[mtinkerhess]

The author was saying that the woman was attractive, particularly her skirt. It's not sexist to admit to finding someone attractive.

Give it a second reading if you didn't understand the connection between being a writer and the author's interpretation of the events:

> Others might get it for other reasons, but I got it because I am a writer. I knew the tropes and the cliches and the tired old lines. I was aware of how to create a role reversal in the "typical characters."

His point is that other people might experience the situation as "someone being creepy" and someone else intervening, but that he experienced and interpreted the situation differently: in a literary context, as a reversal of cliche roles.