Sex and Body Image, for Women
Many women experience some level of insecurity with their bodies that can negatively impact their desire to have sex or their ability to experience pleasure. Because there are many things about our bodies that we simply cannot change, changing parts of your body is not a requirement to gain self-confidence. Often, a challenge for women is understanding their expectations about what attractiveness is and where those expectations came from. The point of this activity is not only to help you gain comfort with looking at your body, but also challenge where your thoughts and judgments about your body came from.
Prior to engaging in this activity, it is important to know that you are allowed to go at your own pace. While doing this may feel uncomfortable at times and it is also important to push yourself, please take breaks whenever it feels necessary. Pause, take a few deep breaths, count to 10, or whatever else helps you to relax when beginning to feel overwhelmed. If you find the activity to be too difficult, stop and come back to it another day.
To begin, ensure that you can have some uninterrupted time to complete this task (approx. 30 – 45 minutes). Take time in the shower or bath to look at your body from head to toe. Doing this in the bath or shower can be less intimidating than looking into a mirror. Start with your feet and work through all the different parts of your body. With each body part, ask yourself, What do I see? How do I feel about what I see? What would I change? How do these things influence how I feel about myself sexually?
After you have gotten out of the shower or bath and spent a few minutes relaxing, take some time to look at each body part in the mirror. Again, ask yourself, What do I see? How do I feel about what I see? What would I change? How do these things influence how I feel about myself sexually?
Once you have spent the amount of time that feels reasonable to you, looking at your body, follow that experience with these questions.
Was this experience pleasant or unpleasant?
Were there parts of your body that you noticed influence how you feel about yourself as a sexual human? And were those body parts strictly sexual parts of your body, like your breasts?
How do you enhance the body parts you are proud of and hide the parts you are not?
What parts do you not like about your body? Is this because you don’t like it, or have you accepted rejection/judgment from others? If so, who are the people whose opinions of your body concern you? Do they primarily come from men or women?
Where did you get your ideas about what is attractive and what isn’t?
Have you ever been satisfied with how your body looks?
How did that influence how you feel about yourself sexually?
It is common for women to have parts of their body they wish they could change. There are some things that you can change and may be necessary for your overall health, like diet and exercise. However, there are many things that we do not have control over, like stretch marks, breast size or body hair. All of these things can influence how we feel about ourselves sexually yet have no control over how responsive we are during physical intimacy. Your breasts may not be the same size, but they are still erogenous zones. You may have more pubic hair, but it can be arousing to have that hair touched. You can have stretch marks and still experience pleasure as someone runs their hands over them. Understanding where our beliefs about beauty came from and understanding that those beliefs do not impact your ability to be a sexual woman can be a powerful awakening. This activity and these questions can help guide us to understand that our bodies can be imperfect, yet they can still experience pleasure. And we all deserve some pleasure.
- Morgan Twidwell, LCSW, LSCSW
Source
References: Heiman, J., & Lopiccolo, J. (1996). Becoming orgasmic. Piatkus.