Don't call me sexy

When I was 14 and had just moved to Canada, I had a shocking experience. While enduring my daily harassment on the bus to school, I heard 2 words that had never been uttered in my direction before that day: "You're sexy." It took me a good couple of minutes to process what had just been said. I was 14 and the new kid with braces, baggy jeans, grown-out highlights, and a funny accent. In my mind, I was anything BUT sexy. Afterwards, I was extremely flattered and took it as the highest of compliments. At 14 I WANTED to be looked upon as "sexy" and kept that same goal for the next few years afterwards. After all, one of my favorite movies at the time was Playing By Heart (still is) and I looked upon Angelina Jolie's character as the ultimate in what I wanted to be when I got older. She went out dancing at clubs all the time, wore super cool (tight) clothes, fun makeup, and oozed sex appeal. She also got Ryan Phillippe's character to fall in love with her in the end. So what lesson did I take away from this movie? Wear tight clothes and ooze sex appeal and you too will get a very hot boy to fall hopelessly in love with you. And oh did I ever want someone to fall in love with me. When the time for having my first boyfriend came, I showed as much skin around him as a 15-year-old could get away with and went much farther with him than a 15-year-old should have. But I thought that sexy girls did these things and sexy girls were the ones guys fell in love with. And if I wasn't sexy, then he wouldn't love me. This process was repeated for the next several boyfriends afterwards.
Flash forward 9 years from that day on the bus, and now I know better. Now I know that I was treated as a sexual object because I portrayed myself as one. Hindsight is always 20/20. Now, at 23, I'm sick of being called "sexy", "hot" and all other forms of the word. I understand that, if you portray yourself as purely "sexy", men take it as a promise for sex. I'm sick of sex. That's all anyone ever talks about. I'm so sick of sex that I've gone back to waiting until I'm married. I am positive that my very small and absolutely horrible experiences with sex were God sending me that strong message. To wait until I am with someone who is actually head-over-heels in love with me. Who wants to wake up next to me every morning. Who thinks I am beautiful...stunningly beautiful...take his breath away beautiful. That man may call me sexy because he won't just be using me for sex.
You want to compliment me? Don't call me sexy. Call me beautiful, breathtaking, stunning, pretty or even cute. Tell me I'm funny. Tell me I have a great personality. Don't call me a word which implies that my total value as a person resides simply in parts of my body and suggests that the only terms in which you think of me are based on sex. Years from now, when my sex appeal is long gone and everything is wrinkled and hanging several inches lower, those comments about my sex appeal will be wasted. The compliments I will always hold dear will reflect my true beauty, which shines from the inside.
So don't call me sexy. It's so boring.