the end of it; a polite nudge, a dash of art history, and we’d all move on. But no.
After a pause, he returned with the classic offended essay.
“I am starting to feel offended here tbh,” he wrote, as though I’d just insulted his choice of font. “I was just telling about a beautiful part of a woman, but now it start to turn out I’m a sexist…”
And off he went, pouring out his feelings like a manifesto on misunderstood masculinity. Apparently, he was “just offering a general compliment,” that we all have “different views of life,” and that we should “just relax and respect each other.”
He signed off with that sanctimonious closer:
“No one is here to disrespect anyone. Not need to turn everything to an argument Fifi. Thank you and have a lovely day.”
Which, in plain English, means I’m storming off, but I’m pretending it’s polite.
Here’s the science bit, because it’s important to understand why these moments feel so familiar. Research into gender perception shows that when men view women through a sexual lens, even subconsciously, it activates the same parts of the brain used for handling tools and objects. Yes, you’ve read that correctly. The brain starts to process a woman’s body as something to be used rather than someone to be known. It’s not malice, necessarily, but it’s a learned cultural wiring. When a woman then calls it out, it challenges that wiring, which feels to him like an accusation rather than an observation. Cue defensive meltdown.
There’s also the matter of cognitive dissonance, that psychological discomfort when one’s self-image clashes with reality. A man who sees himself as respectful and decent cannot easily process being told his comment was sexualising. So the mind leaps to protect itself: I’m not sexist, you’re oversensitive. It’s mental gymnastics at Olympic level, but it keeps his ego intact.
Humour, though, is our best coping mechanism for this nonsense. Because really, what’s funnier than someone announcing their enlightenment about women’s bodies as if they’ve just discovered them? “Breasts are beautiful,” he says, proudly, like an explorer reporting back from the field. Ground-breaking stuff, I’m sure David Attenborough will be thrilled.
The truth is, admiration is not the issue. Admiration can be lovely, respectful, even poetic. The problem is context and consent. You can’t wander into a conversation, lob in a monologue about boobs, and expect applause for your aesthetic sensitivity. That’s not appreciation; it’s interruption dressed as intellect. And when called out, turning indignant doesn’t make you right, it just makes you louder.
Psychologists call this a status-threat response. When men feel their social standing as “good guys” is questioned, some react with anger or moral posturing to reclaim ground. In short, they don’t like being told they’re not the hero of their own story. But genuine maturity, the sort that women actually find attractive, comes from the ability to pause, self-reflect, and maybe admit or even apologise: “Fair point, that did come off a bit creepy.” That’s the sort of sentence that restores faith in humanity.
So, what did I learn from my little online philosopher of the female form? Mostly that humour is the only way to survive conversations with men who believe the human body becomes less sexual once they label it “beautiful.” And that there’s no point debating someone who thinks being called out is worse than being condescending.
He left the chat, probably muttering about modern women and how no one can say anything anymore. Some days, science helps explain them, on other days it’s a case of: I don’t paint either, but but sometimes I play cat and mouse; although this one scurried off before I’d even sharpened a claw…
Photo by engin akyurt
