Model, actress, and undoubtably one of the most aesthetically-pleasing humans to grace this earth Emily Ratajkowski has penned a powerful essay for Lena Dunham‘s feminist newsletter Lenny about sexual shaming and women owning their own damn sexual nature.
Out today in the newsletter – although you can read it online in full – the piece is largely a reflection on what it was like to grow up as the pre- and pubescent incarnation of someone who would one-day become one of the world’s sexiest women.
At 12, she had D-cups. At 13, her ridiculous good-looks prompted family friends to tell her to protect herself, keep a low profile, and literally hide away from the world. And at 15, when she started modelling, the same adults who were worried about her working in a ‘sleazy’ industry were the same ones shaming her about her “developing sexuality.”
She writes: “I was still figuring out how to put a tampon in, never mind how to understand some of the more complicated aspects of womanhood, and all these kinds of interactions made me feel like I was missing something about the world.”
Em Rata, to go by her usefully-shortened Insta name, goes on to talk about about how sexuality should can so often be used to own the woman, rather than the other way around.
“The implication is that to be sexual is to be trashy because being sexy means playing into men’s desires,” she writes. “To me, ‘sexy’ is a kind of beauty, a kind of self-expression, one that is to be celebrated, one that is wonderfully female.”
It comes just days after she spoke to the New York Times about how women perceived to be ‘sex symbols’ are also perceived to be nothing else, with society essentially telling them that if they own their sexual nature, then they forfeit the right to own anything else.
“I think if you are a public figure, you have a responsibility to say something for a cause you believe in,” she said, after she publically supported Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders at his New Hampshire rally.
“It’s incredibly frustrating that society somehow feels that women can’t manage to be political, feminist and a sex symbol.”
Have a read of her full Lenny essay here: http://www.lennyletter.com/life/a265/baby-woman-emily-ratajkowski/
Source: Lenny.
Image: Instagram.
