Husband Commenting on Other Women’s Appearance (Reader Asks)

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Reader Asks: Why Does My Husband Keep Calling Other Women Hot?

My husband and I are both 40, and we’ve been together for 22 years. Our marriage has had its ups and downs, but one thing that’s always been good is our sex life. We’ve always been very attracted to each other, and even after ugly fights, the making-up sex has been great.

About a year ago, my husband was telling me about how our pharmacy used to be terrible but had improved since a ‘gorgeous’ new pharmacist started working there. He joked that she must be checking him out, which was apparently why he was getting better service. I told him, admittedly not in the gentlest way, that I wasn’t comfortable with comments like that.

Recently, he was talking to a family member about contacting the parents of one of our child’s classmates. He said he didn’t want to call a particular mother because she’s a ‘smoke show.’ She’s single, blonde, fit, and has breast implants. I actually think she looks great, and I’m not criticizing her appearance. What bothered me was that my husband felt the need to comment on it like that, especially after our previous conversation.

I went quiet for the rest of the evening, trying not to react impulsively. Eventually, he kept asking what was wrong, so I explained that I didn’t understand why he thought those comments were appropriate, particularly when we’d already discussed how they made me feel.

Am I being insecure? Would this bother you, too? And what would you do?

My Answer: Unsolicited comments about women's bodies aren't as harmless as men think, and your discomfort isn't automatically insecurity

Yes, this would bother me and no, you aren’t insecure because this bothers you. And I’d actually separate two issues here, because both deserve attention: the way your husband talks about women he’s not involved with, and the way he behaves in a relationship after you’ve told him something bothers you.

Let’s start with the first one. Men making unsolicited comments about the appearance of women they aren’t involved with is a form of micro-aggression, in a sense of everyday gendered disrespect.

Calling a woman a ‘smoke show’ or a ‘gorgeous’ pharmacist might sound like ordinary locker-room talk to the man saying it, but women are on the receiving end of this behavior constantly. We’re assessed, ranked, sexualized, and discussed according to our attractiveness, often in settings where we’re simply trying to do our jobs, raise our children, or go about our lives. We don’t need every man who notices our appearance to announce his assessment of it, as though his opinion is a public service or as if this is what we live for. Sir, we don’t give a fuck and you’re icky. Keep your damn thoughts to yourself.

I’d definitely call this a microaggression: a small, seemingly casual act that reinforces the idea that women’s appearance is something men are entitled to evaluate and comment on. The individual remark might seem trivial, but the broader pattern isn’t. Women are regularly made aware that men are watching and judging them, whether or not they’ve invited that attention. A woman shouldn’t have to wonder whether a routine interaction with a pharmacist, colleague, neighbor, or fellow parent is going to become a story about how hot she is and whether the man in question thinks he has a chance with her.

Remember this cartoon wolf and the way he always reacted whenever an attractive-coded woman happened by? It’s giving exactly these lecherous vibes. In the original cartoon the reaction was supposed to be funny but then we all grew up and started to realize that it’s not funny at all.

And no, this doesn’t mean nobody is allowed to find anyone attractive. People notice other people’s appearances. That’s normal. The issue is the sense of entitlement involved in turning that private observation into an unsolicited public evaluation, particularly when the woman has done nothing to invite it. Your husband isn’t simply noticing for himself that another woman is attractive.

He’s making her attractiveness the centerpiece of a story, and in the pharmacy example, he’s even imagining that she’s checking him out and that this supposed attraction explains why he receives better service. That’s quite a little fantasy he’s built around a woman who’s presumably just trying to do her job.

The second issue is that this behavior isn’t considerate of you at all, either. There’s a difference between acknowledging that other people are attractive and repeatedly announcing your sexual appraisal of them to your partner. You can be married, sexually attracted to your spouse, and perfectly capable of recognizing that other people are good-looking without narrating every thought that crosses your mind.

Nobody is demanding that your husband become blind the moment he gets married. We’re just asking him to develop the social judgment to understand that not every thought needs to be shared, and not every woman needs to become a character in his running commentary about female attractiveness.

And the fact that your sex life is good doesn’t really change this. Sexual chemistry isn’t a substitute for consideration, respect, or good judgment. You can have fantastic sex with someone who still does things that make you feel disrespected. Making-up sex can be wonderful, but ideally, you’re not relying on it to compensate for a recurring lack of consideration in the first place.