The story of the Attractive woman

PM, my so awesome and gorgeous best friend posted this on Facebook.

It talks to me on so many levels!

Apparently it also talks to most of the girls PM knows on Facebook. Which is a bit sad since none of them is actually un-attractive. Like, seriously, those girls are all either cutties of literally smocking hot.
And yet, apparently they all find themselves unattractive and when told the contrary, they doubt about the real intention of whoever made the compliment.
So what is it that pushes us all to feel so unattractive? What makes us think that there is no way someone could actually honestly think that we are attractive?
Well, as it happens, I am in that case.
I happen to be loved and complimented on a regular basis by someone I know loves me deeply and actually finds me attractive (I still don't know what is wrong with you, but never mind, it makes me happy) and yet, I can completely relate on this post.

I don't feel attractive. I don't feel sexy or sensual or anything of that sort.

I guess I'm pretty. It took me years to accept that and I still have a tendency to deny it and to doubt myself, but I made it, today is a good day and I think I am pretty.

But sexy? Attractive? Aha, no, I don't think so.

I've been having this discussion with my Twin quite often. We can't seem to find a decent definition of "being attractive", being "sexy". Is it the same thing? I'm not even sure.
All I know is that I'm not qualified for it.
And apparently no girl on Facebook (at least in my circles) does. None actually thinks she is attractive.

I think that's because none of us can actually relate to the image we've been given of the Attractive woman.

The attractive woman is tall, slim, with nice figures and a toned body. She is strong and confident. She has gorgeous hair and perfect skin, no matter its colour. She is effortlessly beautiful and carries an aura of confidence. She is both fatal and naïve, and never vulgar.
She inspires desire and admiration, without being limited at only being an object.

On the other side, here we are, us girls. looking at this ideal and then looking at ourselves. How can we relate on such an image of perfection.

In the mirror, here we are, with our not so perfect skin, our figures that are never the good ones, with our aura of "I should sleep more" and "Still wearing comfy pyjamas".
We consider ourselves to be girls. Not women.
We look at ourselves and at the idea we have of what it is to be a woman, and it doesn't click. We don't eat healthy, we don't do yoga, we don't have the perfect job and the perfect house and the effortless sense of style.
We are just us. Trying to do the things we love and to be ourselves. Trying to feel good in our own body and to be happy. We are trying to built our lives and to make the best of it.
And that doesn't really lead us to look like this idea we have of the Attractive woman. We are just us. We are struggling and we are doing our best. Sometimes we even make it: we feel good, and happy and confident in who we are and what we want to be and pretty, or even beautiful. But that doesn't add with this idea of "being attractive".

We don't feel attractive because if we tried to be attractive, it would be fake. Attractiveness is genuine and natural. We feel that should we try or work for it, it will be ridiculous, laughable. It will be too much. It will be fake and vulgar.

And more insidiously, if we try to be attractive, there is still the small voice of an entire society based on slut shaming that will murmur "you are calling for the wrong sort of attention".
Because trying to be sexy makes you a slut. And apparently, according to the good thinking society, its a terrible thing to be. A slut.

So we doubt. How could we, simple girls, be attractive? we don't have what it takes.

And with that comes the reactions. "but of course you are attractive!".
But no matter how often we are told, we don't feel it. we don't feel we deserve to be called such a thing that is to us, perfect and unreachable.
So we doubt and people will then point out that "girls are never happy with their bodies".
That's it.

Either we don't try to be and thus don't feel that we are cut in the right fabric to be "attractive". Because we are just ourselves.

So we don't believe it when people actually try to convince us we actually are, how could be believe it? We aren't perfect and we feel like frauds when people try to tell us otherwise and we end up labelled as "having issues"

But on the other side, if we work for it, if we try to inspire desire and to be sexy, we just feel like frauds and society tells us that this is not what a proper woman would do.

There is no way out of it.

So yeah, despite being told that I am attractive, by someone I know believes it, I don't feel it. I am just me. I look bad on pictures, I laugh too loudly, I am not delicate, I don't have the curvy silhouette and the aura of confidence and that Je-ne-sais-quoi that makes woman attractive. Hell, I'm not even a woman!

And I guess it says a lot about the issues we will carry until we finally break the idea that trying to be sexy is inappropriate and fake. Until we break the idea that the girl who is indeed looking for attention and to inspire desire is doing something wrong.
I guess it says a lot about how much girls will never feel like attractive women until we break the idea that there is a good and a bad way to be confident and that being confident about inspiring desire is dirty and makes a woman unworthy or less respectable.