How Body Positivity Can Improve Your Sex Life

Whether you're big or small, heavy or thin, celebrate your body for how it is! Popcorn.dating asked our very own Abi Brown to share her thoughts on fat sex, feminism and body image.

Like many women, I often feel self-conscious in bed. It doesn’t keep me from enjoying sex, but it’s still a pretty consistent issue. Most people, women especially, feel like this at some point or another.

For many of us, it’s related pretty directly to how we feel, or how we have been taught to feel, about the size and shape of our bodies.
 

So why not take the easy way out?

I’ve written for Popcorn.dating before about how losing 85lbs didn’t do a lot to change this for me. I’ve gone from being 250lbs and a UK size 24 to being 165lbs and a UK size 14 - and, while there are things I love about having made that journey, my insecurities about my body are still pretty much the same.

My weight loss stalled when I reached 165lbs. I’ve maintained that weight for a year now, but my ultimate goal is to get down to 150.  I’ve spent much time rolling my eyes at myself. The voice in my head telling me something will happen “when I hit 150”...

• When I hit 150, I’ll put in all the work to feel comfortable about my body.
• When I hit 150, I’ll be able to go to a gym and exercise where people can see me without wanting to cry.
• When I hit 150, I’ll be able to voice my emotional needs without feeling self-conscious and undeserving.

At my largest, I’d have said that all those things could happen when I reached the size I am now. It’s not grounded in reality. I expect that at 150 if I ever get there, I’ll start thinking the same things about 137lbs. The magical number at which, given my somewhat diminutive height, I would finally enter the BMI category described as representing a 'healthy weight'. And this from someone who in theory rejected the concept of BMI a decade ago!

It’s all so much nasty, insidious bullshit - and it’s absolutely a feminist issue.

But men feel bad about their bodies, too!

Absolutely, yes. Just the other day I was standing in my local Asda gaping in horror at the article headlines. They were aimed just as squarely at making men hate their bodies as anything we’ve been getting in Cosmo for thirty years.

It’s desirable, sure - but not required. For men, the pressure is all on earning money and being successful, appearing emotionally 'strong', and other ideas of social masculinity.

Women, on the other hand, pretty much get just the one option: looking good and feeling good about it. We’ve also done a good job of categorising 'fat' as meaning 'unattractive'. You end up with a nasty chain of thought that goes “I look, feel or am fat right now THEREFORE I am unattractive THEREFORE I am failing as a person, and nobody will value me”.

Both of those leaps of logic are entirely fallacious, of course, but overcoming a lifetime of social conditioning is a real bitch.
 

Okay, fine - but what’s this got to do with fucking, again?
 

I’m glad you asked! When your subconscious is telling you that your primary value and purpose is to look good, sex can become an absolute minefield.

Men are taught that they have to be good in bed, which can feel like a lot of stressful pressure. They taught they must:

• Be active
• Be considerate lovers
• Take the lead
• Make her come first

It’s becoming increasingly similar to the demands of pornography. The so-called 'logic' being - it’s more important for a woman to look hot in bed than to be good in bed.

What this means for most people is that the guy is trying not to come too quickly, and at the same time figure out what you most enjoy having done to your clitoris. Meanwhile, we’re focused on sucking in our stomachs and resisting any request to go on all fours. And you know what that gives us? Awkward, stilted sex that lacks important parts of the trust and connection you’re trying to build.

So what can we do about it?
 

There’s no easy answer to this, and I am very much still working on feeling comfortable about my body. There are a few things, however, that so far have shown themselves to be particularly helpful:

2.  If you’ve trained your partner into not touching you in certain areas of your body, ask them to stop avoiding those places. It might be a difficult request to make, but I find that it helps.

3. Practice some mindfulness techniques to get better at being in the moment. Every time you’re worrying about how your body looks, focus  on every detail of the physical sensations of your current activity.

4. Focus on your partner at least as much as on yourself. What sounds are they making? What can you do to make this better for them? 


Whatever the answer turns out to be for you, It's worth working on accepting and loving your body. For the overarching cause of feminism and the quality of your sex life.

 

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