The Eye Of The Beholder

Salma Hayek said: People often say that ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder,’ and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder. This empowers us to find beauty in places where others have not dared to look, including inside ourselves.

We look and we see, experience, enjoy what we see in most cases and, often, save these images that we have lived as comparisons, as examples of what we could do, as role models for how we wish to appear to others. Every single day we see something new – in fact, we see and experience millions of different things, but only a few remain present in our current memory – and some of these things give us pause for thought or make us turn our heads for a second glance.

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For me, and I am sure many thousands of others, beauty is one of those things which give me both thoughts – in many different directions – and make me turn my head or even stop. I simply cannot resist it, this temptation to look, to imagine, to let my fantasy have free run over everything else. Although, I must admit, I rarely pause so long that I am late for college or miss my bus, but if the opportunity arose….

Yes, if the opportunity arose, then what? I mean, you look at a beautiful woman in the street or a cafe and allow your glance to become considerably more, to do more than pass quickly over her looks and move on. It dawdles, it hangs there, it rests on her features while your mind goes off in other directions. And she sees you. She sees you looking (staring?) at her. Of course it is different for me, as a woman. When a man stops and stares it is clear what is going through his mind, I am told. It can be only one thing, if all the stories are true: men think about sex every few seconds, weigh them up in their minds, imagine them as a sexual partner.

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I’m not going to say that I am as bad as that, even though I do not believe these claims at all. Sure, many people do have such thoughts, it’s only natural. We are human, we have thoughts about sex, we seek partners and intimacy. How we project these thoughts is another thing entirely, whether we act upon them, give way to the temptations. But what if?

What if the glance we have given someone, which has gone on far longer than a glance should, is no longer fleeting but determined, our eyes drawn and held? What if this prolonged glance is returned, and a slight smile appears upon the features we are so admiring? I don’t mean one of those cynical ‘I know what you’re thinking‘ smiles, but an ‘I know what you’re thinking and like it‘ type. Easier for me to achieve than for a man, I suspect. Why? Because other women do not suspect me; they do not know that my thoughts are going off in a certain direction; they automatically assume the best in me.

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Which is a good thing, for me at least! I am above suspicion, I am one of the good ones, not a predator, not someone with smutty thoughts running through my head. At least, as far as the women my ‘glance’ rests upon are concerned.

The thing is, I do have these thoughts, all the time. I do weigh up the possibilities and I do allow my thoughts to become more than random, more explicit. Clearly I am a very bad person. I have the traits of a man in my genes, as far as beautiful women and the relationship to sexual desires are concerned. And still, I think that is a good thing.

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Fine, it is not going to further the human race in any way, there is no chance of procreation, of the patter of little feet. In fact, to be honest, there is precious little chance of more than what runs fleetingly through my mind, but don’t tell me that or I will lose some of my enthusiasm.

And if that returned glance has a non-cynical smile? If the eyes you see gazing back at you reflect a certain level of recognition, are inviting rather than a warning? Would I risk missing my bus or coming late to class? Would I approach this vision of beauty?

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H. G. Wells said: Beauty is in the heart of the beholder. To me it is also in the minds, their actions, everything that they do, everything that they are.

But still, the questions remains: when my eyes rest upon a beautiful woman and I see that inviting smile, what would I do?

Love & Kisses, Viki.

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