Sleeping Beauty
April 8, 2026 at 06:30PMGrowing up in Croatia, in a family that refused to talk about sex or anything close to the subject, Lejla Talić was lost. She yearned for female bodies, but punished herself for her desire. In this coming-of-age essay, she recounts the years she lost before embracing her sexuality:
I was seven when I became aware of my longing for beautiful girls. All princesses fascinated me, but one stood out even more than Ariel. She was a beautiful blond girl on the kitchen towel my grandmother had placed above the stove, just out of my reach. It was just a dish cloth, but I couldn’t look away. “Please can I have her,” I would ask my grandmother whenever I went upstairs. Grandma would laugh and say “no” as she had already done so many times.
The girl was sleeping next to a spinning wheel, and my body tingled with a desperate longing to hold her close.
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2026/04/08/sleeping-beauty/
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