I occasionally feel contempt for that attitude [degree of sexual desire towards me] when I perceive it, but maybe that's not fair. By our culture we've been taught who is most valued and who is not.

That's the difference between a real journal and one that's invented for a novel. A novel journal has to be manipulated so someone reading it can have enough comprehension, which means the person writing it would've had to have a sense of a someday-audience.

I always expected my work to be what was noticed, appreciated or what would eventually succeed, not my sexuality.

If sexuality is beginning in such a skewed way: that boys expect to receive sexual pleasure and girls are expected to give it without reciprocation, is that why young women, even unintentionally, turn to getting something else in return for sex? Whether it be popularity, career success, professional attention.

Everyone I know, men and women alike, would love to see the world changed so that boys and girls, men and women are valued equally for what we contribute, despite the differences in how our brains and bodies work.

I occasionally feel contempt for that attitude [degree of sexual desire towards me] when I perceive it, but maybe that's not fair. By our culture we've been taught who is most valued and who is not.

Culture and society determined sexual desirability as what makes us important so long that it's part of our sensibility from birth.Little girls know. From around 2 or 3, the pretty ones already know how and why they get attention. And how quickly they learn to play it. Use it. And how quickly the rest of us figure out we don't have it.