There's also the look that the other woman gives the woman on the phone as she walks by.

notice that the wife isn't sharing some klondikes with him, rather she's watching him take his reward

He looks very childish at the end. He is slouched over, one hand between his legs while is wife watches like a mother rewarding her child.

So if he had looked at the woman walking by, what then? The klondike bar melts away uneaten?

Last I checked, both men and women were in fact animals and much of our behavior, such as looking at the body of a woman walking by, is hard-wired into our brains. It's a reflexive response and perfectly natural.

What's not so natural is how we deal with our biochemical reality. Our various responses are being manipulated with manufactured guilt-burdens (like this ad) in order to maintain the status quo, which in this case serves neither men nor women. Who does it serve? Well, just follow the money; it leads to a very few diseased individuals who do happen to almost all be men but who are really only concerned with themselves and their profits, not men or patriarchy in general. If propagating sexist stereotypes ceased to be profitable, we would immediately cease to encounter them in the media, however the very same sick minds would still be right where they are and they'd just find a different way to sell their useless crap. After all, there are endless highly-profitable variations on the theme of divisiveness, though the man vs. woman thing is a perennial classic. Why mess with success?

If that man did not find women in general to be attractive, he would not have been attracted to his wife (presumably) in particular. I'd take his klondike bar away if I could for his inability to be himself. He should not feel bad or guilty about checking out someone else, nor should a woman who does the same. The primary differences between us and the other animals is our ability to override our instincts and biochemistry with abstract reasoning and things like altruism or genocide (no other animals slaughter their own species wholesale as far as I know). Being attracted to another woman=OK. Acting on that attraction after promising to be monogamous=Not OK. I guess couples need to decide for themselves if looking qualifies as an action... Communication: A radical new way for domesticated primates to maintain relationships.

What we call jealousy is seen in the behavior of many other animals and is also as natural as the compulsion to look at someone who's attractive; if he had checked her out, she could earn her klondike bar for not responding with the reactionary and pointless jealousy that was implied would occur. If his looking did not meet her expectations of him, well tough cookies. Feeling jealous=OK. Acting on it by demanding unrealistic behavior contrary to someone's nature=Not OK.

This so-called civilization of ours is getting really annoying; they all tend to near the end, so there's still hope. But I'm the village idiot so what do I know?

@village idiot: you say: The assumption that attraction is based solely on biochemistry, and that culture only affects the way we pronounce this attraction, is unbased. You can start here as a good introduction to the vast body of research on the subject.

@gwen: I agree that gender inequality and sexism hurts both women and men*. but if so, why call it patriarchy?

*not saying it hurts both equaly.

"village idiot: you say: The assumption that attraction is based solely on biochemistry, and that culture only affects the way we pronounce this attraction, is unbased."

No, that's not what I said. For one thing, I try not to use words like "solely" or "only" in these contexts since all lines are blurry when it comes to what goes on inside people's heads, even after 'studies' have been done.

Our biochemical makeup is the underlying reason for being attracted to anyone at all, regardless of the specifics. Consider that when our biochemical reactions cease, so do all of our feelings of attraction; we immediately become a mere lump of meat on the ground, though I guess an argument could be made that we haven't changed at that point; we're just powerfully attracted to the ground all of a sudden.

There may well be physical characteristics that are universally accepted as attractive, but that's irrelevant here. I'm concerned with how different cultures respond to attraction itself, and how some responses seem pathological due to their (in my opinion) denial of basic physiological reality, the reality that "attraction happens." I'm not talking about specific physical characteristics defined as "attractive," but rather about how people handle the feeling of being attracted to someone else, or how someone might respond to our feelings of attraction toward a third party.

I remember these commercials. The funniest thing about them is that, if you watch the guy, he looks at the woman on the phone.