This Good Girl Just Wants to Be Bad

Sometimes, you’ve gotta break all the rules…

“What do you want in your career? What do you really want?”

It was the second session of a masterclass I recently took. There, even in front of my friend and teacher, Sera, and two women I had recently “met” through our online sessions, I felt very comfortable claiming my boundless ambition as a writer.

“I want my work to be good enough to win awards,” I said. “I want a Newbery like E.L. Konigsberg, a Pulitzer like E. Annie Proulx, and a Nobel like Toni Morrison.”

“But why?” Sera asked me.

I didn’t have to think about my answer. “I want to be that good of a writer. I want to be acknowledged for my skill, my artistry, and for challenging cultural norms.”

I could see Sera on my computer screen tipping her head to the side. “Go deeper,” she said.

Now my sense of clarity began to falter. I didn’t know what she meant. I didn’t think there was any deeper to go.

“This is about being a bad girl, Yael,” she said. “Why do you want this recognition?”

I just sat there, unable to think of a response. I honestly didn’t know.

“Do you want to be famous?” she prompted.

“This is about being a bad girl…”

I thought about it for a moment, then said, softly. “Yeah. I think so.” Then louder. “Yes. I want to be on the bestseller list. I want people to flip out when I write a new book and then binge-read it all in one day and then feel bad because they know it will be at least a year before I publish the next one. When I’m at the end of my life, I want to be considered one of the great American writers of my time.”

My voice grew louder as I spoke. It felt forbidden to say these things, yet it was so exciting to speak the words aloud, to share that fantasy with other people.

“What if you could have anything you wanted?” Sera asked. “Or at least ask for anything you wanted without worrying about what other people think? Without worrying about being a Good Girl?”

What if, indeed.

The truth is, I always wanted to be a bad girl. I’ve spent most of my life feeling bound by responsibility and my desire to be a good, kind person. I was the oldest child in my family and it was clear to me early on how much the adults in my life valued goodness, helpfulness, selflessness.

Even from a young age, I felt burdened by the moral weight of every decision I made. I worried that I might hurt someone’s feelings or do something that simply wasn’t ethical. As a teenager, I was even more crippled by this desire to be a genuinely good person — selfless, kind, honest, trustworthy.

But as I got into my twenties, I got tired of being a good girl. I wondered what it would like to be bad — or at least a little bit bad.

The problem was, I didn’t really relate to the traditional idea of a bad girl.

When Sarah Ban Breathnach’s Simple Abundance came out, I read her chapter on bad girls over and over again.

Bad girls sip only champagne and cocktails — not beer, wine, sherry, mineral water, café latte, or Darjeeling tea. (Think Martinis, Stingers, Black Russians.) Bad girls prefer spandex, halters, high heels, fishnet stockings, silk, suede, leather, or white satin cut on the bias and black satin cut down to here. Bad girls have blond, raven or flaming tresses, red mouths and nails. Think Mae West, Rita Hayworth, Ava Gardner. (But the baddest girls have mousy brown hair). Bad girls wear Capri pants, mules, cashmere or mohair twinsets, silk scarves covering their pin curls, and black sunglasses to the grocery, then don black tuxedos and silver fox boas at night.

I loved this image of a bad girl. I wanted it so badly. But it just wasn’t me. Just give me my Earl Grey tea while I wear my slippers and yoga pants. Dammit, I will not wear high heels.

When I lived in Santa Fe, at the age of 25, I did my best to put my own spin on the bad girl. I wanted to have fun, I wanted to date, I wanted to have wild sex, and I did my best to pursue that unapologetically. It was probably the only time in my life that I wore tight clothing — jeans and ballet tops — and instead of high heels, I wore my favorite cowboy boots that clacked loudly when I walked and made me feel like a million bucks.

But as I got into my twenties, I got tired of being a good girl. I wondered what it would like to be bad — or at least a little bit bad.

I spent long nights with the guys I dated, making out on their couches until just before dawn. I had a semi-casual sexual relationship with the hottest guy on campus. And, my inner bad girl is still so proud of the afternoon I sneaked into the basement of the library at my Catholic liberal arts college with the guy I was dating at the time, took off my clothes, laid down on the floor, and let him kiss and lick all up and down my body as the portraits of the founding priests looked down on us.

So bad.

(Okay, it’s not that bad, but dammit, let me have this! It’s about as bad as I’m probably gonna get in this lifetime.)

Spending my thirties in a pretty traditional relationship with a born-again Christian slowly starved my inner bad girl out. I think it’s accurate to say that she all but disappeared. I forgot about her, willfully, hoping to become a good wife, a virtuous mother.

I didn’t get mad. I didn’t ask for what I wanted. And I definitely didn’t ask for too much. (And when you’re a good girl, most everything is “too much.”)

I started wanting to recover my inner bad girl after that relationship ended. I hated that I had forgotten my slightly rebellious side. I hated that I stopped asking for — or even dreaming of — all the big things I wanted in life. I hated that I thought I was doomed to be a boring good girl just because I didn’t want to wear high heels, leather, or silver fox boas.

It wasn’t until I was a few years into my forties that I really wanted to set my bad girl free again. I dared to start asking for big things — to buy a house all by myself, for instance, or to build my dream garden. I even dared to quit my stable, but low-paying nonprofit job in order to follow my dreams of becoming a freelance writer.

And yes, I’d love to make out with a hot guy in a Catholic library’s basement again. Or you know…any variation of that.

But being in this masterclass and struggling so much to declare my bad girl desires, I realized what a long way I still have to go. I realized I still have a very hard time dreaming big, asking for what I want, believing I can have anything and everything. I realized I still don’t feel like a bad girl.

Then I remind myself that bad girls don’t follow the rules — not even the rules of being a bad girl. What if I could break all the rules?

Maybe some of us bad girls don’t have tattoos or pierced nipples. Maybe we don’t care if our underarms are hairy and our footwear of choice is cowboy boots. Maybe we need glasses and sip on Earl Grey tea. Maybe we drive SUVs, prefer cotton panties, and spend our evenings' knitting sweaters for our nephews.

And yes, I’d love to make out with a hot guy in a Catholic library’s basement again.

And maybe underneath all that is a sexy, wild wolf woman who loves to let loose with feminist rants, dance like a maniac in the kitchen, and howl in the bedroom — with or without a partner.

Maybe that can be bad, too.

And maybe…maybe I’m already more of a bad girl than I realize. Maybe all I need to do is just keep asking for more. For a woman, that can be as “bad girl” as it gets…

© Yael Wolfe 2019

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