Liability insurance
I think liability insurance should be issued to beautiful women. I am talking about external beauty here because this has been my experience of the world.
One night, a man asked to walk with me. So we walked, and he asked for a kiss at the end of it. What?
Stares and catcalls are common place in my world. Men who I don't know will often be super friendly towards me. I have learned to be polite and walk on, but at times it is a bit threatening.
Today, I sat down in an empty coffee shop, and a man sat down next to me, I said hello, and five minutes later he abruptly began and ended a conversation. Odd.
I can't tell you how many men have told me they'd be ok being friends with benefits with me. Recounting times men have been violent or violating towards me because I am beautiful and polite (some I said no, some I just said nothing. Silence doesn't equal consent. It's a survival mechanism.) would be painful.
Here's what I know to be true. I respect the men in my life who have wanted to get to know all of me, been ok with me saying no, and who have set strong boundaries with themselves about how they treat me. Being beautiful at times is painful because I get treated like a sex object, not a person. Some days, I wish I were ugly so I would know that whomever I am with wants me for the eternal part of myself. When other women are jealous or petty towards me for talking to their man (and I don't believe in stealing men, by the way. I have been the lady with the wandering spouse. That's the worst pain I have ever known.), it hurts and makes me feel bad for being myself.
I don't wish to get rid of my beauty. I just wish there was a way to educate people that just because someone is beautiful (or any other enviable quality) doesn't mean that it's all beautiful in their life. There's a curse with this blessing, and it's to be seen as a body and not a person. The culture doesn't help. But we're all responsible.
Maybe we could start by looking each person in the eye before we look them over. I don't really have a solution, just a desire for a safer world for all people.
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