This is another thing that made the girl on the bike so appealing: she was free. It would be nice if we all were. Y, a 35-year-old married friend who still flicks his gaze at passing women the way other people flip channels, blames our national earnestness. “The problem for us as men is that we’re in the wrong culture, and we’re men at the wrong time. We’re not a culture that empowers men with casual sensuality.” ;

This article has a whole host of wonderful lines, about how men should be allowed to stare and leer at women, as it’s merely a way of appreciation and of natural, evolutionary drives… It’s funny how it doesn’t fit into our consciousness how passing interactions with other human beings can be anything but sexualized and objectifying.