by Studies consistently link negative body image to reduced sexual desire and satisfaction, but the mechanisms matter
How You See Your Body Affects What Your Body Experiences
Research consistently finds that negative body image is associated with reduced sexual desire, lower sexual satisfaction, and greater sexual avoidance. The association holds across genders, though it is stronger and more frequently studied in women, reflecting the greater cultural pressure on women to evaluate their bodies against idealised standards. The mechanisms linking body image to sexual experience are multiple and clinically important.
Spectatoring — a term introduced by Masters and Johnson and developed in subsequent research — refers to the tendency to observe one’s own body during sexual activity from an imagined external perspective rather than attending to physical sensation. Research by Marita McCabe and others finds that women who score high on body dissatisfaction report more spectatoring during sex, and that spectatoring mediates the relationship between body dissatisfaction and reduced sexual arousal. The mental bandwidth consumed by self-observation is bandwidth unavailable for the sensory attention that arousal requires.
Gender and Body Image in Sexual Contexts
While the research literature on women and body image in sexual contexts is extensive, more recent research on men finds significant effects in the same direction: men who report higher body dissatisfaction also report reduced sexual confidence, more sexual avoidance, and lower satisfaction in sexual encounters. The cultural script that men are less affected by body image concerns appears to be partially incorrect or, more precisely, appears to reflect a cultural norm that discourages men from reporting such concerns rather than an absence of them.
Research on sexual minority populations finds that body image concerns and their sexual consequences follow similar patterns across orientation, with some variation in which physical characteristics are most salient to the specific cultural contexts of different communities.
What Helps
Mindfulness-based interventions for body image in sexual contexts have the most consistent evidence base in recent research: practising attentional presence during sexual activity, redirecting from evaluative self-observation to sensory experience, has been shown in multiple studies to improve sexual satisfaction in individuals with high body dissatisfaction. The Sex and Psychology research coverage includes accessible summaries of the mindfulness and body image intervention literature. Cognitive-behavioural approaches targeting the specific cognitions driving body dissatisfaction show effects in therapy trials. Neither approach changes the body. Both change the relationship to the body, which is where the sexual effect originates.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com
