“Eventually the young woman realizes how often it is in her self-interest to make herself desirable. She learns how to arrange herself to generate a kind of reaction. As children learn behaviors by example, so does she learn sexy from the mirror. Media provides the perfect surface (charmed, shiny, sleek) from which she can articulate her reflection.

Narcissus is a teenage girl. No other figure loves her; she loves herself to fill the difference. She watches herself constantly: in the darkened windows of cafés and storefronts and the silvered glass in her bathroom. Alone she pouts, minces, tosses her hair, shapes her face for every angle. She knows her good side. She knows how to move her mouth. She generates self-awareness as the world becomes aware of her.”