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My Glasses 1 | Feb 14 2004

It happens in one of two ways. Either things start and I choose to leave my glasses on, or (and this is a scenario you didn’t consider) things are in the middle and I decide to put them back on, having previously removed them. The former case rarely elicits a comment; the latter case never fails to, and, as you guessed, such comments are often about the woman feeling looked at.

But what’s so bad about being looking at? I am scanning her face for signs of the pleasure she feels. With my glasses off, I can’t see this; or at least not while on the bottom, which is where I usually am when I think, in the middle, of reaching for my glasses.

Of course I realize that the gaze of another can feel strange, that it can bring one back to a self one would prefer, at such times, to forget. Sex is, in one ideal, a temporary abandonment, even an obliteration, of self. For this reason, when asked, I will always oblige, no questions asked, and remove my glasses.