Dear Thiago, let me tell you what it is like to be a pretty woman

You told me once that you were happy you were born a man. You would be better off as a woman—the world would be easier, and you would have more. But you worry about what having all this uncontrolled power would do to you. You would manipulate. You would coerce. You would use your sexuality to get things. I think that says more about the sort of women you interact with—the women you are attracted to—than women in general. You say you want to be a beautiful woman?

When I turned 22, every single man in my life decided it is a good idea to try to sleep with me. And to some of these men, I said yes. To others, I said no, but I said yes to freely and without knowing what I was doing. I thought that sex had the same transcendental meaning to them as it did me. I thought that if they wanted it very badly, then it must mean something to them. Why else would they plead so much? I thought that I was giving them a beautiful gift they wanted very badly, that only I could give him. I thought that I was spreading joy and beauty into the world with my body. When I heard that a man I once knew killed himself—I wondered—if I had slept with him, would he still be alive? You talk about the power of women, and I call you deluded. But your fantasy delusions do not run as deep as my real ones did. I thought that my tits and ass could bring a man back from the grave.

I learned fairly quickly, within a year, that this was not the truth. Sex was not what I thought it was. The men did not have the same transcendent view of sex I did. They did not live for their orgasms—they merely wanted them. I was not giving them a beautiful favor, but inadvertently training them to treat me, and other women, with less gentleness as they deserve.

“Do not worry so much. This is fun.” “I try to find intimacy, wherever I can.” What they are really saying to me is that my boundary does not matter so much. He wants to make something nice—why can’t I be on board? It took me a long time to figure this out—but I figured it out. The problem was not that I do not want nice things—it is that “nice” to me means something much different than it does to him. “Nice” to me is a much greater form of nice. Did you not hear about my desire for transcendent beauty? It is clear to me now that we were not on the same page. But back then, they were so insistent. So seemingly enamored—possibly even in love!—that I wanted to give my gift to them in this way.

Men who do not have much sex—out of no choice of their own—decide that women must be incredibly happy. Women can have all the sex they want. They think that casual sex is something they should have a right to, but do not, and women who have casual sex are feasting on a delicious fruit that only they have access to because of their gender. But this bountiful garden is not filled with delicious fruits. It is filled with poison. I remember the men I did not sleep with—the men I said no to, who were very insistent but who I had almost forgotten. If I had slept with them, what would have happened? Anything good? No…nothing good would have happened, for them nor for me. They would not have even remembered me, just as today, I strain to remember them.

This is something they do not tell you about sex. How it messes with your memories. How it messes with your conception of time and continuity. How you find yourself in the deepest intimacy with a man—but then you try to forget. You do not want to remember.

It is very destabilizing. To be wanted fiercely for your beauty. To have people obsess over you. And then drop you once they get to know you, and they realize they do not want you anymore. It is not traumatic, per se. But it is very destabilizing. It makes you not be sure what is true, what is not true. What is real and not real. What your identity is—how do people see you?

Sometimes I would go out and intentionally make myself unattractive. I did not want to be seen. I did not want anybody to look at me. I do not want the attention!

At some point I realized, if you are born with a superpower, you cannot hide it forever. You cannot let it control you, such that it might as well be a curse. You need to make the best use of what you have. Just as you cannot drink your nights away if you have a sharp mind, hoping to dull yourself into the blindness of things you wish you did not see—you cannot force yourself into ugliness, intentionally, and live in fear of the emotions other people feel for you.

Why do you think I write, under anonymity here? Like an ugly cretin, hobbled up in a cave or a basement. Why do you think I do this? Why do you think I do not show myself off to people?

I have been hurt too many times! And I do not want to do it anymore! I do not want people to look at me like they own me—all under the illusion of normalcy!

But I am coming out of my cave. Why would you want to live a cursed life? Tell me, what is there to gain, to live a life in pain like this? No…hiding is not the answer. The hiding is not where I will find what I was looking for the entire time: Transcendent beauty. But in my hiding, for some time, I may find myself again, and that is where I will seek consolation now.