Women have a habit of asking you how women look. They seem to be eternally fascinated by not only how you view their beauty, but what you think of other women as well. I can't recall a single time when a guy has asked me, "So what do you think of Phil?" and meant "Is Phil cute to you?" but I get that a lot from women — even women who I'm not dating.

My answer used to be very binary: "I'd do her." Or, sometimes, "I'd do ya."

Or, alternatively, "She's not my type."

Women were shocked by this, giggling in disbelief as if I'd said something terribly naughty. (And if they had asked how they looked, sometimes they'd get very uncomfortable and guarded, as if I was going to leap on them and ravish them at any moment.)

This strange shyness always confused me; after all, wasn't that the whole reason you dressed up? The idea was to make yourself sexy and alluring, and to me I was just answering the only question that could truly tell you whether you'd succeeded: yes, you have made yourself so attractive that I'd like to bang you. Thanks for asking!

But a lot of the females I knew had this weird disconnect; they wanted men to flirt with them, but they wanted men to remain in some strange, cartoon-like asexual zone until they were ready to have sex. The men were supposed to be turned on, but only in a clinical fashion that was absolutely separate from their genitalia. The idea that an unauthorized male might be sporting an erection over their jiggling breasts was creepy to them, even if they'd gone to great lengths to make the tops of those breasts easily visible. In fact, I knew several women who dressed like hookers who got really upset when someone they didn't know told them they had a nice ass.

"You put the ass out there," I'd say. "You wrapped it so tightly in leather that it looks like a black version of your naked butt. Considering you went to such lengths to display the ass, why are you upset when someone notices it?"

They usually didn't take too well to that.

I viewed it as a control issue, and a slightly selfish one at that. Yes, I understand the whole "take back the night" issue, and I support the death penalty for serial rapists. But these guys aren't rapists; they're enthusiasts. You dressed to provoke a certain reaction, and you got that reaction — just not from the guy you were hoping to attract. And yeah, I'm sorry that the guy was enough of a lout to think that waxing rhapsodic over your boobs was sweet talk that would inevitably lead to the boudoir, and I can even get that it's tiresome fending off the aroused masses… but the idea that he was wrong for approaching you is just stupid.

You went trolling for men. You caught some. Yeah, you have to throw some back, but don't blame the men for that. What, the ugly and incompetent guys aren't supposed to try?

(Not all women were like that, of course. A lot of girls chirped, "Thanks!" and moved on whenever someone ogled them, and they were usually the ones I hung out with at the end of the evening.)

It's a weird game these women played. They wanted to dress up in fuck-me outfits and find men slick enough to lie to them. They'd find a guy who'd invest a few hours pretending that his main goal for the evening wasn't to dip the shaft… and if he feigned disinterest well enough, he'd be rewarded with an enthusiastic shaft-dipping.

And then these women would bitch that their boyfriends all cheated on them, and they were clearly stupid to expect anything else —they had gone out of their way to be attracted to men who had lied to them from the start. What the fuck did you think would happen?

Not all sexual interest is overwhelming. I can say, "Man, I'd like to fuck you silly" and not have it be so all-consuming that I can't enjoy an afternoon by the park with you. I mean, I'd like an ice cream cone, too, but it doesn't mean that it's all I think about. We can be friends, and I can respect the fact that you don't find me attractive, or that you do but we're both committed right now.

But occasionally, if I find you attractive, there's a part of me that wants to make it with you when I look at you from the right angle and remember what a babe you are. Everybody fucking thinks that sometimes. And then it goes away.

I'd do ya. Doesn't mean anything more than that.

Now let's go catch a movie.