My wildest dreams involved getting paid for being desirable, because payment concretized validation. Becoming desirable was a goal in and of itself, of course, but I wouldn’t believe that goal had been achieved until I had the money to prove it. I reasoned that if I were accepted into environments where women were expected to be sexy—if my presence there was tolerated, even if I had a long way to go—there must be a seed of sexiness somewhere in me.