Hah, I forgot that editing a typo in the original post would make this repost to people's flists. :-P

And yeah -- it's the lack of respect that grinds. Denna isn't an agent in the story, not as presented by Kvothe; she's an object of adoration for the passive quality of her beauty. I don't recall a single moment in the story where I believe that Kvothe wishes he were anything like the women around them, because none of them have qualities he lacks and wants to emulate. Which, again, could be an unreliable narrator . . . but the text does a bad job of signaling that.