You're at a café with the woman in your life when your eyes move inexorably toward another woman walking by.

In one-fifth of a second, before the conscious mind has had a chance to react, the male brain has rendered judgment on whether the oncoming stranger is sexually hot.

If the ruling is favourable, physical manifestations are immediate.

Pupils dilate, heart rate spikes, testosterone surges and the eyes assume a vacant stare — sure signs that the “man trance” has set in.

For genetically preprogrammed men, the offence is as involuntary and natural as breathing, says brain researcher, neuropsychiatrist and author Louann Brizendine, whose book, The Male Brain, mounts a unique defence for such male indiscretions.

We are more visual, more driven to sexual pursuit and more predisposed to cheat than women, she writes.

The sexual pursuit area in the male brain is 2.5 times larger than the one in the female brain “consuming him with sexual fantasies about female body parts,” she concludes.

Consider the implications.

This amounts to conclusive physiological justification for the male practice of staring at female breasts.

“It's a reflex that's built into the brain circuits,” she said in an interview. “At its core biological basis, it's unfair to criticize men for that initial unconscious circuitry.”

In light of this, male ogling must henceforth be considered genetic destiny rather than anti-social creepiness.

“Listen, I'm not saying it's a cool thing to do, but I've done it,” says a 38-year-old pal named Mark. “It's like those movie dream sequences when everything goes into slow motion as some gorgeous stranger brushes her hair to one side and makes perfect eye contact. Who can look away from that?”

When we finally do look away, the experience fades quickly for men, Brizendine writes.

Man trances are fleeting moments of unconscious aesthetic appreciation that disappear from the mind as quickly as they emerge.

While our women fume for hours over our indiscretion, we've obliviously switched focus within moments to the ball game, where to go for nachos or internal debates over who would win in a fight between Batman and Spiderman.

This is another point of misunderstanding triggered by differing brain waves, says Brizendine.

What to us is a harmless moment surveying beauty — not unlike the way we might gaze at a wrist shot that picks the top corner — is, to our partners, an act of high treason.

But if the socially repulsive act of staring at beautiful women is actually an artifact of ancient DNA, surely the trance-induced man should get a little latitude, no?

Even criminal law acknowledges temporary insanity as an extenuating circumstance in the commission of grievous crimes.

Frankly, I think some apologies are in order.

“I tell women, cut the guy some slack,” says Brizendine. “He may cut you some slack for being moody during your PMS.”

In a counterintuitive twist, she says women whose men have healthy interest in curvaceous passers-by should feel relieved.

“It's good news for her because it means he's wired normally and has high enough testosterone to be a fertile male.”

I suggested this to several women who have made mental notes in the past of men in their lives who had the audacity to notice, however briefly, the physical enchantments of other women.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

I received the following responses.

“Oh, get over yourselves. This is a desperate, pathetic attempt to justify rudeness and disrespect,” said one with eyes rolling.

This was the most sympathetic of the rebuttals. The others were liberally peppered with profanities.

“Give me a *&%$# break,” came the response from a particularly sharp elbowed 30-something who spat out her response with cringe-inducing shrillness. “So you guys figure it's cool for you to stare at hot women and expect your girlfriends and wives to laugh it off, give you a high five and join in the fantasy?”

Asked if that were entirely out of the question, the response was swift.

“You're pathetic.”

That word again.

In short, gentlemen, no female expressions of regret are forthcoming.

But probe the outrage a bit.

Is this white hot intensity really just about a random glance here and there?

“This issue pricks a pin into that horribly sensitive spot for women of being compared negatively to that model image of femininity,” says Brizendine.

“Women feel competitive about their looks with other women. It's a very core, basic biology that our female brains are very threatened by other women that might out-compete us.”

The peace-seeking male, then, has only one option: To deny his hard-wired humanity and keep eyes focused at the ground at all times.

Best of luck with that.

When it fails, consider very dark sunglasses.

rcribb@thestar.ca