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  1. She loves being looked at.
  2. She loves looking at her.

Is there any significant difference between sentences 1 and 2? or Do they sound similar?

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    They mean completely different things. What is it you are trying to express?
    – choster
    Commented Oct 21, 2014 at 5:10
  • Does first sentence mean 'she loves when someone looks at her'
    – Dinusha
    Commented Oct 21, 2014 at 5:24
  • Yes, that is what it means. The second one doesn't make any sense, unless you add an object - 'She likes looking at her flowers'.
    – Damien H
    Commented Oct 21, 2014 at 5:50
  • @DamienH It makes sense if she and her refer to different people. Suzanne hates talking to Roberta, but she loves looking at her.
    – choster
    Commented Oct 21, 2014 at 6:15
  • @DamienH: The second one makes perfect sense in context. Mary adores her daughter; she loves looking at her.
    – oerkelens
    Commented Oct 21, 2014 at 6:16

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Let's clear up some confusion, and give our "she" a name. Let's call her Alice.

Alice loves being looked at.

This means that Alice loves it when Bob looks at Alice.

Alice loves looking at her.

Here, "her" is a different person, let's call her Mary:

Alice loves looking at Mary.

So Alice loves it when Alice looks at Mary.

The main difference between the two sentence is that in the first one, Alice is the one that people look at. In the second sentence, Alice does the looking.

Now, it is of course possible that we want to say this:

Alice loves looking at Alice.

Now, simply referring to Alice with her is confusing, because it will be understood as I explained above. We need to put some emphasis on the fact that the second Alice is the same person as the first Alice.

Luckily, that is easy: we just add self:

Alice loves looking at herself.

And indeed, this works even if we drop the name completely:

She loves looking at herself.

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  • "Alice loves looking at her" Here,Can't "her" be Alice?.like, "Alice loves looking at Alice (by someone)"
    – Dinusha
    Commented Oct 21, 2014 at 6:59
  • @Dinusha: no, her will always be read as "Mary". Herself will refer to Alice, I added that case to my answer :)
    – oerkelens
    Commented Oct 21, 2014 at 7:39
  • For the OP's benefit: the various forms of the reflexive pronouns are: Myself. Yourself. Yourselves. Herself. Himself. Itself. Themselves.
    – TimR
    Commented Oct 21, 2014 at 13:31

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