Body Image and Sex

Sex and Body Image

The link between what a woman feels about her body and her sexuality is becoming clearer and clearer with each research study. It’s also been estimated that over 40% of women have some sort of sexual dysfunction. Can the two be connected? I believe that they are indeed.

If you are constantly focused on how you look, and specifically what your body looks like to yourself and others then you can’t really let go and surrender into great sex. Great sex comes from a complex soup of feeling vulnerable, safe, connected, and present in the moment. When it’s off, it can be as bad as inability to reach climax or even as debilitating as conditions that make sex painful and nearly impossible. The common thread in these scenarios is the lack of feeling true appreciation for your body.

With images throughout the media and our culture’s perception of beauty (whether we like to admit it or not) we are influenced. If you happen to have been raised in a family that was judgmental about your appearance this is also likely to have been taken in on some level. These voices in your head from your past and the voices of a distorted view of what a woman’s body should look like make it challenging for acceptance of what is.

That wild uninhibited carefree joy of one’s body is still intact for small children. They are quite happy and comfortable walking around in the nude any chance they get. If only we could restore that carefree feeling and live our lives with that much lack of concern for how others see us? There is one tool that I have found that works magically to change the focus from scorn and self-reproach to profound self-love. That tool is EFT® or Emotional Freedom Techniques.

Emotional Freedom Techniques was founded in the 1990’s by Gary Craig as a way to discharge and release negative emotions. In the EFT® worldview all negative emotions are merely a disruption in the subtle energy system. Feeling like anger, sadness, fear, grief, and guilt are removed by tapping with one’s fingertips on various meridian end points on the face and upper body. This is the same energy system used in acupuncture – the meridian system. Powerfully charged memories create a chink in the flow of this subtle energy and the end result is we feel bad. When the system is cleared it also clears the way for the mind to reframe the events and we feel peaceful and resourceful.

The most fundamental statement in the process of EFT® is when you say the following statement, “Even though I feel bad about ____, I deeply and completely love and accept myself” Imagine if you really made that shift to loving and accepting your body just the way it is. One EFT practitioner I know actually works in a plastic surgeon’s office. This doctor is insightful enough to realize that his repeat patients were fundamentally flawed in how they saw themselves regardless of how the external world viewed them. He felt that doing yet another surgery on another body part in those patients was merely placing a band-aid on a festering wound.

To be able to marvel at your body and all that it does for you in spite of some perceived imperfections is liberating at the very least. That wonder of self and inner happiness with oneself is a key ingredient to exposing your nude body in front of your partner. If you have trepidations about “leaving the lights on” when having sexual contact you are restricting your ability to delight in your partner’s body as well as your own.

One of the ways that I determine where someone has issues with their body is to ask them to view themselves naked in front of a mirror. Listening to the negativity that arises will help you identify where your blocks are, what specifically you hate most, and possibly where they came from. If you hate your butt you might remember being teased about it in elementary school. If you have a problem with your breast size it could be that the boy you had a crush on in high school made a remark in front of others to your shock and horror. All these associations and connections could be affecting you on a conscious or subconscious level as well as be inhibiting your full sexual expression. By applying EFT® to your specific memories, as well as the way you feel about your body, you will be able to reach those transcendent states you’ve always craved which will include new found love for yourself exactly the way you are.