It was with some degree of embarrassment that I realised I have been looking at women's breasts (fully clothed, of course) over the past few months. It took me a bit of time to realise why, though: I was simply trying to figure out if they were women, and not men. Because it was the only way I could figure it out.

Some explanation now.

Women's and men's fashion in this country is at a stage I do not understand very well. (It's a different matter, perhaps, that I do not understand fashion very well in the first place.) So, I am a little tired, for instance, of looking at men's underwear showing above their jeans' waistline - and this is not like a peek-a-boo thing, where only a hint of the Jockey's is showing; this is a good 3-4 inches of all sorts of checks, stripes, polka dots, pink (!!) stuff being flaunted. The jeans of course hang precariously half-way down the butt and I am yet to find out how (or, to what) exactly they hold on.

But, back to the boob-staring. Let me give an example. I was walking along on a sunny day, when someone walked past me, and then ahead of me. I didn't pay much attention, but I saw she was really thin, tall, wore a pair of indigo blue denims, and a long-ish dark sweater. Her light blonde hair was in a loose, small ponytail. A little way ahead, I saw she had stopped for a smoke, the cigarette loosely hanging between her fingers. I noticed she had on a pair of moccasins that I would love to have in my own size. I even contemplated asking her where she got them from. (I love moccasins, and they almost always are for men and are never available in my size.) But I walked on. At a pedestrian crossing, I stopped and she, too, walked up. I looked at her again, this time at her face, only to realise, with a slight shock, that she may not be a she, but a he. Quick check: No, no boobs. Hence, he.

That would explain the moccasins.

Now, the other end of the spectrum.

I was loitering in a library largely populated by undergrads. Lots of new summer clothes and hairstyles. Lots of chatter over assignments and exams. In walked a young guy - or, wait a minute, girl? Hair cropped short in a 1970s' way (very smart and sexy), narrow, tapering jeans, brogues, denim jacket, short shirt, crossed satchel. Overall: Very trendy. But even after repeated glances, I could not make out if it was a girl or smooth-faced guy. Quick check: Yes, has boobs. Hence, girl.

And this has happened repeatedly, because it seems that this particular look has caught on.

**

I am not someone who stands in a queue and decides that the pony-tailed person in front of me has to be a woman. That the length of hair has anything to do with a person's gender is something I have not believed in my adult life. In fact, I have had quite a few arguments where I have aggressively supported the idea of men sporting long hair. (The crux of the argument is that the concept of men having short hair is a very recent phenomenon, and if you look back even a little more than a hundred years, you will see men - across nations - having longer, shoulder length hair. Also, if women have been cutting their hair short, why can't men keep it long?) So, the presence of long hair is not an indication of reduced masculinity, nor is the absence of long hair an indication of reduced femininity.

But the fashion examples that I mentioned have made me rather confused about what I think. I have grown up wearing jeans and my brother's clothes. The only skirt I had as a child and teen was my school uniform. I cringe at pink, frills, flowery prints, lace, bows, bling, and the likes. And yet, I would definitely not like to be taken for a guy by what I wear.

I think men's clothes in general lack imagination and colour and I almost feel sorry for them for their highly curtailed choice. And yet, I don't like the idea of a man who I cannot distinguish from a woman. That man walking beside me, who I mistook for a woman, looked like a woman not because of his hair or clothes... but because of the way he was built, the way he walked, the way his arms swung beside him, the way he held his cigarette. Maybe he was effeminate. But there have been more examples, and explaining them all by calling them effeminate is too simplistic.

So, although I quite hate the fact that almost all the women's clothes you find in shops today are painfully feminine, I don't like the idea, either, of women looking like men (and the other way round). Is there a contradiction there? I don't know.

All I do know is, I wish I didn't have to look for breasts to determine if the person in front is a man or woman.