Last week Carinn floored me with her vulnerable and deeply personal essay about the Moody-Trip-Pearl love triangle in Celeste Ng’s novel, Little Fires Everywhere, which we had a lively debate about on the podcast. Her focus was on Pearl, and more generally, on whether there was anything wrong with a young girl wanting intimate experiences without telling everyone? To that question, I say absolutely not. But there’s more to this debate for me. More perspectives to examine.
For me, it was never #teamMoody vs #teamPearl. It was always MOODY vs TRIP. As between the two of them I thought Pearl should have chosen Moody who Ng had set up as a real friend and confidante to her. They were intellectual equals, he respected her as a person, and she could trust him. I wanted her to pick Moody and was frustrated that she chose the cliche older cuter boy who, in my view (as written), had little to offer other than popularity and good hair.
Now I should stop here and say what I imagine many of you are thinking…DUH, she’s a teenage girl navigating high school romance, of course she is going to choose the cute, popular, athletic boy. And here is where I admit those guys never really appealed to me. Even then, I had a thing for the nice guy, the guy I could talk to, who would listen, who showed up for me, and made his admiration widely known. And that’s where I really shut down to Trip. Whether he suggested it on Pearl’s behalf (doubtful), or whether he was hiding their relationship for his own reasons, this detail sealed the deal for me on #teamMoody. I like the guy who liked public adoration.
I haven’t forgotten about Pearl in this love triangle. I expressed frustration with Pearl when we talked on the podcast. I didn’t like how she left Moody out in the cold and, at times, lied to him about where she was and made up excuses for why she kept bailing on him. To me, this made her a shitty friend because he had been there for her from the beginning when she moved there and had no other friends. Then she ditched him when she got the chance to “upgrade” to Trip. I felt she was lying to the one person who had been kind and welcoming to her and who she seemed to have genuinely had a connection with. So lying for that reason seemed wrong — not that she was wrong for lying about the intimate things she was doing with Trip or that she should have had to reveal that to Moody (or anyone else).
Having said that about Pearl, I was challenged by Carinn’s perspective that we may judge a young woman for wanting to keep her intimate experiences private/secret, or worse, that we may judge her and shame her if she chooses to reveal her intimate experiences or if they are somehow disclosed (the slut shaming). I find myself wanting to land somewhere in the middle. Why is it either/or? Lie or tell all and risk slut shaming?
I guess I believe, perhaps naively, that a teenage girl should be able to have consensual, exploratory intimate experiences with boys privately. I know that’s what I did — and it ran the gamut like many other teenage girls (I’m thinking of Lady Bird here too, another favorite of ours). I never felt like I was keeping that a secret or lying, it was just private between the two of us and why would I tell anyone unless maybe my close friends if I wanted to share? And hopefully I’m doing these things with boys I trusted who also would keep it private. I wouldn’t think a person should ever have to reveal those intimate details to anyone.
But I am totally open to having my naivete exposed. I have been told more times than I can count that perhaps I didn’t ever act or feel like a typical teenager and am willing to concede my rose-colored blinders could still be on. I am also totally willing to admit that I have called women sluts — obviously not in a very long time but I am certain high school me is guilty of that type of unfair judgment when I should perhaps have considered their agency and desires as factors — maybe even as notions to be applauded. At the very least, I should have considered the gray.
As Carinn reminds us, though, this IS an essay about Pearl, Moody and Trip. So back to her lingering questions and my thoughts in response…couldn’t Pearl have just said to Moody, “I can’t hang out today”, or just not make the plans in the first place? Or if pressed, couldn’t she say I’m seeing someone or even Trip and I have been hanging out? Why would she have to reveal she is having sex with him? I don’t think she should ever be forced to do that. Her intimate experiences are hers alone.