Teenage Goddess | Teen Ink

Teenage Goddess MAG

October 31, 2010
By Michelle-T BRONZE, Guangzhou, Other
Michelle-T BRONZE, Guangzhou, Other
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

I wonder what it's like to be a Teenage Goddess.

Maybe you have always been cute, bright, with beaming eyes mirroring the instant smiles and a cavalcade of comments on your beauty. It helps to have “pretty” as part of your description from the moment you're born. The preen you perfected at age eight, the smile that through trial-and-error you found to elicit the most coos, becomes downright nuclear once you enter junior high. But the magnetism of a Teenage Goddess comes mostly from the confidence that her beauty is an established fact.

Some, however, hit the jackpot late. Gawky arms, sharp cheekbones, prison-wall braces, and unfortunate hair that your mother says is sweet can isolate anyone. You look at the popular girls – articulate, clean, and wholesomely shining even without professional light technicians – and feel envy, maybe even resentment. I'll win, you think, by being nice or by working hard in school. Yes, I'll take the Hillary Clinton road to success, and I'll win!

But one day you wake up and see toned arms, a body with exotic geometric degrees, “Look, Ma, no cavities” teeth, and sexy messy locks framing your luminescent face. You have to agree, Hillary Clinton probably isn't in your mind at that moment.

Being plain as a child is different from being plain as an adolescent. Being plain as a kid is a disadvantage. Being plain as an adolescent is a failure. And Teenage Goddesses win on every front, because the new middle school currency is attractiveness to boys.

As in Shakespeare's plays, the men get to wrestle with ideas, whereas the women only get to wrestle with men. The closer a teenage girl's relations are with boys, the more popular she becomes – to a point. The Teenage Goddess is in the best position possible: she draws in all the boys other girls simply draw hearts around, luring them close, then throwing them out with a beautiful laugh. She does this often. To be attractive to boys but confident enough not to need them – this power is what instills respect or deference in others. In this era, the greatest tears are often shed when a girl finds herself sashaying to Mariah Carey alone.

The Teenage Goddess knows innately about this unfairness, the differences between the developed and developing bodies. Even if she doesn't care much for boys, she makes gender entanglement her top foreign policy. The first time a boy looks at her legs and his eyes turn black, she must feel icicles forming on her skin. He needs me, she deduces. Later on, this constant lingering of eyes almost exploding with hormonal desire gives her greater icicles that slide down her back, but now it feels good. This time she knows that a careful sidelong glance can extend these boys' infatuations. And the chorus of friends and classmates around her urge her on, because everyone innately defers to the Teenage Goddess. It's almost pathetic how rarely most teenage girls challenge the status quo. Adolescence kicks the independent child in the stomach and tells it to shut up.

Everything is exacerbated by the media. The Teenage Goddess rules the school and Madison Avenue. On the runways, the teaser trailers, the MTV Music Video Awards, she literally and figuratively has the largest smile. Not only do genetics dictate her as more likely to procreate, society elevates her onto a faux-Grecian pedestal, gives her all the auditions, and demonstrates adoration by bankrupting themselves trying to look like her. She must feel so honored.

There are only a handful of rules for the Teenage Goddess to follow. First, don't be “slutty.” Second, try to keep up with your studies so the brainiacs still pursuing the Hillary Clinton model won't be entitled to their self-righteous anger. (Ironically, Hillary was quite beautiful and yet only attained her power after becoming known as the wife of the most powerful man in the world – very Shakespearean.) And third, please, kill yourself at 25.

After we graduate and disperse throughout the world, we will inevitably wonder at some point what happened to the Teenage Goddess. If she became an entertainer, kudos to her, as Hollywood is the number-one cure for aging. Or she may have learned to wield her beauty as a scepter rather than a machine gun, and gathered enormous resources to last her through the deadening skin cells and increasingly flabby arms.

No matter. Teenage Goddesses are the truth, the way, airbrushed by the Lord Almighty. And for the rest of their lives, they will either be haunted by or glorified for those short years.

I still wonder what that's like.



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This article has 9 comments.


on Dec. 21 2013 at 1:22 am
fortheloveofwriting GOLD, A Place, Oklahoma
11 articles 13 photos 30 comments

Favorite Quote:
"Art washes from the soul the dust of everyday life."
~Pablo Picasso


Love is patient, love is kind; it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
1 Corinthians 13:4
A man's ways are his own, but the LORD weighs the heart.

This is such amazing work! Great job :)

on Mar. 2 2013 at 7:42 pm
DuchessSpeaks BRONZE, Hallandale Beach, Florida
2 articles 0 photos 2 comments

Favorite Quote:
"Charlie, we accept the love we thin we deserve." The Perks Of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Wow!! I really loved this article. I think you have done a really good job here. You are such a gifted writer.

on Nov. 28 2012 at 3:55 pm
I love this article! It really makes you think and realise how unfair life can be. And being a teenage goddess or the "Hilary Clinton" path aren't your only options. Make your own path, and be happy!

on Aug. 11 2012 at 9:22 pm
WritingReality BRONZE, Detroit, Michigan
2 articles 0 photos 8 comments
I know! Very well written, very smooth. Loved it! By the way, congradulations on making it into the mag! Keep writing! :)

KatsK DIAMOND said...
on Feb. 19 2012 at 5:40 pm
KatsK DIAMOND, Saint Paul, Minnesota
57 articles 0 photos 301 comments

Favorite Quote:
Being inexhaustible, life and nature are a constant stimulus for a creative mind.
~Hans Hofmann
You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.
~Ray Bradbury

I so agree, and great job! Interesting point :) (As a sidenote, why does nobody comment on articles published in the magazine? )

on Sep. 24 2011 at 3:13 pm
lzcelloplayer BRONZE, Wayland, Massachusetts
2 articles 0 photos 31 comments

Favorite Quote:
"It seems that we all look at Nature too much, and live with her too little." ~ Oscar Wilde

Wow! This is an amazing article, and very well written. I think that if you don't care what other people think of you, you can be stronger than these Teenage Goddesses. 

Bravo on the article! :D


on Sep. 13 2011 at 12:18 pm
Rocinante SILVER, Wexford, Pennsylvania
7 articles 1 photo 386 comments
I agree with bananapan. Great article!

on Sep. 11 2011 at 2:39 am
bananapan PLATINUM, Issaquah, Washington
21 articles 0 photos 7 comments

Favorite Quote:
We too, are stardust.

Your article is really well written! The descriptions are smooth, clever, and pretty vivid. Nice job, and congrats on getting into the mag!

LuciaB. BRONZE said...
on Sep. 2 2011 at 11:55 am
LuciaB. BRONZE, Powhatan, Virginia
1 article 0 photos 4 comments

Favorite Quote:
“She came below the lamp to stand beside him, and it was as if the sky were a thunder-cracked mirror, for the rain fell between them like a curtain of splintered glass.”-Truman Capote

This was so amazing. I can so relate to this. I wonder about this all the time. Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1