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"At male strip shows, it is still the women that we watch, the audience of women and their eager faces. They are more obscene than if they were dancing naked themselves."
— Jean Baudrillard
There's just something completely gorgeous about that other character. The protagonist just can't help but stare and drool over his gleaming smile, his sapphire eyes, or any other attractive features. Even if the protagonist's a Tsundere who loudly declares that she Does Not Like Men, expect the protagonist to be unable to stop themselves from noticing how well-built that character over there is, and how compelling his eyes are... Sometimes the protagonist's inner monologue will devolve into Purple Prose.
This trope is usually identified with Love at First Sight. Some cases may result in Distracted by the Sexy, eventually leading to Longing Looks once romance enters the picture.
Male Gaze and Female Gaze are related, but distinct, as they are concerned with how a work is presented to the audience (i.e., presuming the viewer will come from a male or female perspective, respectively). Eating The Eye Candy refers to a character's interest (which can, however, carry over into framing and presentation). Gender-flipped examples exist for both tropes. Subjected to Double Standard since Female Gaze doesn't carry the implications of Male Gaze: a woman who looks at a man sexually is more often than not written as 'cute' (blushing and swooning), whereas a man looking at a woman sexually is commonly written as 'vulgar' (making rude remarks and even hooting!). Can be used quizzically in combination with All Women Are Lustful, Bigger Is Better In Bed, Chippendales Dancers, Female Gaze, Guy on Guy Is Hot, Long-Haired Pretty Boy, Lust Object, Male Frontal Nudity, Shirtless Scene, Walking Shirtless Scene and Yaoi Fangirl.
A cross between Hello Nurse, Ms. Fanservice or Mr. Fanservice and the Gaze tropes.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
- In Basilisk, when Oboro and Gennosuke are crossing a very narrow bridge, we follow Oboro's gaze as she stares at Gennosuke's back.
- Done with tongue planted firmly in cheek in Darker than Black, where Mayu gets a little too fixated on Hei — particularly his "delicious collarbone" — after a late-night rescue.
- In the anime version of Dragon Ball Z, Princess Snake first stares at Goku for his body; she keeps staring, though, because of his table manners.
- In the FAKE II, JJ does this to Dee and attempts to glomp him after a case when Dee is found shirtless. Dee is not pleased.
- Sôsuke from Full Metal Panic is subject to this a lot by all of his admirers. His looks are enough to get everyone (and I mean everyone) to stop in their tracks and check him out. Even small part bystanders that never show up again (which is made especially obvious in the novels). One lampshaded instance was with Nami (from the novels), where she pretended that she was only watching him change clothes because she wanted to make sure he was an AS pilot. Lemon teases her and notes that she was just checking him out. Oh, and the anime knows to show plenty of Fanservice of him being shirtless (complete with cute little scars all over his body). Including a scene where he's hallucinating, and randomly imagines himself being tied up, shirtless, and in obvious distress — for no real reason at all.
- Despite being a Chaste Hero, Hayate pulls this on Hinagiku. After his gaze lingers too long she chastises him for it, but she definitely enjoys the feeling.
- Notably, Hinagiku is the only one of his unwanted harem to get this from him. Even when seeing other girls nude, he turns away before they get their senses back enough to be chastised, he does blush after seening (and then thinking back to) seeing Ayumu changing.
- THE iDOLM@STER - The audience of the Are We Live? show, particularly towards Azusa's outfit.
- In Katanagatari, Togame doesn't even bother with pretenses for ogling the perpetually shirtless Shichika — she just tells him to sit still to make it easier to do.
- In the first episode of Macross Frontier, it certainly looks like Ranka's subjecting Alto to some female gaze when they first meet (the Bishie Sparkle sets on so hard that you can hear it). Then she admits that she thought Alto was a very pretty girl until he opened his mouth. Alto is not amused.
- Monster: Johann's handsome features are frequently commented on and checked out by a lot of people.
- One episode of Nagasarete Airantou has Ikuto taking a bath and being unknowingly watched by Chikage. She glances at his body, makes several comments about his attractive features and blushes while doing so.
- Similarly, Ash of Pokémon pulls this one on Misty when he meets up with her between the Advance and Battle Frontier arcs. Misty doesn't chastise him for it.
- In Ranma ˝, Akane occasionally sees Ranma this way — broad shoulders, cute face, kind smile. In true Belligerent Sexual Tension style, it often immediately precedes Ranma himself making some spectacularly jerkish remark to her.
- Ranma's other would-be love interests also do this; it's just much rarer that they get the chance to do so. Kodachi does this to Ranma the first time she seems him. Despite the fact he just, you know, knocked her out cold and almost caused her to fall off the roof.
- When Akane sees a naked, male Ranma in the first episode/chapter, she can't help but let her eyes wander down there....
- Studio BONES spoofs it once again in Star Driver: apparently, Midori Okamoto's Cybody has a fanservice mode
 . It backfires, though.
- Near the end of the Hot Springs Episode of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, most of the gang beat up the beastmen who operated the Ganmen-disguised-as-hot-springs-resort. The camera pans across the cast... revealing that Yoko is peeking at the completely naked Kamina's butt from the corner of her eye. When he makes a move that would bring her into his sight, she blushes and quickly looks upwards. Shortly afterwards, her jumping up and down in victory celebration makes her suffer a Wardrobe Malfunction... and Kamina immediately returns the favor.
- In the 14th episode of Tiger & Bunny, Karina mentions that lately she's been having trouble keeping her eyes off of Kotetsu.
- Vampire Hunter D can't walk into a single town without half the residents attempting to undress him with their eyes.
- Violinist of Hameln: Shchelkunchik has a very... painful... take on this trope. Basically, during a divination class, Shchel's crystal ball shows the whole class a humiliating event in his childhood that ended with him pantsless in the school pool with a water scorpion pricking his delicate parts. Everyone comments on how big and swollen it became, the girls most of all.
- In Wolf Guy Wolfen Crest, Ms. Aoshika asks Inugami to strip in order to see if he has any wounds (and thus prove if he was the boy she met the night before). She doesn't find any injuries, but she's not exactly dissapointed...
Comics
- In Red Hood And The Outlaws after showing off a fancy new pair of Flight Wings Arsenal remarks on how cool Red Hood looks. Starfire thinks he's talking about Red Hood's "buns" and wholeheartedly agrees.
- In Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil, the reporter that Captain Marvel goes to for help takes a very obvious look at his crotch while standing right in front of him.
- Marvel Comics' character Starfox causes this as a side effect of his powers, besides also being a Flying Brick. And he can turn the effect Up to Eleven to overload your pleasure center and incapacitate you by feeling too good. Well, if you've gotta be attacked, that's the way to go...
Fan Works
- Ashes to Ashes, the Pokemon Ruby And Sapphire fanfic, has May doing this to Maxie!
- Cherry Lipgloss did this with describing Critic's work outfit. Subverted later on, as more people view it as dressing like "white trash".
- Stray does something like this in some of its descriptive passages, particularly when Adamska is being described, although the POV character is another man. The story also hangs a lampshade on it:
'"Honestly", Otacon thought ruefully, "At this rate, next I'll be thinking about how big and strong and manly he is."
Films — Live Action
Literature
- Jerin Whistler of A Brothers Price is among the most beautiful men alive. Thanks to the scarcity of men and the resulting broad inversion of gender roles, he's given predatory looks and unwanted touches by most women who aren't family.
- The image for this trope page is the comic book version of the Anita Blake Vampire Novel series, in which the main character Anita often has problems with this trope seeing as about 99% of the people surrounding her are gorgeous supernatural men who want to get into her pants. That poor woman.
- In The Belgariad, most of the story is told from 3rd-person limited perspective, from the point of view of the hero, Garion. Every so often it switches to his romantic interest, who often spends time watching him. There's some descriptions of his sandy hair (usually tousled) and how his face is "nice enough".
- This actually saves the main character's life in one of the Ciaphas Cain novels, since pausing to admire the view makes an assassin's attack miss him.
- In The Dresden Files, this happens automatically whenever a White Court vampire is in line of sight. Its not voluntary, either; the White Court exude a natural aura that draws everyone's attention to their physical beauty, both male and female. This helps them "hunt" their prey, drawing mortals to them so they can feed on their emotions (lust, fear, and despair being the big three). Its also deconstructed, however, when one of them, Thomas, tries to live a normal life without maliciously feeding on humans, as he can't hold down a job because his coworkers inevitably get drawn to him through his involuntary mojo and he gets fired when they jump his bones and his innate hunger for emotions takes over.
- Fate/Zero plays around a bit with this. When Saber and Irisviel first encounter Lancer, the prose takes an immediate turn from standard to totally purple as it waxes rhapsodic about his beautiful eyes, his elegant features, the small beauty spot on his face that seems to add even more charac—Wait, beauty spot? Yep, it turns out that Lancer is the Heroic Spirit of Diarmund Ua Duibhne (who has a supernatural ability that makes all woman who see his face fall in love) and the prose snaps straight back to normal once Irisviel realizes the mind-trickery and overcomes it with her innate magical resistance.
- Narrator of The Hollows, Rachel Morgan, tends to get kind of distracted around attractive men. It even happens when she converses with the demon Midias.
- Night Huntress has several scenes with Cat commenting on how attractive Bones is.
- In Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Darcy takes the breath away from every female in Hertfordshire just by walking into the room: "Mr. Darcy soon drew the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien..."
- Take a sip for every mention Bella from Twilight makes of Edward's Supernatural Gold Eyes, marble skin that sparkles in the sunlight, or his overall beauty being comparable to an angel's or a Greek god's. You'll be blacked out under the table in no time. Twilight: Causing liver failure since 2006!
- A great number of Old Skool romance novels (that are in first person, from the woman's point of view) use this — and understandably so.
Live Action TV
- From Almost Live: "Great Butts With Wendy White"
- During the Shirts vs. Skins basketball game, Melana on Average Joe was distracted by the Hunks' (Skins) bodies after they took off their shirts.
- Ditto for Larissa on Average Joe Hawaii when the Hunks took their shirts off for the Shirts vs. Skins dodgeball game.
- Jessie watches J.D. shower in the Baywatch episode, "The Natural".
- In the "Band Candy" episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Buffy can't keep her eyes off of Angel's sweaty bare chest.
- In "Go Fish", Buffy, Willow and Cordelia assign themselves to the pool as an excuse to watch the swim team practice.
- In one of the later seasons of Buffy, while the Scoobies are at the Bronze, Willow spends about 2 minutes eying a hot girl in leather pants with Xander. It becomes rather awkward for them both when the group realizes that said girl is Dawn.
- Castle and Beckett have a history of doing this to each other due to massive amounts of Unresolved Sexual Tension. For example, in season two, Castle had gotten attacked by an angry dog when they went to bust a criminal so his pants were ripped and Beckett watches his ass as he walks away with a rather impressed expression. In a deleted scene from season three, Beckett leans over the murder board to write something and Castle checks out her ass. The even more amusing part is that it wasn't scripted—Stana Katic and Nathan Fillion came up with that bit on their own.
- In the "Toni's Boys" episode of Charlie's Angels, Kris Munroe got really turned on in a male strip club when she watched male Angel Bob Sorenson take his shirt off and then watched a male stripper rehearse.
- On Dirt, Courtney Cox enjoys a full view of a naked Julian Acosta.NSFW
- Doctor Who companion and Torchwood lead Jack Harkness is the recipient as often as he is the instigator.
Rory: Aren't you going to turn your back?
Amy: Nope!
- On Dog Eat Dog, host Brooke Burns and contestants Lisa and Jessica enjoy watching Colin play Strip Golf
- In Game of Thrones, Arya Stark stares at Gendry the blacksmith as he works shirtless at Harrenhal.
- One episode of Grey's Anatomy has April stare at Jackson while he is changing his shirt. She can't remember what she was talking about.
- In a second season episode of Hannah Montana, Miley gazes (there's a spotlight and everything) at a boy named Trey, whom she later thinks is "the one". Of course, Trey is never seen again after that episode, save a brief mention in an episode or two later saying that they had broken up.
- Horatio Hornblower: Nearly every male character fancies the Duchess of Wharfedale who is an older yet very sexy and cheeky woman. Sailor Styles starts describing her hotness to Mr. Hornblower, an Acting Lieutenant who is in command of a prize ship and supposed to give Her Grace a passage home to England. Hornblower has to stop the excited Styles from gushing.
Styles: Captain Pellew's coming aboard, sir. And, uh, a lady, sir. Nice dress, sir; good-looking.
Hornblower: Don't froth at the mouth, Styles. You've seen a woman before, man.
Styles: Not in six bloody months, I haven't.
- Lois and Clark has a Sexy Silhouette scene where both Teri Hatcher and Dean Cain mutually flabbergasted each other while changing clothes. Very unsubtle in Getting Crap Past the Radar — Clark pops his cork, while Lois drips a little puddle onto the floor. I'm talking about the champagne, of course.
- On the short-lived serial Pasadena, Catherine Mc Allister (Dana Delany) can't keep her eyes off Henry Bellows (Alan Simpson). In the "Henry's Secret'' episode, at the McAllier's pool, after Henry takes his shirt off, Catherine asks Henry if he'd like to borrow a pair of trunks as an exuse to look at his lithe, young body; she then takes another look at his body when she goes in to get Henry and Lily (Alison Lohman) some lemonade. In the following episode, "Hostile Environment", after Catherine sets up a guest room for Henry, she watches him get undressed. After Henry turns around to climb into bed, Catherine scopes out his ass.
- The 1995 BBC miniseries adaptation of Pride and Prejudice took the admiration for Mr. Darcy Up to Eleven. There was lots of camera time devoted to Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy riding horseback, bathing, swimming, or casting smouldering gazes around. Even ladies in-universe liked it. Colin Firth was a lust object for BBC female viewers due to one particular scene: Having a swim and "Mr. Darcy! Your breeches!". It reached Memetic Mutation levels. The scene was parodied in Lost In Austen: Have a look here.
- Done numerous times in Scrubs, sometimes seriously (e.g. with Colin Farrell), sometimes less so (where the distracted gazer walks into, or trips over something), and sometimes just outright mocked and lampshaded (when a male patient had such a winning smile it was affecting everyone who saw it).
- Inverted: No one wants to see The Todd's banana hammock.
- Done often on Sex and the City, in particular with Samantha's various conquests, and especially ramped up for The Movie. She is quite tempted by her hot next-door neighbor, who just so happens to shower outside as the camera lovingly lingers over his body and even gives us a brief cock shot.
- Lampshaded in this "Smack the Pony" sketch.
- In Smallville, Lana once has a long look at Clark, who has just fixed a water pipe.
- Chloe has a smaller one in Devoted, but in Escape she gets a good long one when he is naked save for a towel.
- In an episode of Spin City, the female workers keep calling in a hot water-cooler repair guy (or something similar) with increasingly-trivial or thinly-veiled requests because they enjoy watching him work. Of course, he soon gets fed up with being seen as a sex object.
- This Season 3 teaser trailer of The Vampire Diaries should come with a sponge (to sop up the drooling) and a biscuit to sop up that gravy...
- In the Made-for-TV Movie Vows of Deception, Lucinda (Cheryl Ladd) enjoys Nick's (Michael Woolson) bare chest.
- The X-Files:
- Eating the female eye candy happened in "First-Person Shooter" with the character of Jade Blue Afterglow, a super hot stripper dancer who was wearing a silver metallic miniskirt outfit with chains. Testosterone frenzy ensued. All the male officers tried to watch her interrogation, the detective investigating the case and Mulder both bit their knuckle to show they liked her a lot, and Mulder couldn't help grinning sillily while questioning her.
- Eating the male eye candy occurred in "Bad Blood" when Scully first met sheriff Hartwell. When he entered, she was completely dazzled by his cowboy looks, complete with stylish boots, jeans, gun belt, shirt, leather coat, badge, and hat. He had a cute smile and prominent cheekbones. And he most definitely did not have big buck teeth nor did he have a slight overbite. Jealous much, Mulder?
- From The Young and the Restless: the look Lauren Fenmore gives a half naked Brad Carlton when she meets up with him in the weight room at the Jabot gym.
Music & Music Videos
Print Media
- Photographer Christie Jenkins' book A Woman Looks at Men's Buns which is a collection of pictures of men's butts, Jenkins calls herself a "connoisseur" of men's butts.
- Playgirl magazine
- Teen fashion magazines do (and induce) this all the time.
Sports
- Some women think baseball is the sexiest sport to watch because they like the tight uniforms that the players wear as well as their long muscular bodies. They'll also tell you that they like "players' muscular arms", "nice asses" and "jaws". Playboy Playmate Luann Lee says that she likes to watch the players' hips.
- Don't forget basketball using old-style uniforms with the tight short-shorts, for the leg-women out there. And there's always bare, muscular arms. Some women like basketball for this reason, and this reason only.
- As opposed to the modern uniforms, where they look like they're playing in their pajamas.
- Soccer players are popular with women because of their muscular builds six pack abs and nice, tight asses. Also, they get all sweaty, take off their shirts and bare their smooth, chiseled chests as explained here, here, here and here.
- Also popular with women: the men's swim team at any high school, college as well as during the Olympics because these guys are in speedos.
Video Games
- Text implications suggest that the Handmaiden is doing this to a male player character in Knights of the Old Republic 2.
- In the PC adventure game Laura Bow: The Dagger of Amon Rah, the main character Laura and many of the other female characters spend a lot of time talking about how attractive Steve is, from the moment you meet him on.
- In Mass Effect 3 when a romanced Kaidan returns to the Normandy Shepard's gaze goes to Kaidan's butt. Shepard gives a smirk for good measure.
- There's a moment in The Haunting Of Castle Malloy where this happens off-camera. When Nancy calls her girlfriends Bess and George for hints, they pause in talking to her, to savor the sight of a perfect poolside set of washboard abs.
- In Neverwinter Nights Hordes of the Underdark, at one point a Mimic steals your character's armor. If your character is male and Aribeth is in the party, some humorous dialogue ensues.
Web Comics
Web Original
- The Lizzie Bennet Diaries: Lydia Bennet invokes Wet Sari Scene by spilling a cup over George Wickham's T-shirt and convinces him to take it off. Mr. Fanservice gladly obliges, and both Lydia and Lizzie enjoy his abs. He's a swimmer, you know.
- Red vs. Blue: Shortly after meeting Crunchbite the alien, Tucker has a hard time pulling Tex's attention away from his... alien... muscle structure.
Tex: Well that's just a matter of penis- I mean uh, opinion, opinion, that's, that's it.
Church, her boyfriend: (beat) Smooth.
- Survival of the Fittest 's Paulo Abbate just can't get enough of companion Becca Everett's backside, to the point where he falls behind because he's spending so much time admiring it.
Western Animation
- Code Lyoko: In the opening of Season 4 episode "Bad Connection", Ulrich is stuck in the hallway wearing just a Modesty Towel. When Aelita and Yumi walk in with Jérémie, the girls at first (weakly) pretend to be looking away, but spend pretty much the rest of the scene ogling.
- On Family Guy, when Peter gets plastic surgery to make himself extremely handsome, Lois loses the ability to form complete sentences.
- Lois also drills a hole in Stewie's room to watch Tom Brady shower (then fights with Meg over who gets to look through it).
- In The Road to El Dorado, Chel gets Miguel and Tulio their ceremonial clothes for the celebration in their honor and then doesn't leave the room when they start undressing. Tulio notices this and promptly asks her if she minds, which she replies, "No." She eventually does leave, but not without taking a good long look at them first.
Real Life
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