I remember a boy at school saying I was ugly. I didn't know really what it meant. I knew it was bad becausea few others were laughing and pointing. I cried of course. I realized that ugly was the opposite of pretty. I had curly ( frizzy) brown hair that shined slightly red in the sun. Freckles. Looking back I was actually a typical adorable 5 year old tomboy with always bruised legs. I played rough being the only girl my age in the neighborhood. Of course this was early 80s, and the pretty girls were the ones with smooth clear skin. Tall, thin, and blonde. The opposite of me. When I went home crying after being teased, no one ever told me I was NOT ugly. I was told that it was nothing to cry over, ignore those boys, and if you don't stop crying you'll get something to cry about. And so then and for the next 30 years, I truly believed I was ugly. When anyone paid attention to me, I thought it was for a joke,and I waited for the blood. ( always a horror fan ) At some point,
Some slightly older boys decided to "teach" me how I would be able to get and please a husband someday, even though I was ugly. Because that is what women did, get married someday and have families. I won't go into details here but I am sure you can guess what those boys taught me over the next few years. Actually because we were all kids, I didn't know how wrong it was, at least until I was 9 and an adult fondled my newly developing boobs and gave me my first gynecologist experience. I should mention that he was not a doctor and he was just playing pretend with my cousin and me. We were sent to separate rooms just like at a real doctor office. I was too scared to tell.