Driving through Cronulla the other day I found myself rubber-necking as I passed a supermodel surfer towelling off at his car. It was impossible not to look.

Most of the time a little look here or a bit of a perve there is harmless and completely OK. But I've noticed a severe lack of subtlety lately with some of the younger boys out there.

I'm not sure if they are aware of how obvious their perving is or if they simply just don't care but when a guy nearly gives himself whiplash to have another look at you when he walks past it's kind of hilarious.

There's nothing new about guys jeering and calling out to girls. I've always been curious, though ...what do they expect us to do?

When you're driving in your car and a guy pulls up next to you and starts being suggestive, what does he think is going to happen?

Does he think there's a chance that I'll pull over and take my top off and ask him to go for it right there on the side of the road?

Does he think I'll throw my phone number through the window at him?

I don't think so. I don't think he's actually thinking at all. He's just perving and taking it a little too far.

Perving is great fun and there's nothing wrong with a little bit of "window shopping''. Girls will even perve on other girls, admiring their beauty or great fashion sense.

People in a relationship can get away with a bit of perving as long as they remember the "look but don't touch'' rule and don't do it too obviously in front of their partner.

And what about perving that leads to flirting?

I was at a gig at The Brass Monkey the other night and started flirting with this cute guy. He had that bad boy look about him, not the kind of guy you'd take home to meet your parents. It was all fun and games for a while, a glance here, a smile there. But when he started looking at me more than the musician on stage, I started to get a little worried.

I'm all for fun flirting but staring is not flirting. It's out-of-control perving and really very unnerving.

We live in a beautiful part of Sydney with an incredibly high proportion of beautiful people. I'm not saying we should stop looking at them but some subtlety and style when perving and flirting might actually get you much further than walking past a girl and stopping right in front of her, looking her up and down and exclaiming: "God! She's hot!'' That's

not going to get you anywhere.

JD