There Was a Little Girl by Brooke Shields

Author:Brooke Shields
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2015-03-19T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

America’s Sweetheart

During the years I was at Princeton, even though I worked very little, the press remained interested in everything from my class schedule to my romantic life. Ever since Pretty Baby I’d been the subject of all sorts of speculation—much of it unfair—and I don’t think my mom reacted to the press in a systematic way, especially in regard to my sexuality and potential romantic relationships. Did she try to actively change my image from Pretty Baby and Calvin Klein model to an America’s sweetheart saving her virginity until her wedding night? I don’t think so.

The most poignant part of all was how disassociated I was with my own body. As a model, I was primarily a cover girl. I was labeled “The ’80s Look” by Time magazine. People said I had the most beautiful face in the world.

Well, that seemed ridiculous to me. It didn’t register as true. “Most beautiful” was an arbitrary concept and I was afraid to buy into it. Because I shot cover after cover and never did runway, I simply avoided ever really thinking about my body and consequently my sexuality. I was a face first and I knew how to work that face according to the demand. I’d be shooting a cover for Vogue, and underneath the table I’d be wearing jeans and Top-Siders. I thought about my persona as existing only from the neck up. It was as if I was disconnected from my body from the neck down. So when I became the most celebrated virgin of our time it became even easier to not think about my body.

All my life, I’d been terrified of physical contact with boys. Perhaps it was because of the closeness and easy affection I shared with my mother; I didn’t feel a void or a need for affection from boys.

I believe my mom wanted me to stay a virgin for as long as possible. I think she wanted to keep me her baby. I have to be honest: I’m a mother myself now, and I get it. I look at my girls and want them to be my delicious babies forever. I want to create designer chastity belts! The thought of them losing their virginity makes me cringe. Even the thought of them not letting me kiss them on their little rosebud lips makes me cry. I also hope and pray that their first experience is about love and trust and that they are not at all traumatized but feel free and safe.

When my mother did talk to me about sex growing up, it was brief and she didn’t have to play the bad guy. She was raising me Catholic and it was the church that preached the sanctity of virginity and waiting till marriage. She was just the messenger. I also was so genuinely naïve and was kept so protected by my mother—Rapunzel in the tower—that intimacy with anybody seemed out of the question. I just didn’t want to deal with any of it.

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