For my write-up today on Stephen King’s Lisey’s Story, I’ll start with a passage on page 366:
“Driving to Auburn, [Lisey] mused for a little while on how Deputy Joe Alston had looked at her as they stood talking at the end of the driveway. It had been a little while since she’d attracted a honey, you look so good stare from a man, but she’d gotten one today, slightly swollen nose and all. Amazing. Amazing.”
Actually, the topic of ogling came up more than once in my reading of Lisey’s Story last night. And it also came up in my reading of The Stand, for that book says on more than one occasion that most women did not like for Harold Lauder to check them out.
Do women like to be “checked out”? Obviously, Lisey took Deputy Alson’s “honey, you look so good stare” as a compliment. And there are times when women like to be checked out. But there are also times when they don’t, for they deem that to be demeaning and dehumanizing. That’s why Doc Love advises males that, when they are on a date with a woman, they should look at her eyes, not her body. Perhaps one reason that women in The Stand did not like for Harold to check them out was that they considered him to be a freak (and this is not to discourage freaks from pursuing a romantic relationship). But maybe they wouldn’t want anyone (even those they consider attractive) to regard them as an object.