Village Squire, 1976-08, Page 34Wo.ft.
How to treat a case of roving eye
BY KEITH ROULSTON
"I just don't know how to handle it",
Harvey Hinkle was telling me the other day.
"It's time somebody like Emily Post wrote
a new book on the etiquette of the situation. I
mean Playboy or Penthouse probably already
has but I don't think I'm ready for their
suggestions."
"What," I asked, "are you talking about."
Well, he explained, it's summer time and-
alout half the opposite.sex between the ages
of 13 and 53 seems ‘to have taken the
expression "let it all hang out" to heart.
That's fine for the ladies in question, Harvey
said, butlahat about we men who have to live
with the situation.
"I mean, somebody has to give us some
new rules to deal with the situation," he said.
In the old days when he grew up about the
biggest thrill a guy goi was when the wind
blew .up one of those broad bottomed old
skirts exposing a few inches of thigh. Men in
those days practiced a fleeting glance that
fully appreciated the sight but didn't get
caught. Those that did get caught felt crude
and wished they could fall through the floor;
except, of course for the odd lothario who
seemed to love to be caught being naughty.
Of course the girls were embarassed if they
caught someone looking too except for the
odd dare devil.
Those -old rules, however, have all been
thrown out and an adequate new set, as
Harvey so aptly noted, haven't been brought
in.
With the sexual revolution the naughty
girls who liked to be caught in a sudden gust
of wind were suddenly right in vogue. Any
girl who wants can now wear on the street
what her mother would have been ashamed to
be seen in on the beach. First it was the mini
skirt, then the micro skirt, then see through
blouses and halter tops and who knows what
next.
"Now, my problem is this," Harvey was
saying. "How do I react when I meet a
beautiful, aluring girl scantily dressed when
I'm out fora walk. Obviously, if she's dressed
like that she means people to look at her. Yet I
still feel like a dirty old man if I look at her,
especially if she's less than ,half my age."
Well, I asked, if girls have freedom why not
have freedom too and obey the urge to look.
• "One day," he went on to relate, "I was in
the city and feeling full of bravado. So I sat on
a park bench and•, practically leered at the
lovely young secretaries. A few caught me
looking and smiled, either because they were
pleased or because they could see the red of
embarassment creeping up past my collar.
But then this gorgeous young thing walked by
showing herself off to best advantage. Here
was a girl, I thought, who loved to be leered
32, VILLAGE SQUIRE/AUGUST 1976
at.
"Well, you know what happened?'
said I didn't.
"She aw me looking at her with that look
in my eye and marched 30 feet out of her way
and smacked me with her attache case.
Good Lord, you should have seen the ruchus.
All the other men on the street rushed to her
rescue thinking I was trying to molest her or
something. I almost ended up in 51st precinct
headquarters, and all just because I let myself
go at girl watching."
Well, I admitted, Harvey had himself a
problem.
"You bet I have," he said, "and I'll bet I'm
not alone. I wonder. how many other men are
in the same boat? Have you ever been
walking down the street with your wife beside
you and met,one of those girls in one of those
outfits? I mean I'm not a lecherous old man,
but neither am I dead. I just don't know how
to react except maybe to close my eyes and
with so many girls walking around like that
these days, I'd have to get a seeing eye dog."
But the biggest problem he'd run into came
just that morning, Harvey told me and it was
that that led him to unburden his problems to
me.
Seems Harvey has a young couple for
neighbours just next door. Lorna Luscious is a
beautiful woman of about 30, always dressed
stylishly and in possession of a trim figure
despite . two children. Her husband is a
physical education teacher and with the
muscles to prove it. Harvey was on the way to
work whep Lorna and muscles came bouncing
down the front stairs of their house to say
hello: and bouncing for Lorna was definitely
the word. Lorna believed in the freedom of
the braless look and with rather slimsy
blouses to go with it.
"Such a sight," Harvey said, "will
probably set me going even when I'm 85, so
how am I supposed to concentrate on carrying
on a conversation with her with her
musclebound husband right beside her and
my wife watching discreetly from our front
porch? Oh why wasn't I born in the Victorian
age when everything was so easy," he
�4ailed.
"Well", I said, "I haven't heard about the
kind of book you want: a sort of how to remain
a gentleman when you meet a naked lady.
There is one marvelous aid, however."
• "What is it?," he asked.
"Here", I said showing him my
sunglasses. "Why do you think they sell' so
many sunglasses, just because the sun's so
bright? Behind these you can have the odd
indiscretionary peek without seeming to be a
sex maniac. But just the odd one, mind you."
1 saw Harvey yesterday, wearing his
sunglasses and the biggest smile you ever
saw.
loo
0
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