The Relationship between Body Image and Domains of Sexual Functioning Among Heterosexual, Emerging Adult Women

Do you find yourself not enjoying sex?  Are you uncomfortable with your own body?  You are not alone.  Many women with all different body types are finding themselves distracted and uncomfortable when having sex.  This is due to the inability to be self-accepting.  

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There are many different body types among women, but we commonly see many girls uncomfortable in their own skin.  If you are one of these girls then don’t worry, you are not alone.  Unfortunately, young girls from 4 to 11 years of age already dream to be skinny and hate on their own body.  More often than not, body dissatisfaction continues with age and this can lead to unfocused, embarrassing thoughts during intercourse.  Thoughts like these can be detrimental to mental health.  This may cause problems with anxiety, taking away from one of the purposes of being pleasured.  When a woman can’t be accepting of her own body, lack of interest in sex arises and failure to experience an orgasm are commonly reported sexual difficulties.  Christopher Quinn-Niles and co-workers examined this issue.

Inability to be self-accepting causes psychological distress, stress, anxiety, depression and decreases in self-esteem.

Body image concerns are the most disruptive reasons within sexual function.  When a woman’s mind is elsewhere; thinking about what that man is thinking of their body; it’s hard to put any focus on sexual stimulation.  Another factor includes how comfortable that woman is with the male that they are encountering.  If the woman isn’t completely comfortable with her partner, then there is an increased chance of having more discomfort and more unfocused thoughts.  When women have negative thoughts about her appearance, the result in, reduced frequency of having sex.

Body image evaluation was measured by the body dissatisfaction sub-scale of the Eating Disorders Inventory.  This helps assess an individual’s evaluation of various body parts.  A good example would be a woman’s stomach.  This part of the body is a spot to cause the most dissatisfaction.  Higher the score, greater the body dissatisfaction.  The six domains of sexual functioning were also assessed.  These include sexual desire, sexual arousal, lubrication, orgasm, satisfaction, and pain however, this study only used sexual desire, sexual arousal, and orgasm as outcome variables, higher the score, the higher level of sexual functioning.  These scores were compared to the participants total body fat measurement.   

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For this study, all 88 participants were female Caucasians, in an age range from 18-25, heterosexual, and have had to part-take in sexual intercourse at least one month before participating.  Only one race of women was used due to the different amount of body fat distribution between women of different backgrounds. 

The scientists determined that women who evaluate their bodies more negatively showed a trend expressing more negative thoughts about their appearance.  Those who were associated with this trend were also observed to have a higher percentage of total body fat. These analyses suggested that after controlling women for relationship length, relationship satisfaction, and body fat percentage, those who reported harsher self-evaluations believed that other people would not find them attractive and reported low levels of sexual desire.  Along with feeling unattractive they also reported feeling worse about their appearance and had a constant feeling of not looking good and reported their sexual behaviors were highly influenced by their body image concerns during sex.  In conclusion to the above information, due to the troubling thoughts of self-acceptance, the women in the study did have difficulty with experiencing an orgasm.

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The desire and arousal are connected and when having negative thoughts about your own body it causes disruptive sexual functioning at multiple points in the sexual response cycle.  Being involved in a sexual experience has one focus, which is sex, but when your mind is focused on the thought of how your body looks or what your partner is thinking of your body, it can be very distracting and unsatisfying.  Decreased desire and constant negative self-evaluation result in the avoidance sexual activity.  If a woman has a permanent thought of “I know he doesn’t find me attractive, because I’m fat so why would he actually be hitting in me right now?” then she will stop herself from actually being accepting of the thought of being hit on. 

Conversely, a woman will be more sexually aroused when their partner shows strong desire and attraction for her.  When a woman is more confident in her own appearance she will be able to experience the arousal, desire, and a possible orgasm.  This will, of course, improve the experience for both partners.

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References 

King, E. (2011, June 26). Bad Body Image [Body and Soul]. Retrieved April 16, 2017, from http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/aa74a4a8af929b8a1161a18604060eca

Marinos, S., & Adams, L. (2012, October 08). 6 Steps to better body image [Body and Soul]. Retrieved April 16, 2017, from http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/998f57dabb7a013b2678ee7140718fac

Over Weight Woman [Digital image]. (2015). Retrieved April 16, 2017, from http://media.salon.com/2015/03/overweight_woman-620x412.jpg

Quinn-Nilas, C., Benson, L., Milhausen, R., Buchholz, A., & Concalves, M. (2016). The Relationship Between Body Image and Domains of Sexual Functioning Among Heterosexual, Emerging Adult Women. Sexual Medicine, 182-189. Retrieved April 16, 2017, from http://www.smoa.jsexmed.org/article/S2050-1161(16)00030-1/pdf