Emily Ratajkowski says she faced immense pressure from family to 'hide' her sexuality growing up

We love you, you're perfect, now hide.

 

Model-turned-actress Emily Ratajkowski admits she faced immense pressure from family members and school administrators growing up to shield her good looks and suppress her sexuality to protect herself from the world.

"Teachers, friends, adults, boyfriends ... (they) were more often the ones to make me feel uncomfortable or guilty about my developing sexuality," she reveals in a highly personal essay on Lena Dunham's online "Lenny" newsletter.

 

The "Gone Girl" star, who says she developed D-cup breasts by age 12, recalls a concerned family member blatantly "sobbing" to her parents when she was only 13 because her outfit in a school play apparently caught the eye of some of the men in the audience.

Later that year, she says another family pulled her aside and warned her that she should "hide out" and "keep a low profile" as she grew into her body.

"Their comments felt much more personal and thus landed that much harder," Ratajkowski recalls. "I was still figuring out how to put a tampon in, never mind how to understand some of the more complicated aspects of womanhood."

Ratajkowski, 24, has a far different understanding of what it means to be sexual now. She says there's a colossal difference between being "sexy" and being "trashy" — even if society doesn't see the distinction.

 

"To me, 'sexy' is a kind of beauty, a kind of self-expression, one that is to be celebrated, one that is wonderfully female," Ratajkowski wrote.

"Why does the implication have to be that sex is a thing men get to take from women and women give up?" she continued. "Most adolescent women are introduced to 'sexy' women through porn or Photoshopped images of celebrities. Is that the only example of a sexual woman we will provide to the young women of our culture?"

Ratajkowski longer listens to the naysayers. As one of the world's most prominent models and a budding film star, the brunette beauty says she won't let the unwanted opinions of others bring her down.

 

"I refuse to live in this world of shame and silent apologies," she wrote. "Life cannot be dictated by the perceptions of others, and I wish the world had made it clear to me that people's reactions to my sexuality were not my problems, they were theirs."