Body Image Issues Can Hurt Intimacy

Do you find yourself getting undressed in front of your partner in the dark? Does the thought of being touched by your partner send you into a panic?

Then body image and confidence issues are likely playing a very big role in your life and that’s simply not healthy for your relationship, but more importantly, it’s not healthy for you either.

Body image and confidence issues can stem from many things. For women these issues can include:

• Being too heavy or too thin
• Curves or no curves
• Scars from past medical issues or other situations
• Ostomy/colostomy
• Stretch marks from pregnancy
• Hair issues, and I’m not necessarily talking about the hair on your head
• Freckles and moles

Men are not exempt from body image or confidence issues. Men may be battling circumstances such as:

• Size
• Performance
• Hair/balding issues
• Ostomy/colostomy
• Weight

Let’s first address weight concerns.

A person who may be overweight could be the victim of emotional eating. You eat due to emotional issues like an unresolved trauma or stress.

As an emotional eater, you are using food to fill the void. The food brings you comfort or the opposite: You eat for punishment.

By maintaining that mindset, you put a barrier between you and others. You justify, in your mind, that you are too big to be with someone. If you are in a relationship, you may be using the weight as a means to keep them from wanting to touch you.

On the flip side, maybe you are a person who feels like you are too thin. We need to be cautious here because being thin could be a medical issue or simply genetic.

If a person is too thin, the anxiety evolves into a fear of being judged and accused of an eating disorder when none exists.

On the issue of past or current eating disorders, Dr. Ruth has said that “it’s common for people with eating disorders to reject their physical and sexual selves so completely that it can become impossible for them to allow anyone else to accept them sexually or in any other way requiring physical or emotional intimacy.”

Eating disorders can lead to:

• low desire
• arousal problems
• pain with intercourse
• orgasm issues

If weight is an issue, then the following is suggested for your healing:

• Work through the trauma. Develop coping skills outside of eating. Become less of an emotional eater. Reduce your stress.
• Accept yourself. Love the skin you are in or change it. Accept that you are what you are and move forward. This goes for hair issues, too; learn to accept the issue or look into ways to groom, reduce or remove.

Medical issues are another very common contributor to body image and confidence:

• Scars come in many forms: stretch marks, scars from an illness, surgery, pregnancy, cancer survivorship, mastectomy.

Women are mostly concerned with their stomach area – weight and scars can be an excuse for someone overly focused on those areas.

• Cancer, particularly breast cancer, can lead to body image concerns. Women are faced with issues of reconstruction. Depending on the decision, the effect could impact the intimacy in their relationship, general body image issues and psychological components.
• Ostomy and colostomy circumstances also impact body image, sexual function and perception of sexual function.

You can accessorize by wearing lingerie, a robe or something that makes you feel comfortable and covers what you don’t want to be prominent when with a partner.

All of these circumstances are very real and should not be ignored. So some last bits of advice for whatever you may be experiencing:

• We encourage self-acceptance, understanding and respecting your body’s curves, capabilities and uniqueness. Embrace who you are.
• Have confidence to want to explore whatever you may be facing with your partner instead of hiding under sheets without the lights on.