“She understands: from a certain perspective, of course such a lovely girl would be compelled to play-act fake birthday parties with lonely men twice her age or to film herself dancing in cowboy boots on a porch in Iowa.”

This piece generally and this sentence specifically is one of the smartest things I have read about being a Girl (and I have read a lot about the subject recently, most of it quite smart!) It pinpoints perfectly the way in which prettiness can become its own prerogative, a thing that surrounds and precedes you in public, that you feel compelled to dress up to, live up to, live in service of. Your face fits some cultural notion; you have this prettiness but it never seems inherent or personal, and it isn’t real unless someone is looking at it and admiring it. So you offer it up to inappropriate people in reckless ways because there isn’t anything else to do with it; it’s a power that you can’t wield on your own, and whenever they look at you, admiring and desirous, you feel it in your good girl bones: it would be selfish, really, a shame to waste this prettiness on my self.

theparisreview:

Strangers