The Fine Ass Divide

The gap between minds and thighs.

Back when I was living in Queen Village, a neighbor once observed that I had two women in my life with fine asses.

I’m comfortable sharing this because one of those women is now my wife, and it seems to be the case that once you tie the knot with someone, it becomes almost adorable to objectify them—even retroactively. Meanwhile, the other lives in China and doesn’t speak much English, so she’ll likely never read this. More importantly, the story has stuck with me because it represents something that still confuses me.

The other woman was Mengmeng—pronounced Mung-Mung—whom I had met a few weeks earlier in South Dakota, of all places. She was doing a foreign-exchange work program (read: being exploited), and I was hiking the Centennial Trail with my friend Mike. She visited Philadelphia a few weeks later to take in the sights, so I offered her my place while I stayed with my wife.

Mengmeng wasn’t only in Philadelphia to take in the sights; I’m fairly sure she had a crush on me. But I wasn’t interested in her—despite her fine ass—and was dating my wife at the time anyway. So, I remained a gracious host, Mengmeng remained a grateful guest, and the three of us explored Philly together. I don’t remember much about her trip other than this story, the fact that she hated cheesesteaks, and a few other scattered scenes.

It was during one of the times that I was walking Mengmeng back to my place, without my wife, that my neighbor had occasion to observe her—an observation he shared with me the week following, delivered in what can only be described as an air of appreciation for the tail I had brought into his orbit. He also remarked on “the beautiful time we live in,” by which he meant the kind of bottom wear that has become standard among Western women.

This little exchange has stayed with me because it exposes a serious divide among my friends over the value of beautiful women one cannot have. One group thinks life is made more colorful by them: “These women,” one of my friends texts, “have no idea the service they are providing.” The other group, to which I belong, has the opposite reaction. We are tempted to regard such public displays of beauty as potentially illegal. Why, in their right mind, would anyone want to be exposed to something they desire but cannot possess? There is a reason Tantalus was punished by being placed within reach of water he could not drink and fruit he could not eat—rather than in a bare cell with no hint of what he was missing. In the same spirit, during Lent, when I give up sweets, I avoid candy shops like the plague.

I sometimes get at the heart of the matter by asking friends a simple question: assuming you are married (as most of them are), would you rather live in a place chock-full of beautiful women, or one largely bereft of them? I’m confused that anyone would choose the former. I’m surprised that about half of them do.

But you can’t argue with the research, which I am pleased to report supports my group: men report lower satisfaction with their partner after being shown a more attractive alternative. Then again, I can’t deny my friends their experience, and I see no reason why they would be lying—or even mistaken—when they say that seeing a beautiful woman is, for them, a net positive.

So, puzzled I remain.

My best guess is that the beautiful women are puzzled, too. They may recognize the hunger that comes into men’s eyes—we can all recognize desperation when we see it—but I suspect they don’t fully know what it feels like to yearn so desperately for the flesh. Especially their flesh, which is the very definition of quotidian. I mean, in carrying it with them everywhere, beautiful women are guaranteed to take their flesh for granted, just as their partner one day will. That partner, too, will be puzzled. How can I be so apathetic about something with such universal appeal?—something that once appealed to me, too?

Of one thing I am sure: my friends are wrong when they compare a beautiful person to a piece of art, arguing that the populace is thereby better off. This analogy fails not only because these same friends would never go out of their way to view art, but because art is meant to be looked at—and nothing more. That’s not true of an attractive human. Presumably there are many things one might want to do with them, beyond looking. So I reject my friends’ analogy, even as I honor their experience. After all, not everyone is a writer who plays with analogies and metaphors all day.

The implications of this divide extend beyond beauty. The first group sees the social and technological changes that have brought yoga pants into everyday use as an unambiguous blessing. My neighbor marveled at humanity’s capacity to bring this about in the same way he might have marveled at a new airplane. What poor suckers they were, his attitude suggested, who once perved on a woman’s ankle and didn’t even have television. The second group experiences these changes as a curse—a cruel joke. The mind can only do so much with an ankle; it can do much more with the contours to which all and sundry are now privy. Imagination grabs a belt and gets to work, beating its possessor into a pathetic acceptance of their limited condition.

Why do I bring this up again? Because it remains, for me, a glitch in the matrix. A wrinkle that hasn’t yet been smoothed out.

And it stands out all the more starkly, all the more stubbornly, the more I come to understand. The more of human nature and behavior I am able to huddle under my worldview. This divide is a reminder of the remainder, of the gap between my experience and another’s that will never fully be bridged. How can they see it that way? How can they genuinely have a different experience than mine?

I really don’t know.