Body image and sex….  a super sensitive topic for a lot of people. We’ll try to be gentle, but we’ll also be challenging you to do some serious thinking about your self-image and the expectations you’re bringing to your sexual intimacy.

This is a really stressful topic, and guys walk on eggshells around it. Caleb likens the topic of sex and body image to a mousetrap. There is a lot of high-strung energy there, and if you don’t touch it everything is ok. But if you DO happen to touch it, it snaps and releases every bit of energy at once. No wonder men get nervous about the topic!

The Problem of Sexual Self-Consciousness

There is a wide range of research that supports the fact that holding a poor body image impacts my own sexual functioning negatively. There are a number of theories out there as to why this happens, but one of the more prominent theories is the issue of sexual self-consciousness.[i]

Sexual self-consciousness is when your mind and thoughts are overly preoccupied with your body in a sexual context. When this happens, you direct your attention towards your appearance and away from the sexual pleasure which takes you far away from enjoying the moment, or the sense of togetherness and connection. Thoughts such as “Am I jiggling while we’re doing this? Does he think I’m too fat? He seems disinterested - Is that why he always has his eyes closed? We can only have sex with the lights off” show that you’re more focused on what you look like instead of being present with your spouse.

Here is what the researchers found when looking at the issues of sexual self-consciousness:[ii]

Women are significantly more likely to report appearance concerns than men. No surprise there. But here’s something to note: appearance concerns were positively related to sexual problems for both men and women.  So the concern is there for more women than men, but if the concern is there, it doesn’t matter what gender you are.

The relationship between body shame and sexual pleasure and problems was mediated by sexual self-consciousness during physical intimacy. Men and women’s body shame was related to greater sexual self-consciousness, which in turn predicted lower sexual pleasure and sexual arousability. That just means that there is a chain of thought from shame to self-consciousness to reduced pleasure and arousability.

Sexual self-consciousness affected men and women’s sexual arousability and pleasure to the same extent, but women’s body shame was a stronger predictor of sexual self-consciousness, so a higher vulnerability to body shame was there.

So, it seems that body shame in a sexual context affects both men and women in the same manner, but women are more susceptible to being triggered into feeling sexually self-conscious which leads us to the question, why do women have such high levels of body shame?

The Social Context of Body Shame and Poor Self-Image

Body shame literally means feeling ashamed of your body and physical appearance. This comes from our culture’s emphasis on women’s beauty and physical appearance which leads to self-objectification.

Self-objectification is the tendency to regard one’s physical self primarily in terms of appearance and to adopt an outsider’s perspective on the physical self.[iii]

We can define our physical self in terms of health, self-care, comfort in our own skin, etc, but it’s difficult. My physical self does have an appearance, and all the marketing is about appearance. It is easy to buy into this idea that my physical self is entirely defined by my appearance rather than the healthier notion of asking myself if I feel comfortable in my own skin.

Our culture teaches women that their sexual partners are mostly concerned about their physical attractiveness. Even in the context of a marriage with Christian values, wives carry this same belief that their husband is primarily concerned about her physical attractiveness.