When I was very small, my grandmother gave me an apple. I was not to eat it, ever, because it was poisoned. But it was so beautiful to look at! It became my most treasured item.

I was always a feminine child, in the traditional sense. I was tender, shy. I didn’t understand ball games, and most insects frightened me. My favourite toys were three porcelain dolls with curly hair and pretty dresses. But under their clothes they were just dummies, with no belly buttons and nothing between their legs.

I loved everything pink. But grown women don’t get to love pink, or dolls, or ribbons. Pink is immature and stupid. We turn our backs to it; we laugh gently in lukewarm recognition of the times when it was still important to like pink, to shout our girlyness to the world.

Now remember honey, whatever you do, don’t ever eat the apple! You’re only allowed to look at it. Keep it safe and everything will be all right.

When I was ten, my favourite auntie gave me a new kind of doll. It had long hair and pretty dresses like the other ones, but underneath its clothes it was almost like a real woman, with two round breasts and two little butt cheeks. On the front though, nothing.

I had a boy doll too with a little weenie, just like my baby cousin. But what I had between my legs wasn’t a dangling thing to be proudly waved at the world. It was too scary and powerful to be put on any toy. Such was the power it held that most people I knew didn’t even want to call it by its name. But I loved it for what it was and for what it gave me, just like I loved pink.

My big brothers taunted me for my shyness, and my uncle liked to walk naked past my room. I grew up fearing and loathing men.

I never felt shame for myself, but it wasn’t for the lack of other people trying.

As I grew older, I realized that it was essential to wear a mask, to hide my true self. Other people couldn’t be trusted to handle the real me. I was too raw, too vulnerable. Other people don’t really want to see you for what you are, they just want a reflective surface where they can see what they best like about themselves. So, I constructed a new face, something in my own likeness but more beautiful, and much fiercer.

I was such a good girl at first. For years, I was content to just look at the apple. I kept it in its hiding place, in a cardboard box in the back of my closet. Sometimes I would take the box out, open the lid and look at the apple. Its skin was so smooth and shiny. It was perfectly round and red, quite unlike any other apple I’d ever seen.

As I grew older, I started to have a sudden urge to go and touch the apple. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I was usually a conscientious student, but on days like these I would just fidget in my chair in school, unable to concentrate on anything the teacher said. In the afternoon I’d rush back home, lock my door and take the box out of its hiding place. I’d open the lid and look at the apple, so tempting in its red silken sheen. I’d place my finger on it very carefully. Nothing would happen, so I’d take the apple in my hand, gently, and stroke it. Sometimes I’d even press it to my cheek, or my chest, or between my legs, to see how it felt there.

And I know I promised. I know I wasn’t supposed to. But it felt so right. Can it really be wrong if it feels right? The apple smelled so good, and I really wanted to know if it tasted the same.

At first, I just licked it. Just a little, just with the tip of my tongue. But the apple’s skin didn’t really taste that much, and I knew that to get to the juice I’d have to use my teeth to break the skin. So, cautiously, I took a bite. And it tasted like everything and it was like nothing I had ever tasted before.

Sorry, mom. I’m not sure what happened. I want to go back, but I know I can’t anymore. I had no choice, and somehow I think that it was never up to me anyway.

I never wanted anything more than to be beautiful. But you aren’t allowed to say that. It’s a bit like saying pink is your favourite colour. Only serious people will be taken seriously.

You ought to be ashamed of yourself.