labingi

I agree, though for me it did hit earlier than for you -- probably late teens.

Certainly I'm sure that there were girls around me who felt that kind of pressure, and certainly I'm sure that being a girl (and raised as one) affected details of my presentation and affect and so on. But I don't remember ever feeling like I was being gazed at or catcalled or expected to perform girliness/sexiness/etc for men specifically, or anything like that. I was both miserably and defiantly aware that I wasn't cool and would never be cool and was an awkward nerd, but that was about social groups my age, especially (though not exclusively) other girls. I didn't want to wear makeup as a daily thing, and didn't do so, but I wanted to know how to wear makeup and dress up just because those were adult skills and I liked the look of them on other people, not because I felt required by or for men to do so. The few times that anyone commented on the possibility of sexualizing me or my peers, or suggested that it would be better to not have any boys along for X activity, I was utterly taken aback, and embarrassed, and kind of offended by the very idea.

How much of this is because my parents believed in letting us be kids and not giving us body issues? (Which they did believe in; I am forever grateful to my mom for absolutely refusing to let my father or brothers ever tease me about my body or weight, because she did not want teen me to have any reason to feel self-conscious about myself.) How much of this is because I was enough of a social outcast at some key ages to be oblivious to signals other girls were getting, and assume they were irrelevant to me? How much of this is because I'm asexual, and still have something of that startled offense at the idea of introducing sexiness into a situation that I didn't think involved it? I have no idea! Almost certainly some mix of the three, and maybe other factors I haven't thought of, besdies.