I was thinking about this recently
Last fall I went to Youmacon cosplaying as female!America from Hetalia, who wears a rather revealing outfit (shorts and boots on bottom with a bikini top under an unbuttoned, crop-tied shirt.) On one of the days a few of my guy friends came to the con for the game tournament. They came to say hi to me as I was working in the game room, but they acted kind of uncomfortable when they saw me, like they didn't know where to look (granted this is very unusual for me to show so much skin, I usually cover up a lot more, and they hadn't known what my cosplay looked like before seeing me that day.)
About a week later I was having dinner in the college caf with one of them and he mentioned (not at all judgily) that he was surprised that I was dressed so skimpily because he never figured me as a girl who would be trying to get guys' attention like that, and I said that I wasn't trying to get guys to look at me, and he said "but you were showing so much, didn't you think you were going to get attention?" and I explained that, while I knew that showing so much skin would draw male attention, I wore the costume because I liked the character and her outfit; not that I was TRYING to get guys to look, but that I didn't CARE if they looked. He said "oh, okay, I can respect that," and we had a discussion about the different ways guys look at/show interest in girls they find attractive, and which of those ways are appropriate versus which make girls uncomfortable.
He seemed interested to know about that and was respectful about it, but it got me thinking about how our culture promotes the idea that women dress for men, not for themselves; not that they "should" so much as that they "do," so that guys are taught to just assume it. I think that a lot of the nonsense about "teases" and "friend zone" might stem from this, because guys are taught that women who dress sexy or pretty are doing it specifically to get their attention, and then when the women rebuff them they think the women are doing it on purpose. Obviously a decent man wouldn't consider this a reason to treat women badly; but it's such a prevalent idea in the culture that it's difficult to get away from.
About a week later I was having dinner in the college caf with one of them and he mentioned (not at all judgily) that he was surprised that I was dressed so skimpily because he never figured me as a girl who would be trying to get guys' attention like that, and I said that I wasn't trying to get guys to look at me, and he said "but you were showing so much, didn't you think you were going to get attention?" and I explained that, while I knew that showing so much skin would draw male attention, I wore the costume because I liked the character and her outfit; not that I was TRYING to get guys to look, but that I didn't CARE if they looked. He said "oh, okay, I can respect that," and we had a discussion about the different ways guys look at/show interest in girls they find attractive, and which of those ways are appropriate versus which make girls uncomfortable.
He seemed interested to know about that and was respectful about it, but it got me thinking about how our culture promotes the idea that women dress for men, not for themselves; not that they "should" so much as that they "do," so that guys are taught to just assume it. I think that a lot of the nonsense about "teases" and "friend zone" might stem from this, because guys are taught that women who dress sexy or pretty are doing it specifically to get their attention, and then when the women rebuff them they think the women are doing it on purpose. Obviously a decent man wouldn't consider this a reason to treat women badly; but it's such a prevalent idea in the culture that it's difficult to get away from.