Name: Joanne
Gender: Female
Age: 25
Location: Toronto
I’m 25, 5-foot-7 and weigh 105 pounds. I take care of my body by eating right and exercising regularly. My problem is that I hate the way I look. I am actually repulsed by my body. I take very brief showers and avoid the mirror as much as possible. I’m not a prude. Others being nude is fine with me. But my body image issues are hindering my sexual encounters. I always want to wear a shirt or have the lights off.
My current boyfriend says that if I trust him enough to sleep with him I should trust him enough to let him see me naked. He also has told me that we can’t continue seeing each other if this doesn’t improve. But I let him see every part of my nude body — just not all at once. So he knows I’m not hiding some monstrous deformity or anything. I guess I thought my boyfriend would be more sensitive to my fear and let me stay covered up. Do I owe him nudity?
Hold on there, girlfriend, you think your boyfriend is being insensitive because he wants to enjoy your body in the buff? You think that he’s sticking around just to needle you about your phobia? Honey, get over yourself! Do you honestly think that your body-positive BF oughta facilitate and participate in your pathology? Yeah, like why don’t we all just sink to the lowest common denominator? And here’s a tip: you do have a monstrous deformity. Perhaps it’s not a physical deformity, but it sure enough is a psychological one.
I concur with your boyfriend; your relationship is on the line here. You need to get a handle on your hang-ups, darlin’, or you can just say good-by to whatever sex and intimacy you may currently be enjoying.
Listen, I have a thing about sex and intimacy being a gift one gives to another. So I ask you, how can you give yourself as a gift to anyone if you are disgusted with the gift you’re giving? And you’ll never convince me that your body issues aren’t seeping into and sabotaging the sex you may be having with your long-suffering BF. I’ll betcha you don’t let him get too close to the body parts you’re willing to expose to him when the lights are out.
Joanne, like I suggest above, being repulsed by your own body is a sign of a much deeper psychological problem. I’d suggest you get to the bottom of this with a sex-positive therapist right away. When I encounter this sort of thing in my practice, inevitably my client and I discover a past body related trauma to be at root of his or her current disgust. Left untreated, this aversion could easily morph into a desire to do yourself harm, if it hasn’t already. It’s a common enough phenomenon; so don’t let that happen.
And to your closing question about do you “owe” him nudity; what the fuck is that? Is your sexuality and the intimacy you share with your partner something to be bid and bargained for, like beads in a bazaar? Sex and intimacy is either a gift freely given or it’s coerced. If you’re feeling coerced about being naked with the man who loves you, you’d better set him free and get thee to a nunnery.
Good luck.
Consider the beauty of the female form
