David McElroy

It was a simple and innocent question, but I didn’t know how to answer it.

“Was she hot?”

I had met a woman earlier in the week who had impressed me and I told someone about her. This was the man’s instinctive question about the woman. He didn’t intend any disrespect. He apparently thought it was the obvious question about a woman who had impressed another man.

He didn’t ask whether she was brilliant. He didn’t ask whether she was funny. Or insightful or interesting or creative or loving. Or a dozen other things that seemed more obvious to me to ask. He was asking about how she presented herself sexually — because that’s what our popular culture has taught most people to value.

I didn’t know how to answer his question, because the things I found impressive about the woman didn’t start with superficial sexuality. Yes, she was very attractive, so she could have presented herself as a “hot girl” if she had wanted, but that was the wrong frame for this discussion.

I love physical beauty in women. And I appreciate sexuality in women. But all of the other things I appreciate about women are lenses which modify whether a women is attractive to me. Unfortunately, something in our culture now teaches men to see women as “hot” or “not,” irrespective of those other factors. And it leads more and more women to present themselves as mindless “hot girls” in order to gain approval and desire from men who have bought into that frame of judgment.

This mindset is dangerous and wrong — for both men and woman.

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I was watching a football game when Phillip came into a restaurant near my house Saturday night. He spoke to me as he came in, but I was too absorbed in the game to pay much attention. But as this homeless man took a seat at the table next to me — as he typically does — I was struck even more than usual by the contrasts between us.

I just bought a new car Friday and I’m very happy with it. It’s not really a new car. It’s not some luxury model. It’s a Toyota Camry and it’s a couple of years old. But it’s much nicer than the 14-year-old Corolla I’ve been driving for the last six years or so. By comparison, it feels like luxury.

Suddenly, the new car made me painfully conscious of the differences between Phillip and me. It wasn’t that I regretted what I had. I didn’t feel guilty for having nice things. But I was suddenly grateful for the things I had.

I noticed the shoes that Phillip was wearing tonight. They were a pair that he had proudly shown me about six weeks ago. He had gone to visit a church where he sometimes gets help and the preacher had surprised him that day with these shoes.

I had arrived at the restaurant tonight in a nice new car. He had arrived in donated shoes.

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The woman was tall and strikingly beautiful. There was something about her that made her stand out in a loud restaurant that was packed almost shoulder to shoulder late Friday night. Then she turned her face toward me.

I gasped, at least inwardly. Was that her? It was her, but it couldn’t be. The restaurant was so loud and packed that nobody could have heard me, but I felt my lips move involuntarily.

“Are you proud of me?” I whispered.

For a brief moment, our eyes met. She was beautiful. She had a powerful presence. But it wasn’t her.

She was leaving through one door and I was heading out the door on the other side of the place. Then she was gone and I was in my car. I put the key into the ignition, but I didn’t start the car. I just sat there thinking about what had just happened.

I had thought for a moment that she was someone who I once loved. I was mistaken, but just thinking it was her made me realize — because of the question I blurted out — that I still want her to be proud of me. Even after all these years.

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