I’d say rather that the description says nothing about Bob’s generally-perceived attractiveness nor his attractiveness to Sally in particular.
What if Sally had described Bob with words like:
“Bob has a little dimple on his left cheek which gives him a slightly asymmetrical smile. Those black pants he always wears have a tiny hole on the back of his left thigh. His hair looks brown at first, but it’s really a shade of red.”
Maybe Bob respects women and is an ardent feminist, maybe he’s gay, maybe he’s an abusive jerk—we don’t know. But we get an idea of how he seems subjectively to Sally.
I guess it depends on whose voice the quote was in. If that was Sally talking about Bob to herself in her own thoughts, she doesn’t seem truly interested in him. However, I took it instead that the quote was in the voice of the original poster, describing a hypothetical from a somewhat (but not entirely) detached viewpoint.
That is how I intended it. I also didn’t intend for Sally to be very strongly attracted to Bob...the problem in the story is that her being mildly attracted to him is enough, initially, for her to go along with having sex with him because her explicit beliefs say that sex is casual fun...and yes I’ve heard people express this explicit belief before.
I’d say rather that the description says nothing about Bob’s generally-perceived attractiveness nor his attractiveness to Sally in particular.
What if Sally had described Bob with words like:
“Bob has a little dimple on his left cheek which gives him a slightly asymmetrical smile. Those black pants he always wears have a tiny hole on the back of his left thigh. His hair looks brown at first, but it’s really a shade of red.”
Maybe Bob respects women and is an ardent feminist, maybe he’s gay, maybe he’s an abusive jerk—we don’t know. But we get an idea of how he seems subjectively to Sally.
But this was all I at first considered. How Sally perceives him. Hence:
I’m sorry but Bob is a very unsexy sounding guy.
I guess it depends on whose voice the quote was in. If that was Sally talking about Bob to herself in her own thoughts, she doesn’t seem truly interested in him. However, I took it instead that the quote was in the voice of the original poster, describing a hypothetical from a somewhat (but not entirely) detached viewpoint.
That is how I intended it. I also didn’t intend for Sally to be very strongly attracted to Bob...the problem in the story is that her being mildly attracted to him is enough, initially, for her to go along with having sex with him because her explicit beliefs say that sex is casual fun...and yes I’ve heard people express this explicit belief before.