Why girls are lovely

Yesterday, I was given a homework assignment: to write 400 words on why girls are lovely. However, there are a lot of reasons I like girls, and I ended up sending her 402 words. I am very sorry, and would like to apologise the extremely cute, occasionally-dominant girl who set me the task for disobeying her instructions.

Girls are lovely; girls are beautiful. I walk down the street and form half a dozen crushes in half a minute. Do I want to be you or kiss you? I wonder as I see a girl in Dr. Martens, a girl with freckles, a girl wearing a dinosaur dress and a cute, possibly-kink-flagging collar. Ok, yes – I want to kiss the last of those, or at least see if she’d like to get some food and talk about… well, quite frankly anything under the sun, because girls are wonderful. (Also, because I can look at her pretty face and her tempting lips.)

I often ask myself why I fall in love, just a little bit, with every second girl I see, while it takes me a while to find guys attractive: I have to fall for their minds before I see their bodies. I suppose it’s the same with girls on some level, but also girls are pretty. They’re pretty with their hair, long or short, curly or straight, princess-like or possibly-lesbian. They’re pretty with their make-up, be that a carefully mastered art, a smudge of eyeliner, or clear-faced bravery. They’re pretty because of the choices they make with their clothes, revealing a little about who they are to the world, and allowing me to imagine a little about them in the thirty seconds when I fall slightly in love. I know I use the word “pretty” wrong in this context: I think what I really mean is ‘fascinating,’ so familiar yet so alien all at once, every one of them a potential friend (or even a friend who I fuck).

A friend once told me that she thought I might be gay just to be difficult, to be different, and while I hated myself for the fact she might be right, I don’t think she is. I am proud of being queer, and in some ways, I think I would feel more comfortable if I could identify as a lesbian rather than bisexual, but I feel some of that is down to internalised misogyny that I’m working on. Even when I was scared of my own body, though, I wanted to explore other girls’ and bring them pleasure. Girls, with their curves and cheeks and rolls and dimples and tits and squishiness, are gorgeous. They’re a story I want to keep reading, because girls are bold and bright and beautiful.

Quinn Rhodes

Quinn Rhodes (he/him) is a freelance journalist, sex writer, and professional transsexual. His work focuses on dismantling shame and queering sex.