Two thirds of all women do not feel attractive enough for sex – why is this and how can we overcome this?
His fingers run down your body, the gentle touch sending tingles all over your body, until… Then he touches your hip. That bulging, disgusting, too-soft eyesore on your body. Did he feel it? He’s probably having to pull himself together not to flinch. You’re disgusting.
Just a few seconds ago we were in the moment, feeling wonderful things – in the next an extremely nasty carousel of thoughts is spinning and robbing us of every beautiful feeling, tearing us away from the intimate togetherness and making us think the worst about ourselves and our bodies. Of course, the situation just described may be fictitious, but unfortunately quite a few people are familiar with such and similar thoughts in a moment of greatest vulnerability. More precisely: Far too many people are familiar with such thoughts, as a study by the dating app “Pure” found, which the online magazine “Hypebae” presents in more detail.
According to this, two out of three of the 2,000 American women surveyed believe that they are not beautiful enough for sex – how is this possible and, above all, what can be done about it?
The woman and the body image
According to figures from the National Institute on Media and the Family, women in Western society have been struggling for decades with an ideal that is being reproduced by the media landscape. According to a study, ten-year-olds (of all genders) were dissatisfied with their own bodies after watching Britney Spears music videos and clips from the hit series “Friends.” According to another study, more than half of American girls (53 percent) are dissatisfied with their bodies – At 17 years of age, more than three quarters (78 percent) of those surveyed are. Loud Statista Just over a third of the 11 to 17-year-old girls surveyed see their weight as “just right” – the rest feel either too thin or (far more often) too fat.
It is not uncommon for these problems with one’s own body to have long-term effects on those who suffer from them – for example on their eating habits. According to that Robert Koch Institute (RKI) There is evidence of “disordered eating behavior” in a fifth of children and young people between the ages of 11 and 17, with the phenomenon occurring around twice as often in girls as in boys. During puberty, the risk of developing an eating disorder in girls increases again. And the effects of a personal body image that cannot live up to the sometimes absurd (and unhealthy) standards set by Hollywood and the like are not only evident in eating behavior, as the study by “Pure” shows.
Accordingly, almost all romantic relationships are affected by problems with their own body (94 percent) – although a distinction must be made between one’s own body problems and those of one’s partner. Because the same study also comes to the conclusion that people are less interested in the – supposed – flaws of the person in their relationship: 94 percent of those surveyed would not notice any stretch marks and 66 percent would have nothing against body hair. However, many women would still rather abstain from sex than face the risk of not being accepted because of their body, with the scientists coming to the conclusion that people would “prefer to date a confident person rather than someone who has one “has a ‘perfect body'”. But how can the self-confidence for this be achieved?
How to become more confident in bed
It’s never wrong to be aware of your own worth – but rarely is it as important as sex. Naked and exposed, an intimate, wonderful moment can quickly turn into something very unpleasant if we feel insecure and vulnerable. Many people long for physical closeness and intimacy and need it for their spiritual well-being. Reason enough to name a few tips that we can use to exude self-confidence in bed.
Pay attention to your negative thoughts
We can hardly control our feelings. When we are sad, we are sad; when we are anxious, we are anxious. But: We are not helpless at the mercy of these feelings and there are certainly things over which we have control. Our thoughts can quickly wander in negative directions – but we can influence that. If you notice in bed or in everyday life that thoughts like “You’re not doing that right” or “That doesn’t look good” come into your head, you can try to actively think of something nice.
The idea is that we become aware of our patterns. Our negative thoughts may feel like this, but they are not facts, but ultimately an opinion, a perspective on things. And there are many others that we can establish within ourselves.
Talk about sex
Sex is often seen as something passionate that happens in the moment, while conversations only ruin the mood. That may be true in part – we hardly want to discuss our political stance during sex – but communication before or after is incredibly important. If you don’t talk about sex, you can’t talk about what you like – or what you don’t like. You don’t come up with new ideas together, you don’t get to know each other on this intimate level, you don’t find out what’s important to the other person.
Those who know what they want and who also know what their partner likes will act with much more self-confidence in bed.
Nobody is perfect and nobody has to be
As the “Pure” study shows: We don’t care about the supposed weaknesses and mistakes of our partners more often than many people think – simply because we are usually preoccupied with our own supposed weaknesses and mistakes and because many of them are simply in our heads exist. Who says our hips are “bulgy, disgusting and way too soft” other than the voice in our head? When we let go of our demands and thoughts about what the other person might expect from us, we are much better able to be in the moment and surrender to the wonderful feelings we can feel during sex.
Nobody expects us to be “perfect” – so why do we?
Sources used: hypebae.com, choosingtherapy.com, mediafamily.org, de.statista.com, rki.de