Although I didn’t realise it at the time, my first attraction to a girl was also my first attraction to being a girl.
It is strange that I still remember after all this time, but maybe that’s the nature of significant moments in our lives.
It was 1986 and I was eleven. It was the summer between primary school and senior school and we were on our family holiday on the Isle of Wight.
I had sort of fancied girls who I thought were nice or pretty or whatever, but only in a childish innocent way. I guess playing at the idea of something without any real concept of what it really means. Up until this point, I had never properly fancied anyone in that way. I didn’t even know how!
This holiday was just like our previous holidays. We had been to this place before, stayed at the same accommodation and played on the same beach.
The beach was brilliant there. A little stream trickled down from the cliffs and ran over the sand to the sea. All of the kids would take their buckets and spades and spend hours building sand dams to stop the water, which required constant maintenance as they pools behind them filled up and overflowed, breaching the sand and triggering a flurry of excited digging, piling in more sand to stem the breach. Hours of fun and I loved it. This year, the plan was the same: spend all day at the beach, playing in the water and building dams. Or playing frisbee, rowing inflatables in the sea, proper British seaside fun. All the kids on the beach would play together, with the older ones looking out for younger siblings. Parents largely left kids to their own devices in those days and sat behind windbreaks reading or doing puzzle books. We only returned to them for food and the daily ice cream run.
The group of kids playing together that week were a mixed bunch from all over and both boys and girls. There always had been both and it had never been something I had thought about in previous years.
This year was different. There were boys. And there were girls. And there was one particular girl who I took notice of. I don’t remember her name but I do remember how she looked. And I remember how that made me feel.
The girl was pretty, and she had shoulder length blonde hair, which she wore in a pony tail. Her skin was tanned, which we all were in the old days before people realised that the sun was harmful and smothered their kids in suncream from head to toe. We all ran around in swim wear fully exposed to the UV, no hats or t-shirts. For me, that was swimming trunks, no doubt very unattractive and unfashionable ones. For the girl, and in fact pretty much all girls back then, the one piece swimming costume. I don’t know when bikinis became the norm, but in the mid eighties, the one piece was the thing.
Some girls had colourful swimming costumes, or patterns or floral designs. Sometimes they had like little skirts at the waist for decoration.
This girl’s costume was just plain black, like the ones they had for school swimming lessons. Nothing pretty about it, low leg, high neck and back, square shoulders, no decoration, just functional and designed to cover up. The one thing that made her stand out though was that she wore a little pale green crop top over the top of her costume. I suppose I now realise she must have been beginning puberty and it was to cover her up and preserve her modesty. But at the time, I didn’t understand any of that. I didn’t even really understand what a crop top was, I thought it was just a very short sleeveless t-shirt. But somehow I found it appealing. I think it was the contrast of the pale colour over the plain black costume. Maybe I was aware of her more feminine shape. Whatever it was, the girl in the crop top was the first time I properly physically fancied someone and felt that kind of attraction. My first lust I suppose.
I certainly was attracted to this girl (I do wish I could remember her name), but that was not the only feeling I was discovering. I was curious to know how it felt wearing her swimsuit and the little crop top over. I don’t really know what swimsuits are made of, but it’s stretchy and clingy and the fabric is sort of shiny. I wondered how it felt to have this clingy material all over my body, clinging to my tummy, to Have it over my chest, and held in place over my shoulders. What does it feel like over my bottom, where it stretches and moves when she walks, how would that feel to me? And how different does it feel when it is wet or dry? What is it like to swim wearing a swimsuit and feel the water through it and inside it? And what about the crop top? Another clingy layer over my chest, how would that feel. Does she feel nice wearing it or is it in some way uncomfortable for her, whether physically or emotionally? Did she wear to cover up because she was embarrassed by how her body was changing or at least self-conscious about it? Was she scared of the changes and becoming a woman? Or was she excited to be growing up, proud of her new shape and sporting a crop top to show the world that she was growing up? What would it be like for me? What does it feel like to be her, to be a girl, to inhabit her female body and wear her girl’s swimsuit and crop top?
When I lay awake fantasising about her at night, I was thinking of both the girl and of being the girl. But maybe more the being her than about her.
At the time, I didn’t think that strange. I don’t know any other way of thinking about girls so to me, this is normal. I fancy them and want to be them. I didn’t know either that most males just want the girl, they don’t want to become the girl. And neither did I have any inkling that this is indicative of gender dysphoria. Why would I, to me, it was just my normal feeling towards girls.
Nothing happened with the girl, we just played together on the beach, had a nice holiday and never saw her again. Well, except in my head, where I can still picture her.
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