I definitely had a phase like that. I also was quite disgusted with myself and tried to rein it in as much as possible. I wouldn’t intentionally walk somewhere to see more girls. I also started to fight the urge to glance, because it just felt wrong to me. That went on for a while until I got tired of fighting my own body. I briefly stopped, but quickly noticed that the more I indulged, the stronger these urges got. So, I started to rein them in again to a level that felt good for me.

I think it’s okay to glance at a pretty women, but that’s it. No staring, no trying to get more glances. It takes some willpower, but the more I practiced and the older I got, the easier it became. Also it does feel a little rewarding to notice the urge to peak at the girl in the short skirt, but to keep your eyes straight until she is gone. Makes me feel like a little superior to the other men I see leering.

One simple trick is to look around and check out who is glancing/staring instead. A lot of people do that, men and women, though mostly men (at least at women). It’s probably normal, but can be interactive for some. I think it’s important to accept that part of yourself, but also to not indulge it too much. If this seems impossible, I think consulting a therapist might be the way to go.

As long as you’re “just looking” it is not a big problem in a general sense. You’re not harassing or whistling or whatever. It sounds like it is a problem for you though, so you might want to talk to a professional about it.

If you have access to it, therapy might be useful. Especially because you have behavious you dont like but still keep doing. Professionals are really good at giving you the tools to deal with that kind of stuff.

Also just wondering but have you tried self help or similar things regarding this? Like similar to what is desceibed in here: How to Stop Ogling and Objectifying Women

If you’re a heterosexual man you’re probably gonna find most/a good chunk of women until they’re in their 40s attractive to very attractive and have some natural bodily reaction to it. That’s just how it is, that’s how we became billions. A man must control his horny and his angry, that’s our responsibility, at the very least their expressions, in order to remain moral and prosocial. One thing I can say is that, if you’re in love and getting busy often with your one and only, you stop being so sexually obsessed with other women, in a very deep and perhaps biological level. That’s what I’ve found out at least, and I’ve been with my lady for a little over a decade now and all of my friends except two very good lads are women. I’ve never crossed a boundary nor have I even wanted to. 🤷👍

So, don’t worry, you’re just a horny young (late 20s is young) man because of the hormones, if anything it’s healthy, it’s how our ancestors had to be to get out of the caves. Focus on love, find your one and it’ll kinda go away. ✌️

I’m going to be honest that your “infatuation”, as it were, with all women seems fairly extreme to me. I do look at all people as they go by, and might think to myself “damn, she was cute”, but for me that’s about it. I might steal an extra look, but only rarely.

As you say yourself, you think they notice and I think you’re right. You also mention that you don’t like it but just “let yourself get away with it”. Maybe it’s worth trying to not let yourself get away with it? Make a conscious effort to stop? Self improvement is possible and even quite rewarding at times! And self control doesn’t come naturally to the rest of us either. I wouldn’t think this kind of behaviour is particularly healthy for you, but that’s just my two cents. Best of luck!

Saying the quiet part out loud. At that age, your hormones are still on the fritz. It’ll take until ~25 for them to quiet down. For some it’s earlier, for others it later, but generally, that’s around the time it happens.

My theory on why this is persistent for some is because they are horny with no release beyond self-release. It’s combined with traditional and religious society too that has strong gender roles i.e male has to court the female which creates a power imbalance. If we lived in a place where sex and sexual attraction weren’t seen as aberrant and supposed to be suppressed, we could have a much healthier society with better interactions between people attracted to each other.

Imagination isn’t bad, as long as you treat everybody with respect. Having sexual fantasies about every woman you see, to me, isn’t unhealthy or a sign of a problem - unless your actions become negative. Your 20s are your prime. It’s the time to make mistakes and learn from them. Ask people out, take chances, try and go on dates, but don’t let it consume or define you. Don’t be or become an animal driven by lust. You are more than a walking penis that requires wetness every day.

Look I’m not perfect either. When a attractive girl walks by I think to myself “Damn, good for her.” But I wouldn’t ever go out of the way to get a second glance.

And most importantly when I’m inside a 1.5 ton steel cage with more than 200 horses on the wheels the idea of not ending up in a wall, curb or sidewalk is infinitely more attractive than some Latina in hotpants. Keep your eyes on the road. Otherwise the sight of an attractive girl will be associated with hosing out some childs brain matter out of you front grill.m

A piece of advice I’ve missed here:

Being interested in girls it’s nothing weird. But the thing I think you really want us to get to know them better. The only way to do that is to talk to them. That way you even get to look at them a bit longer (focus on the eyes).

I’m not a hero at this and learned it at way a later age than yourself. And it takes a bit of courage to do. But the more you do it, the easier it becomes.

And the more comfortable about taking to women you get, the more confident you become, and that makes you more attractive than any set of biceps or perfect abs.

So get training! Get some taking points and go out there and try taking. You might think you fail a vile of times, but the thing is you don’t, really. Generally people like attention and if you fumble your words a bit clumsily you might actually be attractive (Hugh Grant built a career on that).

So sweet yourself some targets and don’t give up until your cringe weans off, it will happen and you’ll feel better about yourself.

And maybe, but this may absolutely not be your main goal, but just maybe you might even get to look at them in greater detail than you’d even bargain for. But the main thing is being genuinely interested in them as a person.

I mean I assume you don’t have much sex or a girlfriend or anything.

In that case, at least from what I know from myself or my friends, this desire to look is completely normal. I think you might follow that desire a little bit too much (as it is something you can control), but the base feeling you have is something most men experience.

Your nature is telling you to approach women and have sex with them. For some reason, you don’t, maybe because you’re scared, socially anxious, people have told you being sexual is terrible, whatever. This part of your nature is very strong, and as it seems the only thing left for you is looking, of course you’re going to want to do it.

If you actually approach women and have a healthy sex life, that desire probably goes down, but of course now you’ve also made it a kind of compulsive habit, so it might be hard to break.

It’s honestly quite ridiculous to me that you’re ashamed of looking at sexually attractive people. Despite what some radical feminists or whoever will tell you, just looking and being sexually attracted is nothing shameful. It’s more likely that this shame itself is causing the issue, since you’re sexual, yet that is for some reason shameful so you can’t satisfy it, causing you to have more of a sexual desire since you have so little of actual action.

Sexuality is our main drive, it is constant, and there’s nothing wrong with it as long as you inquire about people’s boundaries and respect them.

I will also chime in and say - this is totally fucking normal.

The modern media and social environment are very sex negative. Of course, it pays lip service to sex positivity - but go find a piece of popular media where the protagonist has lots of sex and enjoys it and doesn’t go through a character arc of “getting over ‘meaningless’ sex” and realizing it is all about wholesome, feel-good, family friendly looooove.

And then, here you are on lemmy, a left leaning online space, where male sexual desire especially tends to be demonized. You may have noticed that women tend to have “kinks”, like D/s, praise, or impact play, which are fun and sexy, while men tend to have fetishes, like feet, or asians, or certain ages, which are weird and gross and “problematic”.

And if you go searching for some positive interpretation of your sexuality, or help in working through your issues, you will most likely end up in the manosphere, which… uhhhh… yeah, don’t even look.

So let me be someone who will tell you - you’re fucking fine. This is normal. You’re a guy. You wanna fuck hot girls. This is the most normal thing in the world. If you see a hot girl, look at her, appreciate her hotness, be grateful you got to enjoy it, and move on with your day. The fact is, women go to great lengths to stay in shape, take care of their skin, and wear sexy clothes because they want men to look at them. Of course, this being Lemmy, there is a high probability that someone will come in with the nonsense about “it’s about self expression”/“X isn’t inherently sexual”/“it’s the pATriARcHy!!!”. BULLSHIT! Women dress up hot so that people will look at them and see how hot they are. You know how I know? Because dozens of women I know in real life have told me literally exactly this. They tell me they’re going to the gym to get a huge ass. They tell me they wore this form fitting crop top to show off their boobs. They tell me they noticed me looking at their cleavage and liked it. I even had one female friend complain about “what is wrong with men these days?” because she went for a jog in the park in a sports bra and yoga pants and didn’t get a single wolf whistle (note: I do not recommend wolf whistleing, and this friend is kinda weird - I just bring it up to illustrate my larger point). Women like it when attractive guys notice and appreciate their own attractiveness! Even if they are in a relationship or not looking for anything now or don’t feel like talking to anyone in that moment, most people still like it when they feel like other people think they are hot.

All the complaints you see online are about unattractive and unfiltered guys staring at women. The obese, unshaved, bald guy in his mid 50s with ketchup stains down his shirt who stares at a girl’s tits for 15 minutes? Yeah, not many women like that. Why? Because

1. Staring at her tits implies sex, and she has a visceral reaction of disgust when she imagines having sex with this man, and
2. Because he is staring at her tits without regard for who might notice, he is demonstrating a lack of social acuity that might imply other social deviance - like an openness to raping her. So she feels scared.

But if you, at the very least, dress and groom yourself like you give a shit, and then only give big ol’ titties a passing glance, then the vast majority of women will either not care (it’s normal) or take it as a small compliment.

Most men look at other males to assess threat level, and females to assess breeding potential, it is an unconcious drive (we also unconsciously assess if things are edible, but less so for humans :p). I use the pronouns of men, male and female carefully in that sentence, other interactions are less studied.

For socialised men, the urge stops there, and with a healthy body and relation to it you also don’t spend more attention on it. Sometimes, like when affected by hormones, loneliness, psychosexual/physical/mental imbalance, etc. the responses are more intense, and could be viewed as a signal of unmet needs (analogous to hunger, sleepiness, pain, etc) that you can react to in an appropriate manner.

When the thoughts, impulses or actions become hard to control or risk creating negative consequences, that’s where intervention helps, like therapy, medication, lifestyle adjustment, etc.

So basically, it happens, it will vary by season, age, diet, health, etc. Please consider if you might be horny, lonely, or have other unhealth to take care of. If you find it takes up too much of your attention (to function normally) and/or threatens your impulse control, seek help.

A decent bar for normal functioning is that it shouldn’t interfere with social relationships: don’t make people uncomfortable, don’t hurt anyone (including yourself), as well as day-to-day life: don’t ruminate/obsess, don’t spiral.

It is less often spoken about but fairly common to fantasise about encounters and even masturbate to them. Just be mindful that it’s your fantasy you’re entertaining, it has nothing to do with the actual person which you will need to respect and treat as they wish to be treated.

As this is a point of common misunderstanding, let me repeat: You seeing something that sparks attraction or even excitement might lead to fantasies of it in a sexual setting, maybe even gestalted with their body. All of this is your imagination, none of it is real.

The actual person is not your object of infatuation, has not shared your fantasy or even desires, and they will rightfully react negatively if you project your fantasy on to them.

So I repeat: it’s normal to notice, it’s impolite to make a thing of it or make people uncomfortable, it’s expected that you can regulate your impulses and make sure you have the strategies and resources to do it, and seek help if you cannot.

Cis male who’s much older you: you’re not alone, but my drive to do so has tapered over time. Polite society is, in large part, about overcoming primal caveman (or “lizard-brain”) urges. Primal urges are different for different people.

It’s normal, dude

If you’re not hurting anyone who the heck cares? Just try not to make them uncomfortable I guess, but I’m sure at least some of them even enjoy the attention.

Don’t beat yourself up on something that’s wired so deep in your brain it would fuck you up if you pulled that cable out.

Armchair psychologist here also trying to figure himself out before the inevitable end.

I don’t think this is as much of an uncontrollable craze as it is hyper-awareness of your passive actions/thoughts. Imagine the opposite of complete, nothing to react to, ignorance x 10. I’m a perfectionist and a problem solver. I have to earn leisure through productivity. I constantly desire more of everything. I’m over-observant with grainy photographic memory. AND I’m hyper-aware of everything all the time. It may be my brain’s desire to consume or collect information, even if it’s trivial or irrelevant. This includes the passively hyper-focused observation of others.

You do it with dudes as well. Pets, cars, mailboxes. You get the idea. The only reason women stand out to you is likely because that’s just what you’re interested in. There was some faux research done a million years ago about how frequently men think about sex, and it was just short of nearly all the time. Since then debunked, but I still think it’s impossible for researchers to access the human subconscious, or our background processes. But like you said, you’re a heterosexual guy. It’s what we do. I too look at everyone I cross. Some stick with me, some generate uncontrollable thoughts or controllable urges.

I haven’t a clue what our current purpose is beyond the parasitization of Earth, but I imagine like all other living, breathing mammalia and friends, we were built for procreation, so it’s also only natural your brain is hot for the ladies. You’re just oversensitive to your thoughts, and then obsess over the thoughts, and then wind up here seeking advice. Or wait, is that me?

It’s totally normal. You’re hard wired that way and it’s at its peak when you’re young. As long as you’re not actively staring then it’s entirely natural to be sexually attracted to other humans.