White male seeking understanding

[xoder]

So I was reading an Ask Metafilter question about being asked to smile. The thread is interesting but devolves into a giant "Men Are Pigs" fest. The operative theory being that men think women should be pretty no matter what, therefore they should smile all the time. In addition, the smiling somehow reinforces their submission to the males. Personally, I don't think I've ever asked anyone to smile, of either gender, but I often try to cheer people up through silliness and absurdity—occasionally to bad result. Given the initial question at AskMeFi, however, how does the answering public become so certain that the poster is female and is being told by males to smile? (Ignore, for the moment, that the poster marked a response as "Best Answer" pretty much declaring what the previous posters suspected.)

On a slightly related note: (most, if not all of) you know that I'm a tall, white male. That said, I feel very vulnerable telling women I find them attractive, as the song notes suggest I do. Perhaps its from the culture at RIT, where women could bring men up on "looking" charges and then those men could get expelled (although extremely unlikely—forced letters of apology and probation were much more common). Perhaps it's just plain old fear of rejection. Who knows. But I ask you, my reading public (which has many women in it), how do I avoid the first kind of repercussions (the latter, I have only myself to blame, I know)?

And on a related note to that last related note: most of the shame I feel from my eyes catching on attractive women for as long as is "safe" is mostly due to the fact that I feel I am consuming a resource (looking at an attractive person) and not contributing resources back to the "ogling pool", if one exists.

Thanks to s00j's K for giving me that second idea to think upon and ruminiate on since Lunacon '06. And thaanks to Sooj herself for the song which gave me the impetus to actually write out the thoughts I was having.

Comments

[shoujo-mallet.livejournal.com]

I really appreciate that you call me pretty, wonderful, awesome and all sorts of adjectives. What I don't like is how often you say them.

Yes, gods, it sounds stupid whenever I say it out loud. I should be happy for the praise. Yet, I think that a good portion of your friends would agree there is something infantile about the way you compliment us--the repetitiveness, the way you say it often without regard to situation, mood or time constraint and the generality of the compliments.

I know you love, care for and think the world of me. It feels like nothing about me in particular stands out though. I am the bestest girlfriend in the world and can do anything, but that doesn't say a lot.

The compliments I treasure the most from you are when you bring up something tangible and specific about me. It may be about the food I cooked, the dress I'm wearing, a joke I just made, but then it feels like you're paying attention to me instead repeating your general image of me without regard to the present.

Also, I think these work best on strangers. "Look, I'm not JUST creepy, I can point out something that I am attracted to you by aside from you're a breathing female! I love your hair color."

I don't mean stop calling me pretty every now and again with provocation, but not every hour we're together, to start every IM conversation or to sign off every e-mail.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

I appreciate it when the guy takes the time to come up with unique compliments. Then it's not so much a repetition of the same thing and a gut reaction, but something new that shows thought and time spent.