I wanted to be feminine.”As I listen to Alana say this, I imagine a thousand feminists’ heads exploding in unison.

The next search result will be “Alana de la Garza,” who, best as I could tell, is the actress who played a stern-but-sexy D.A.-type on Law & Order.The point isn’t that Alana Blanchard is more popular than Honey Boo Boo and the lady from Law & Order.

Fifteen minutes later, Alana is here, 5’7″, light tan, long sandy-blonde hair down and straight, black jeans and a black top—an outfit that looks so effortless when set in relief against the women in the bar that I wonder if they’ll order one more and forego whatever treatment was scheduled to be next.As we are seated on the patio, and as we make small chat, and as I contemplate the yachts in the back, I realize how ridiculous it is that I’m here, given that, to me, Alana Blanchard is more or less just a name I’ve heard a few times.

Alana Blanchard was born on March 5, 1990 in Princeville, Kauai, Hawaii, USA as Alana Rene Blanchard.

Blanchard is much more than that.

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But just as soon the bill comes and I realize that I’ve never seen her Instagram account or her modeling photos, either. If that seems preposterous, it’s not. At 22 years of age, Blanchard has gained fame as "one of the best female surfers."

It must be hard for you to write these things because everyone has a different opinion about everyone. As we sit in this restaurant in the sun, and as I look out at the yachts, I know and Alana Blanchard knows that she is famous because she is attractive, and more specifically, she is famous because she looks good in a bikini. You get a link to a YouTube video that I didn’t click on but which has a still image of what appears to be Alana Blanchard’s wet sideboob. Alana surfs on the ASP World Tour.

Finally, at the bottom of the page, you get Google’s list of “Searches related to Alana Blanchard.” Among these are: “Alana Blanchard hot,” “Alana Blanchard photos,” “Alana Blanchard video,” “Alana Blanchard wallpaper,” “Alana Blanchard Instagram.” One thing you do not get, out of the eight suggested searches, is “Alana Blanchard surfer.” (Although, if you do a Google Image search for Alana Blanchard, the second recommended subcategory is “Bottom Turn.” And this, men of the world, is why everyone thinks that we are disgusting pigs. I like looking cute. Not necessarily because I’m wearing little bathing suits, but because I actually wanted to be a girl.

We want to look cute, too.

And yet, type “Alana” into the world’s largest search engine and wait for it to suggest a search, and the first result will be “Alana Blanchard.” The next will be “Alana Blanchard bikinis.”This will be followed by “Alana Thompson.” Alana Thompson, I now know because I clicked on that link, is the child reality TV sensation that your white-trash cousins know as “Honey Boo Boo.” I don’t know anything about Honey Boo Boo, but I know enough to know that plenty of people in Internetland really have a lot to say about Honey Boo Boo. Perhaps she hasn’t won any World Tour contests, and perhaps she’s not a favorite to ever win the World Title, but a lot of girls haven’t done either of those things. Remember surf travel? I know that she is from Kauai.

I guess I’m just working with what I have.

And I know and she knows that she is also famous because she seems aware of this fact, is unapologetic about it, and actively promotes it, regularly posting pictures of herself in a bikini online.

I’m sure everyone perceives me in a different way. Maybe I got it right and maybe I didn’t, but before I can think it all the way through, I start to think about the historical precedent in surfing, and the fact that it was only two decades ago that Lisa Andersen and her generation made headlines by wearing boardshorts, a move that was taken as a statement regarding gender equality. And that’s about all I know. Rihanna is wearing tiny little things.

I sit in the bar, and I watch rubber-molded women knock back elderflower cocktails with impressive efficiency. People are funny in that way, but I’m happy and that’s all that matters. Not even my close friends.”With the ASP under new management, a management that has plans to make promoting women’s surfing a priority, it’s hard to imagine that they wouldn’t take advantage of Blanchard and all of her marketability, which is a polite way to say that it’s hard to imagine that they won’t promote women’s competitive surfing by selling its sex appeal. I know that she surfs. SURFER has affiliate partnerships so we may receive compensation for some links to products and services.

Because as we sit here on the back patio of this restaurant, and as I wonder when a Bento box became a lunch thing, and as Alana and I talk, I realize that Alana Blanchard is very aware of everything I’ve just written.

Then I walk myself, as quickly as possible, through what I would presume to be their argument—that Blanchard’s fame has come primarily from the fact that she has sexualized herself, and that the sexualization of women in this way robs them and, to an extent, all women, of their humanity and their individuality and their natural female power. It is also an obsolete term for a white horse. If I went to a regular job, if I was a secretary or something, I’d want to look good. So let’s cut the shit.

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