Something interesting I noticed as I look at Dira's story and your reader's reactions to it is that there is a lot of emphasis on Dira being young and beautiful and that she has a right to explore her sexuality.
I honestly find that baffling. Not because I don't support it, but because Dira and I are in the same age bracket and that was never really presented as an option for me.
'Exploring your sexuality' or being 'carefree' was something others did, but if you did it, you were on a one way trip to single motherhood or being murdered or something.
For me, someone who is similar to Dira in age, but completely different in terms of lifestyle and love life, it seems like there is a mismatch between what is accepted and glorified in media, and what people feel in real life. I have friends and peers that bounce from hookups to situationships and are quick to encourage it but seem so lonely or unfulfilled. Some young people casually hook up because they're told it's a revolutionary act of liberation, only to find that their hearts aren't wired for it.
But the opposite can be just as confining. There is this scarcity mindset of 'good men' being hard to find, so for a lot of girls it feels like if you find one that likes you and doesn't want to hurt you, why wouldn't you pick him?
I don't know, this just made me think of my own views and my relationship with myself, age, and sexuality because I realized I've never seen a girl like Dira have a good ending or truly enjoy the lifestyle of everything being casual.
People say girls just want to have fun, but girls having fun is so often the start to a damn cautionary tale. This story has really given me some things to sit with and think about.
The most important piece is that you and others and we are sitting with your own ideologies, our own biases, our own interpretations and evaluating them while willing to be wrong.
Dira is a fictional character but she's out there and she's living carefree with no strings attached. It was mentioned (finally) yesterday how societal conditioning works in a patriarchal society. Even women don't believe women are capable of the life Dira is living.
You mentioned how opposite even YOU are, and you mentioned it twice. I'm going to assume you don't sleep with multiple partners, get flown to the jungle and might even be settled or with a lasting partner. You said your friend who is sleeping around and living carefree seems lonely.
Why does she seem lonely to you? Does she seem lonely or are you judging her lifestyle because you've been conditioned to believe that what is "right" is your situation and not hers?
I don't accept the patriarchy. In fact, I wish to smash it. I want to write Black women and girls who do wtf they want to do without judgement but with care and with love. I want to write situations that they grow and learn from that challenges them. I want you to see them as people we know; our sisters, aunts, cousins, mothers, friends, lovers. People we relate to. So that they are familiar for you. Makes it so much easier to sit with and unpack behaviors we refuse to normalize.
Lastly, women have only ever been in danger for doing what tf we want because of the actions of men. This is why we choose bears.
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