Let Girls Be Girls, Let Women Be Women

The celebration of experienced women, as a proof that we are here.

Image: Lolita, 1962, a prime example of the fetishization of young girls.

This post is a way of my processing thoughts and traumas throughout the years along with a lot of research into the history of slutshaming and the highly valued concept of purity in women. 

I’d made it a point to count how many boys I’d kissed to prove I wasn’t a slut. By the time i was 17, I could proudly reply, “2,” while most of my friends had lost count. Growing up in an environment that compared women to used cars, objectifying us beyond recognition, made me believe my worth could be tainted by a mere boy’s chapped lips.

Human beings do have an effect on each other, don’t get me wrong. Our actions towards each other always mean more than we’d like or intend. But none of our firsts ever scratch us like a reckless car owner, ever reduce our worth, and it’s frankly dehumanizing to assume so. Why should my value be diminished based upon child/teenhood acts, especially such an innocent act as a kiss? 

I have a tendency of living in extremes. This means that after my last high school boyfriend and I broke up over the phone, I immediately threw away my so-called kissing standards and pledged allegiance to a year of romantic nihilism. Whenever I was, or wasn’t, asked to be kissed, I didn’t care enough to say no. At times, when I lacked an answer, it was taken as a yes. Where I’d once kept tallies, I no longer cared enough to keep track. Nothing and no one mattered to me anymore, especially not romantically.

Although now I hold an extreme value to any romantic notions and in my personal relationship, as I’ve thankfully healed and matured since then, I learned a lot through this phase in my 18th year. Like for one, I broke through my own misconceptions on the value of women concerning these romantic relationships, and did my own deep dive into where these misconceptions came from.

There’s a reason why the media has encouraged and valued “innocence” and “purity”. There’s also a reason why it encourages hairless women, as well as tiny women with unrealistic body types. These happen to be the same reason. It all stems back to a harsher reality than one might initially expect: pedophilia. 

It doesn’t take much research to find out that the patriarchal concept of femininity comes from a place of wanting younger and younger girls. This is no secret. Hollywood makes it very clear that it looks down upon older bodies, makes even young adult women like myself crave the body we had when we were 14 or 16, tries to make us believe that we are unnatural. Take Leonardo DiCaprio and his early-20s girlfriends, younger as he gets older. Take boys being praised for their experiences while simultaneously being taught not to be with “used” women, validating them because “boys will be boys.” Take only 30 year old models being forced to take a backseat while 13 year olds take their place.  Fetishizing innocence to the extent that society has for years has taken on the form of a predatorial behavior towards inexperienced girls, preying on their naiveness, and then looking down upon them, laughing at them, once inevitably taken advantage of. 

I say all of this from the perspective of a woman who has lived through this unfortunate actuality, as have most women, and I say this to express my deep concern for the daughter I one day wish to have. It’s saddening that I need to mention a nonexistent potential lifeform to gain validity in some individual’s hearts, but at the same time I say this it’s a true concern of mine. I believe that every child deserves to be childlike, naive, pure, without worrying of maintaining this as they develop into their teen and young adult years. I want to know that my daughter will not be preyed upon by curious and reckless boys as I was at 15, I want to rest in comfort that she can relax in her childlike naivety as long as she deserves without having her world shaken, but the truth is that if girls do not somewhat harden themselves, the world will unavoidably harden us. If I do not prepare her for the harshness of reality, for the disappoint she will find in media and uneducated individuals, I will be unable to protect her. I do not want to shelter my daughter; I want her to live and experience life for herself, as I had the opportunity to as well. But I know how much it will hurt myself and her that some of these experiences will break her, not only because the world is cruel, but because of the objectification and patriarchal views I know she will inevitably face.  

I don’t yet know how I’ll raise my future children. I’m only 20, and I don’t plan on getting even close to having kids for a long time. But in expressing my worry for my nonexistent daughter, I can process what I myself have gone through concerning this topic. I have been used. I have been scarred. I have been taken advantage of. And I blamed myself. I thought I had been tainted by my own accord. And then, through an act of rebellion, I attempted to ruin myself more. In the end, these are my findings:

I came out of my romantic nihilism rebellion unscathed. I have had trauma to process, but I am not your goddamn used car. I am not scratched or chipped and I am not worth less. Femininity is beautiful, naivety and purity in young women is a beautiful thing, but it has been tainted beyond comprehension and fetishized beyond belief. I am knowledgeable and experienced and older. I have stretch marks and armpit hair and big thighs. And this is also to be celebrated. 

If you take anything from this, take this: Let young girls be young girls. Let them play and laugh and enjoy their childhoods. And likewise, let us grow out of this naivety; let women be women. Let us grow older. Let us go through our experiences unashamed, kiss people and grow our stretch marks and body hair, and let us be loved.