Body Image, Sex and Pleasure

Photo by Retha Ferguson from Pexels

It’s no surprise that how you feel about your appearance can significantly impact your wellbeing, mental health and your sex life. 

Body image is not really how you look, but the relationship you have with your body. Body dissatisfaction can be experienced by everyone, regardless of how their body looks, feels and functions. Folx may believe that changing their physical self will reduce their body dissatisfaction. Yet, following weight loss, body modification, scar revision or cosmetic surgery, most continue to experience body distress. For the case of trans or gender non-confirming folx who experience body incongruence, gender affirming surgery or hormone replacement therapy the only instances where change supports mental health. This is only when their desire to change comes from within, rather than outside themselves, in order to close the gap between how they look and who they are.

How Body Image Impacts Sexual Arousal, Pleasure and Desire

Part of being human means experiencing bad body or appearance days where you might feel dissatisfied, distressed, ashamed or turned off by the way you look. Loving your body exactly as it is can be an onerous task, especially if you’ve experienced pain, illness or trauma in your body, or if like many folx, have been exposed to daily messages informing you that your body is not enough and unworthy of love, pleasure and sexual satisfaction until its different. Because sex is something that you do with your mind and body, if you feel disconnected or dissatisfied within yourself, then of course sexual satisfaction and pleasure may be difficult experiences to enjoy or prioritise.

Body Dissatisfaction

Underlying body dissatisfaction, feeling unattractive, unworthy or unlovable because of the way you look are intense feelings of shame, disgust, guilt or isolation. The combination of intrusive thoughts and strong feelings that are more likely to be pushed down or bottled up result in an ongoing or chronic stress response. Sympathetic nervous system activation restricts your body’s opportunity to notice and perceive pleasure, experience arousal or feel desire. As attention plays a crucial role in sexual response, being concerned with how your body looks makes your brains ability to encode experiences as sexually relevant or satisfying an arduous task. Feeling at odds with your body, policing it, judging it, punishing it or rejecting it makes an orgasm highly unlikely or unattainable. Further, feeling undesirable may incite shame or fear of being vulnerable and exposed and contribute to avoidance of sex, intimacy, touch and connection or any other encounter that could lead to sex. 

Skin hunger or deprivation where folx don’t allow themselves to experience touch and may avoid even touching their own bodies can massively impact wellbeing, pleasure and sexual interest. Folx may restrict self-touch and avoid moisturising their bodies, masturbating or making time for pleasure in any other form; limiting experiences that can be powerful in healing, connecting and bringing joy to your mind and body. Folx who experience heightened body dissatisfaction may limit themselves to specific sexual positions that hide the parts of their bodies that cause the most shame. They may struggle to set boundaries and are more likely to endure sexual experiences that they don’t enjoy and fear the possibility of a relationship ending or believing they would never find another partner if they ended their current partnership. Violating their own consent out of fear or expectations can exacerbate dread of sex.

Pleasuring policing or restricting pleasure is common. Instagram post by Sonalee @thefatsextherapist

Body Acceptance

Those who practice body acceptance (which is not the same thing as loving how your body looks) are more likely to experience satisfying sexual encounters (if they want to) and experience regular pleasure. Folx who practice body acceptance begin to recognise that experiencing pleasure in their body is their basic human right and essential to support themselves to survive within an oppressive and violent world. When they begin to learn that pleasure is their right, people may begin to prioritise self-touch, solo sex, everyday pleasures and self kindness. They’re more likely to know what feels good for them and affirmed in their ability to communicate what works and does not work when it comes to sex and connection with their sexual partners. 

When folx practice body acceptance, they’re giving themselves permission to experience pleasure, despite culturally constructed messages that reinforce the idea that only those whose bodies align with the dominant standard or who work hard for their pleasure are entitled to it. Those who practice body acceptance are less likely to tolerate unsatisfying sexual encounters because they know they don’t have to put their partners enjoyment above their own discomfort in order to maintain their relationship. They know deep within themselves that they deserve satisfying sexual experiences in their body, regardless of how their body looks, feels or functions or whether they’ve earned their pleasure.

Body Dissatisfaction is a Systemic & Cultural Problem, Not an Individual Failing 

Body image challenges relate directly to cultural expectations, systems and structures. As a society, we pathologise and blame individuals for the challenges they face and shame them for how they perceive themselves, forgetting or ignoring that their lens is informed by the world they live in. Pressure to conform to a strict set of rules in order to be accepted, valued and included in society is one of the biggest driving factors behind body dissatisfaction, disordered eating and sexual challenges. 

To give you some perspective, the diet and beauty industries combined are a $604 billion industry. Capitalism and white supremacy are at the root of these structures that result in widespread body shame and hate. We’re indoctrinated within these systems of oppression that teaches folx through covert and overt means that their bodies are not good enough as they are. These beliefs are internalised and projected and policing of self and others intensifies. This is a way to control members of a society, keep them subdued, distracted and unaware or unable to challenge these systems. Their growth comes from the solutions they offer (however temporary) to change or fix oneself and conform to the standard. Most people engage with these solutions because it’s all they know. The message to change oneself as the only way to reduce body dissatisfaction is reinforced everywhere you turn. Yet, these solutions are unlikely to provide the change or happiness they thought they would. 

We live in a culture that is weight biased, fatphobic and ableist. It fears fat bodies, disabled bodies or any body that diverges from the default white, cis, muscular and male body. A society which constructs an “ideal” body and appearance that is difficult or impossible to achieve for most people is again reinforced through the media and health and wellness industries. When only 5% of bodies are actively represented in society are thin, white, non-disabled, cis people, folx are taught what is valued as attractive and what they must become to be worthy.

While anybody can experience body dissatisfaction and shame, Black folx, trans, fat people and disabled people face heightened body discrimination, fat phobia, anti-Blackness, white supremacy and violence that increases their risk of death through abhorrent medical care, high risk of death during child birth, police brutality, social exclusion from inaccessible and unsafe spaces, restricted access to equal education and employment. Access to safe housing, food and clean water is severely limited. Every one of these factors becomes an obstacle towards body acceptance, prioritising pleasure and having a satisfying sex life. 

Pleasure is a basic human need and a way to self-advocacy, fighting for justice and challenging these norms that exclude and disenfranchise people based on physical characteristics alone. Prioritising pleasure and experiencing satisfaction in your body regardless of whether you’ve been taught that you’re allowed to have it or deserve it is resistance, rebellion and a way to cope, process and heal oppression.  

How to Reduce the Impact of Body Dissatisfaction on Sex and Pleasure 

As Sonya Renee Taylor reminds us, we’re not born with body shame. It’s something that we’re taught that is reinforced over and over.

Start Unpacking Your Body Dissatisfaction - Body dissatisfaction runs deep and it’s likely you’ve experienced it for decades, if not your whole life. It’s ok if it’s a difficult topic to start exploring and unlearning. Ask yourself a few of these questions to begin reflecting: What if you are enough exactly as you are? What if it's not your body that needs to change? Consider for a moment that being fat, disabled or having a body that diverges from the narrow norm isn't a bad thing. What do you hope an ideal body could bring you? How can you pursue that hope in the body you currently have?

To continue unlearning and challenging these ideals that are an inherent part of this culture, read 11 Goals to Replace all Body Goals by The Body Image Therapist Ashlee Bennett and The Body is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self Love by Sonya Renee Taylor.

Remind Yourself That it’s Ok For Your Body to Change - The only certainty around bodies is that they change. Weight, size and movement fluctuates and are common, normal and ok for all bodies. If you can, gently shift your attention to focusing on all the things your body can and does do for you.

Make Space to Grieve the Body Loss & Changes - It’s ok to be upset by change. It can be difficult, it can mean a loss of access or resources. Change might ignite fear or shame. Allowing yourself to name, acknowledge and feel your feels will mean you’ll be able to move through them and they will pass. Feelings are like a tunnel. You have to go all the way through the dark to get to the light on the other side. A blocked or unfelt feeling does not mean that feeling is gone. It means that it’s stuck or stored up and waiting for another opportunity to reappear. Often the time it does come out, it comes out with all the other feelings trapped in with it and become an intense, overwhelming experience that will reinforce the idea that feelings are too hard. Get on top of your feelings when they arise to prevent this from happening.

Figure Out the Feelings That Underlie Body Dissatisfaction - Acknowledge that your feelings and thoughts about your body, both enjoyment and disappointment, can change rapidly. Knowing and naming exactly what those feelings are can support you to make space for them, feel them, let them pass and address what you need in the moment. Accepting the feelings and thoughts you have, not judging them, recognising and allowing them to come and go is part of body acceptance. 

Remember You’re More Than Your Looks - Appearance is important, but when your whole value and worth is based solely on how you look, the same compliments that can build you up are what can so easily crumble you. Focus on complimenting others on things beyond their appearance. Reflect on your own strengths or the things you value in yourself that aren’t based on how you look. 

Unpack Your Attraction - Reflect on which bodies you find attractive and which you don’t - Do those preferences align with beauty standard and exclude the most oppressed people? Reflect on why you think some bodies are more attractive than others and begin to unlearn this. Attraction is learned, so it can be unlearned. Check out this article by social worker Andrea Glik for more on why some bodies are more attractive than others

Reframe Your Relationship with Pleasure - Your body is made for pleasure, in any form. Get use to seeing your body and people with a body like yours experiencing pleasure. Focus on the pleasure your body brings you. Prioritise pleasure everyday, including non-sexual and sexual pleasure (if you want) as a way to thank your body for all it does for you. If this feels hard to do for you, start small and do it for somebody else. How you treat your own body influences the way you treat other bodies.

Deal with Intrusive Thoughts or Body Worries During Sex or Pleasure - Intrusive thoughts and feelings of shame, anxiety or fear come up often when folx think about or attempt to be sexual. Interoceptive awareness is the practice of shifting your attention to your internal bodily sensations such as your heart beat, breath, muscle tension or other sensations. It’s a form of mindfulness that helps you change your focus from how your body looks to how your body feels; increasing your potential to be present, reduce distractions, decrease distress, notice pleasure and allow your body the opportunity to become aroused and experience desire.