E240: The Body Confidence Episode - How To Feel Good In Your Skin During Sex

There's just this tightness that we're trained to have in our bodies. And so much of what happens during sex is we need to like melt into our bodies and let them be and let go. Like research has actually shown in order to orgasm, like we have to turn off those parts of our brains that are hypercritical and like hypervigilant and hyperaware. Hello and welcome to the Pillow Talks podcast. We're your hosts Vanessa and Xander Marin. I'm a sex therapist with over 20 years of experience and I'm just a regular dude. We share the ups and downs in our relationship while giving you step-by-step techniques for improving yours. Make sure you subscribe for your weekly double date full of totally doable sex tips, practical relationship advice, hilarious and honest stories of what really goes on behind closed bedroom doors and so much more. It's the sex education you wish you'd had. It's officially that time of year again where the New Year's buzz is everywhere. Bzzzz. That's terrible. Bzzzzzz. New Year's buzz. You know, like your feeds are full of all the like fitness goals, habit resets, New Year, New Me energy. Stop. And while there's nothing wrong with wanting to feel healthier or build new routines and it's really understandable that a lot of people use the calendar reset to do that, we also know that this season can stir up a lot of feelings about our bodies and especially when it comes to intimacy. So today we are bringing back one of our most popular episodes of all time, which is all about feeling confident in your own body during sex. So whether you're riding high on all that New Year's fresh start motivation or maybe you're feeling a little self-conscious, seeing all the self-improvement talk everywhere around you, this conversation we hope will be your reminder that confidence doesn't come from a number on the scale or the size of your genes. In this re-air, we're sharing our best tips for building real grounded body confidence, the kind that lets you actually enjoy being present during sex, feel connected to your partner and appreciate the body that you are in right now. Today we are tackling one of the biggest issues we could possibly tackle. This is the big whale. This is the big leagues. This is the big leagues. It's one of the big whale. Right. What's the whale? Moby Dick. Yeah. Moby Dick is about a whale. Yeah. But I don't think big whale comes from Moby Dick per se. Oh really? I don't know. It's a different thing. I never ride Moby Dick to be totally honest. Have you? I don't think so. Call me a schmale. I know it starts with those words. Who would have guessed that within the first minute of our body confidence episode we would be talking about ish male. Yeah. I mean, there's actually a really simple hack to body confidence and that is whenever you're not feeling confident. You just say, you know what? Call me ish male and you think about a big Moby Dick. Great tip. End of the episode. We're done. We've solved it all. Yeah. It's just, you know, it's just redirect your anxiety. Wait, but I also because I'm such a crazy animal lover, I want to make sure I'm not talking about killing whales. I don't mean going after the big whale isn't killing it. I just mean, you know, we're trying to gently befriend it. Okay. I think you're just dug yourself deeper. I think I did dig myself deeper for sure. Also, I feel like a lot of people are going to hear whale and not think about body confidence. So maybe let's full time. What did you say instead of going after the big one? I said, it's the big leagues. Okay. Forget everything I said. It's the big leagues. This is a big league topic. That was a significantly bizarre and awkward intro. So let's just get into it today. We are talking about all the many ways that a negative body image can affect sex. So we're talking about how big is this issue? What exactly is it that we're all feeling so self-conscious about? What's the impact that it's really having on intimacy? And most importantly, how to build better body confidence so you can stop worrying about what your body looks like and start having amazing sex. Okay. Let's get into the episode. So first we turned over to our trusty community on Instagram and we asked some questions. So if you're not following us on Instagram, definitely make sure to do that. We are at Vanessa and Xander. We do all these great polls, get the conversation started before the episode even comes out. So we decided to first see how big of an issue this is. So we asked women, do you feel self-conscious of your body during sex? And then we also asked the same question to men. And the responses that we provided were yes, often or always, yes, regularly, yes, every once in a while and no. So I'm going to read the responses from women. And I think Xander, why don't you read the corresponding answers from men? Okay. This was really interesting. We don't love to be so gender binary. We want to take a moment to recognize our non-binary friends. And at the same time, I do think it can be interesting to like really contrast what it's like, like growing up with all this socialization that we receive as men and as women, just to see what those differences turn out to. So let's take a look at often or always. Are you often or always self-conscious of your body during sex? 30% of women said yes, often or always self-conscious of my body during sex. Xander, what was the corresponding answer for men? 7%. That's mind-boggling. 30 versus 7. Wow. Yeah. So that's a fraction of what women said. Then we had yes regularly, which 23% of women said. And 14% of men were in that category. So not as huge of a difference, but still quite large. Yeah. And especially if we then add those two together, because this is like anyone that experiences body consciousness like regularly or more. So for women, that would be 53% regularly or more often than that. And then for men, that would be, let me do my quick math, 21%. So more than double the number of women are regularly thinking about this. And in fact, for men, this is less than a quarter of men that are really thinking about this very often at all. Yeah. Then we had yes every once in a while. 38% of women said this was their response. And similarly, 37% of men said yes every once in a while. That was the only category that was close. So there's a good chunk of men and women that every once in a while are thinking about their body's strength sex. And then no was only 9% of women. Whereas for men, this was the most common response and that was 42%. So the least common response by a long shot for women, the most common response for men. And like over four times as many men just not worried about their bodies during sex. What would you have answered to this? Or what is your answer? I think, I mean, yeah, we're saying during sex. I've certainly felt insecure about my body before. I do still sometimes feel little bits of insecurity about my body. Enough to say every once in a while or would you have just kind of rounded to know? I'm trying to set the stage by saying in general, I do feel this sometimes during sex. I don't think I have ever. Oh, you're saying you feel occasional body confidence outside of the bedroom, but during set never? I don't think so. I think you have never thought about your body during sex. I mean, I'm thinking about the sex, having sex. I'm excited to be having sex. I mean, about one part of the body. I'm looking at you. I'm excited. Like I'm turned on. Like why would I be thinking about? So there's like I'm doing an act that makes me feel confident. Not a thought of like, ooh, I wonder if I my stomach looks a little weird at this angle or. I mean, I just kind of assume sex is a weird act. Like you're in weird, you're in weird positions. You're doing like. E in order to be having sex, you're both agreeing. Like, I guess in my perspective, I'm thinking, hey, we're agreeing. Like we're like, we're doing this thing regardless of what we're worried about or. Like, like we want to do this thing together and it's a, you know, we're in weird positions or we move around. We're like, it's just part of the deal. Like outside of the bedroom. Have you ever had the thought of like, ooh, I'm in a position that's like maybe making my stomach pooch over or giving me a little role? Yes. Okay. Outside of the bedroom. Okay. For sure. I mean, pretty much only ever in situations like where like my shirt is off. Okay. You know, like at the beach or whatever. I don't mean thank God in terms of like, I want you to feel that, but I was really going to have my mind blown if you've never thought about that. But okay, but you're doing like during sex. There's sort of just this understanding of like, we're sometimes contorted into weird positions. We're doing this funny act. So like, of course there's going to be. Yeah, it's like who cares. Body is contorted. Yeah. It's like, who cares what we look like? Like we want to have sex. Interesting. I mean, for me, and I think so many women will relate to this growing up, I was just constantly bombarded by magazine headlines. I can still see them in my head right now, like checking out at the grocery store with my parents, just reading the headlines. I wasn't allowed to read these magazines, but just reading the headlines like belly pooch and fat rolls and cellulite and jiggle. And so the thought, like even now, being a professional sex therapist, having done all this work on my own relationship with my body, but even now there is frequently that voice in the back of my head saying, Oh, there's a belly roll. Oh, there's a jiggle. Oh, there's a, you know, don't do that. Like that could look weird. And I have tools now where I can ignore it. I can move past it. And that's what we're going to talk about in this episode. But that's what I mean about the socialization. It gets in so young. It gets in so deep. And yeah, it really blows my mind to think about, like, I can't even conceptualize what it would be like to not think about your body during sex, like in a negative way, to not be like judgmental or critical or like, this angle is going to look weird or he's seeing some bit that I don't want him to see. Like it's, I can't fathom not having that experience. Yeah. I mean, it's just, yeah. It's a, it's, it's, it's sad. It's a bummer. Like it's a bummer to know that and I feel really bad that that's how you feel that that's your experience so often. And it's, yeah, it's, it's a bummer when I, when I contrast that with, I guess, when I contrast it with my experience of sex, because, you know, I get so much joy out of having sex with you and just being so present in that moment. And so like, you know, when we have sex, it's like, I get to tune everything else out. And, you know, definitely one of those things I tune out is like, Oh, like, what is this? Like, you know, how do I look in this position? Or what is, you know, any kind of stuff about like what anybody else thinks about me, whether you know, in the bedroom or out of the bedroom. Yeah. And, and so yeah, I mean, I can just imagine that when those types of thoughts are running through your head, how hard it must be to really be there fully. Yep. Welcome to being a woman. We'll get, we'll get into it more about, you know, some of the tools that I've been able to develop to help me navigate those moments because it's not something that's, you know, I, my answer for this at this point would be, I'd really get torn between every once in a while and no, like, I'd probably answer every once in a while. Um, yeah. I have the tools now that like I can refocus myself, come back into the moment, you know, really focus on enjoying the experience. And it's just like kind of that running chatter in the back of my head going all the time. We also asked like for people of any gender, if you're in a relationship with a woman, do you think her body image negatively impacts sex? 31% of partners said yes. A lot. 43% said yes, a bit. And only 26% said no. So that would actually kind of struck me as interesting because only 9% of women say that they do not feel self-conscious of their body during sex, but 26% of partners say that it doesn't impact it. So that makes me think that there are probably a lot of women suffering in silence about this. Like they're really struggling, but they don't want their partner to know what's going on. So the partner just doesn't have any clue that she's blissfully unaware. She's all tormented. Then we also asked what about your body? Do you feel self-conscious of during sex? So I'll read out the responses from women by far and away. The number one response was my stomach. Like just worried about my stomach looking fat, having roles like just looking unflattering. The stomach was that was it. And another very common response was weight overall. Then we had breasts, a lot of like being at an awkward angle and having my breasts like flopping around how they hang when I'm on top, leaning over feeling like they're too big too small. Cellulite jiggling of fat or skin thighs, vulva. So a lot of women pointed out like my vulva, does it look weird? Does it smell weird? Does it taste weird? 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Some people don't know. Okay. The grower versus shower. So this isn't really a binary. I imagine that there's really a whole range of things. But in general, penises tend to either be much smaller when they are soft and then it grow a lot as they get hard versus like the nice surprise. Yeah. Oh, where'd that come from? Yeah. So that's that's being a grower versus a shower where your soft penis looks pretty large. But when it gets hard, it doesn't get much bigger. It just gets hard kind of in the same size. Yeah. So grower, like you're growing a lot. Showers, like you're already pretty close to the size that you're going to be when you're hard. Yeah. I'm I'm I'm I'll just be honest here. I'm definitely a grower, not a shower. Did that bring up self consciousness for you? Not really. I don't think I'd actually really heard of like grower versus shower until later on. I just kind of assumed that everyone was a grower because, you know, you hear about like getting hard or like getting bigger or whatever. And so I just assumed that that was that was normal. And I guess I I don't know how I managed to do this. I guess I just kind of felt like, you know what? I think that my penis is about normalish size. You know, we came of age during the early days of the internet. So there wasn't the greatest the greatest information available out there. But, you know, from what I was able to glean, it seemed like it's I felt like, OK, I think that I am normal enough. And I was like, you know what? I guess I'll just sort of suspend judgment on this until I have a couple of sexual experiences, see how they go. It seemed like everything went real smooth around my penis. Like it was. You know, like it was like nobody bad and I was just like, yeah, cool. Like there it is. Yeah, there it is. It's it looks the way I would expect it to look. It's a penis. Yeah, it's a penis also, you know, early on like, you know, in my early sexual experiences, I was pretty excited. There were not very many people that were seeing me with a soft penis by the time the pants came off. It was it was hard. It was interesting for me to see so many responses about grower versus shower because I will say as a woman, I really don't think the vast majority of women care at all. It's like, I don't care what it looks like soft. I'm not doing that much with it soft. Like also, also it's quite convenient for it to, you know, be a little smaller when it's soft. It doesn't get in the way as much. Oh, you're just like in everyday life. Yeah, and every day all the things that you are constantly worried about of like, oh my God, how is your penis not hurt by doing this or that like pinched in your legs? It's just flopping around all the time. Yeah. I mean, if anything like I would think it's kind of fun to be like, whoa, where did that come from? Yeah, it's a nice surprise. I like it. I've never, yeah, I've never looked at a penis like a soft penis and thought like, man, I wish it was bigger or soft. I've never thought that. Because like who cares? It's kind of like, hey, like let's see what this looks like when it's hard. It's like this. Do you remember when you were a kid, those little like, you get the little capsule and you put it in the water and then all of a sudden it turned into like a dinosaur sponge? You're like, yeah, what's let's see what's going to come out of this thing? Yeah, you don't know. You don't know until you put it in the water and find out. Also, I will say again, speaking for all women kinds, since we usually make you speak for all men. Great. I love it. I truly believe women care about penis size, like just a tiny fraction of how men think about it. Like men are so anxious about penis size. And of course it matters. Of course we notice a difference, but it really is not that big of a deal. And I imagine it actually probably gets more problematic quicker on the plus side than on the minus side of average. Oh, yeah. Very quickly. We hear far more complaints about it being too large than about it being too small. Yeah. I mean, I would imagine that like pretty quickly as you get larger above average, you are going to start to run into, you know, oh, like that is a little too big. That is hurting. All right. Other fears for men not being fit enough or not being ripped and body odor. Comparing these lists together, the list of women is like going, it's like every single body part. And then I'm just going to close this one out real quick. Enos muscles body. Body odor like barely even counts. That's like not a, it's not a part of your body. You know, it's also a part of your body. Yeah. It's also easily addressed with some deodorant. Yeah. I mean, I'm not trying to like minimize this issue. No, no, I'm not. I'm not trying to minimize either. That's not something that I had particularly struggled with. And I can imagine that. Yeah. Maybe it's like more than just your armpits or your, you know, maybe do the work that you do. You, you sweat a lot or you're around stinky things and. Yeah. No, I don't, I don't mean to minimize and honestly, I don't love comparing very often. It's like we've all got our stuff going on. It's just, it is interesting in this case to see how big the differences are. Yeah. Especially cause you know, when we were reading through the female responses, I was on some of them. I was like, okay, yeah, I, I have definitely felt some awareness of these things like in just in life in general, you know, like, oh my stomach area, my weight or, you know, jiggling or whatever. But then I saw the list from men and I was like, oh, interesting. None of these are in there. And then I thought about it for myself and I was like, yeah, I do think about those things sometimes, but when we're having sex, it's like, no, like that's my time to like just like fuck it. Like let's have fun. Like let's forget about all this shit. Literally. Okay. Let me ask you the really tough question. Okay. What are you thinking about my body during sex? I fucking love it. It's hot. Like that's, I'm thinking about what I'm going to do to it. Like I'm enjoying it. I'm turned on by it. I'm excited by it. Like, yeah, I mean, it was just, it was funny like reading that, hearing that one. It was, yeah, you know, like breasts, like, oh, taking my shirt off at an awkward angle and having them flop around. I was like, what, what awkward angle? Like, let's see him. Like get that shirt off. I don't care what angle it is. I guess this feels like, you know, I'm sort of sitting over here thinking like, it's a really tricky question to ask you because what are you going to do right now? Like on a podcast that we know thousands and thousands of people are listening to like, you're not going to be like, yeah, babe, sometimes your belly does make a little pooch in certain positions. Like that would be a very, you know, like you're just not going to say that. So there's a part of me that like, honestly, sometimes it feels hard to believe because I've had so much of that socialization. It's just so deep in my brain, feeling like my body is constantly being judged. And I can realize intellectually, like nobody's actually judging my body, but it's hard to believe sometimes. I'm like, he's, he's got to have had the thought that like my boobs are in my armpits sometimes or, you know, I guess, I guess there's a, there's a differentiation for me between the thought or the observation. We're like the reality. Like I'm seeing things with my eyes that are, you know, like your body is following the laws of physics. So like the observation and then the judgment. And of course I observe things like I'm not, I'm not trying to say, oh, no, like none of these things ever happened. I'm not saying these things aren't real. Like these are real things. Like we all have bodies. They all hang in certain ways and they all, you know, hang in different ways and look different ways. And when we're making different movements and blah, blah, blah, like that's life that happens, but the judgment of it, like, oh, oh, I see that. And I don't like it or like, that turns me off or whatever. Like that doesn't cross my mind. I'm like, yeah, like we're having sex and we're in this angle. Like, of course that is going to happen. Like it would be weird if it didn't happen. That's a really interesting distinction. So it's like you are noticing things. Yeah, but like I'm turned on. I'm like, I'm like, hell fucking yeah, let's go. Let's fucking go. Okay. No, but I think that's really important. Like you are, we are, you are noticing things. You're saying like, yeah, like, of course gravity is doing its thing, but it doesn't feel like a judgment the way that we women have been taught to judge ourselves like, ooh, belly roll equals bad. Ooh, thigh jiggling equals bad. It's like, yeah, of course your thighs jiggling. You just switch position, but it's not a, yeah, it doesn't cross that line. Yeah. I mean, I guess the other way to put it is like, obviously male orgasm differs from female orgasm and I don't know what it is exactly that you experienced during sex. Honestly, you're probably getting it a lot better than I am since you have way more nerve endings. Sure do. But like let's give, let's, let me ask you more of an extreme example. Let's say that you are like right in the lead up to your orgasm. Like you are really almost there or like you're having an orgasm. Are you capable of like, would you be capable of like judging or being turned off by some part of my body or would you be like, what would be going on for you? No, I'm not. And you're, that's like a little spoiler alert for one of the tips that's that we're going to be sharing in this episode. Like when I'm really in the moment experiencing pleasure and connection and joy, my brain is nowhere near that place of judgment. Yeah. So that's, that's where I am like 95% of the sexual experience. Like it's just like, like I'm in a much more basic part of my brain. Like judgment. Yeah. Like in the primal sound. Yeah. Like, you know, yeah. I mean, I'm like in a lower, you know, whatever it's called like a low, what is it called? Like lower, not lower state of mind, but like primal. Yeah. I'm like, I'm not using those upper level functions of like judgment or analysis. Like it's just like, yeah, like, like let's do this. See, I think that happens for me and for most women just at the like right before orgasm and during orgasm, but for the rest of the sexual experience, like again, I've learned tools to help myself be more in the moment, but my natural inclination is that my brain is going to different places. I'm thinking, oh, we have to remember to do that. Oh, I've got to add that to the shopping list. Oh, I've got to do it. Oh, my body is doing a weird thing. So I'm constantly pulling myself back, but I'm, it's an effort. It's not just a like, oh, I'm just in that primal zone the entire time. All right. So I have an idea on do you ever, do you experience this as so like for me, when I am getting closer to orgasm, you know, there's, you know, before I've kind of gone over that edge of like, okay, this is going to happen. You know, there's sort of a moment where it's like, okay, do I change the pace or slow down or whatever so that I can extend how long we are having intercourse or am I going to be like, all right, yeah, like let's just let it go and do this. Like I sort of have this moment where it's like, okay, all right, like we're going over the edge and we're just, we're doing this. And it's like at that moment, it's kind of just like everything else is being shut out. And I would imagine you must have a similar experience like that at a certain point where it's sort of like, okay, whatever, like screw whatever else is going on in my life, inside my head or whatever. Like we're just like, we're doing it. I'm whatever I'm closing my eyes. I'm not looking whatever, you know, whatever it is. You know, like someone could like break in with a scream mask on and like, I'm still having my orgasm. So it's like in that moment, you're making a decision. Like, all right, screw it. I'm going for it. So like, obviously that happens for me when I'm approaching the point of orgasm, but I do feel like that's what I was trying to describe earlier of like sex feels like this thing where we just, yeah, we're almost like making an agreement. Yeah, we're going to do this, like screw the other stuff. I feel like there's also, there's another shift in my, I don't know, thinking, I guess, like probably around the time I first started getting hard where it's like, yep, like we're going to do this. Like I am, I am deciding. I'm saying screw it, screw whatever else is going on. Like I'm focusing on the sex. So at least for me, and I would imagine a lot of men feel something similar to that where it's like, once you get started with the whole sexual experience, it's this kind of like, we're just going to suspend all that other stuff. And we're just going for it. So yeah, I can't tell you, oh yeah, it's easy. You just do that. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, for women listening, we're trying to understand that experience for men. I wonder if you can put yourself in that position of like, okay, what is it like when I'm getting really close and I'm just like shutting everything else out? And imagine that probably what's going on for your guy is he's making that decision much earlier in the experience. Interesting. Yeah. Another thing going through my mind is I think as women, we've been trained to be so hyper aware of our bodies at all times. There's so much tension in our bodies on a consistent basis because we've been trained to like suck in your stomach and stand up straight and push your boobs out and push your butt out. And you know, it's just like we're constantly holding our bodies in the way that we're supposed to like the belly. That's the strongest thing that comes up for me. It's like I am always conscious of like holding my stomach in. There's just this tightness that we're trained to have in our bodies and so much of what happens during sex is we need to like melt into our bodies and let them be and let go. Like research has actually shown in order to orgasm, like we have to turn off those parts of our brains that are hyper critical and like hyper vigilant and hyper aware. But it's hard when you spend every day thinking about that. And again, with sex, it's like a physical act that you're doing. So it just brings up this like, oh, I can't be bent over like that because then I can't suck in my stomach in the way that I'm so used to doing. So let's talk a little bit more about the specific ways that bad body image negatively impacts sex because we've got to get people on board recognizing like how badly this is impacting your sex. If you haven't already, I think a lot of people have, but there are a lot of nuances and layers to this that we want to go over. Yeah, because I think that, you know, a lot of pretty much no one is like is arguing that this isn't a problem. I think most people would accept that. Okay. Yeah. Now, you like body image. This is an issue. Like I have an issue with this, but I think that a lot of people get to that and go, okay, I have an issue with it. I understand where it came from and how it's constantly perpetuated, but like, what am I really going to do about it? Whatever. Like I'm living my life. Okay. Like I'm surviving like, you know, whatever. I don't want to be battling with this constantly. And so I think people kind of live in this sort of, I don't know, low level state of accepting that it's there all the time. Oh yeah. So we got to talk about, yeah, why? Maybe you might want to put some effort into or take some steps to trying to break this down more because it may be impacting you more than you realize. Well, let's get started with desire. One person wrote in and said, if I'm having particularly bad body image thoughts, I can't even entertain the thought of sex. Yeah. That makes perfect sense for like any guy listening to this that is like, you know, where you're trying to kind of figure out how do I relate with this? I would say this is very similar to if you've ever experienced a performance issue, probably the next time or the next couple of times you had sex at some point that thought creeps in your mind. Probably right at the beginning. If you're thinking about initiating sex, you're like, ooh, am I going to be, am I going to have that problem again? Ooh, maybe I shouldn't like, how do I feel confident enough to really initiate this or really do this? Or if your partner initiated like, ooh, if I'm saying yes, like I'm agreeing to like doing it all the way and what if I can't? And I know for me, I've definitely gotten into cycles in the past where, you know, after an issue or two, then I was like, ooh, yeah, I sex doesn't feel very safe. Like I don't want to initiate it or if I think she's going to initiate it. I'm like trying to find ways to, for initiation to not happen. So I don't have to deal with that. And this sounds very similar. Yeah. I mean, you might be way less likely to initiate sex. If you're struggling with bad body image, you might avoid sex altogether. If it's that strong for you, it's like, I don't want to get naked. I don't want my partner to see me naked. Yeah. I mean, yeah, why? Cause it makes perfect sense. Like, yeah, why would you want to, why would you want to feel that? Oh, I don't want to, you know, yeah. Why would you want to subject yourself to that? Yeah. It's like a lot of us acknowledge. Yeah. It's, it's great that we've put a name to it. Yes. I have, you know, a body image issue. I have issues with body confidence. But yeah, when we just leave it there, then it's like, well, yeah. Okay. So you recognize that as an issue and you've recognized as an issue. So therefore you're going to want to stay away from situations that trigger that. You might not want to let your partner touch or look at your body. So insisting on having sex with the lights off or telling your partner like certain parts of your body are off limits. And this is different from like a, you know, a safety based boundary, but more just about the self consciousness. It's really freaking hard to be present in the moment. If you are struggling with body image. One person said half the time during sex, all I'm thinking about is my fat slash roles slash flaws instead of being in the moment enjoying sex. Yeah. I mean, this is like, I, I can, I can relate with this. You know, this is a stretch, but just from the perspective of like times where either we've been really tight on time or maybe we've been at somebody else's house and worried about making noise. And I'm like thinking about, oh, like, could someone hear that? Or like, oh, like, am I going to be able to get this done in time for blah, blah, blah, where it's like, there's something external that is, that is bothering me and I can't get that out of my head. Yeah. And so I can imagine that this is, is very much the same. Yeah. I mean, performance issues is another way that bad body image can affect sex. Not feeling very much pleasure that. And that's a big one. It is hard to feel a lot of pleasure during sex. If you have a terrible relationship with your body, it's just, it's very difficult and you might also struggle to let your partner focus on your pleasure, like on letting your partner help bring you to orgasm. Yeah. I mean, I think for pleasure, we need presence. We need, you know, kind of like single-mindedness. Oh, I saw that on a bumper sticker, like the second you said it, like for pleasure, we need presence or pleasure, pleasure requires presence. Yeah. Pleasure needs presence. I like it. Put it on a t-shirt. Limiting activities too. Like one person said, I'm not as adventurous as I want to be because of fears about my body. So I think positions is like a great example. Someone might say, I wouldn't let myself do this position because I'm too afraid of what my body will look like. And then finally, not orgasming, you know, we kind of should loop that one in with pleasure. Oh yeah, totally. Yeah. If you're not feeling very much pleasure, then why would you orgasm? Like it's a, you know, it's, it's a linear thing. You get the more pleasure, you get the closer you get to orgasm. It's not like, yeah, you know, our, our, our sexual organs are, it's not like a button where it's like, oh yeah, if I just push this button enough times, the thing happens. Pleasure is the pathway to orgasm. All right. We have a little story time for you. So last year I was agonizing over what to get this guy for Christmas because he is extremely difficult to get things for. I mean, you could get me a surfboard every year, but no, I'm just kidding. So I came across this pillow. This is a sex pillow. If you've never seen these before it, you use it during intercourse, changes the angle and I will say I came across this pillow and I was like, you know what? We tried sex pillows years ago. We went through several different kinds. We got sent like we get sent a lot of sex toys and products in the mail. We try them all and I just have not liked any of them. The shapes were more novelty than a actual functional thing. The first one that we got was like purple velour. It was hideous looking. It really screamed sex. Yeah. And what I liked about this one is I was like, you know what? Okay. It's beautiful. It's this really nice linen color. It's very neutral. It'll look totally at home in our bed. Nobody will know. Yeah. Nobody will know that it is a sex pillow. So even if we don't like it, we can at least leave it on our bed and it'll be a little decorative pillow. The other thing that made me hesitate. I want to be totally honest is this pillow is way more expensive than the other pillows that we had bought before. We'd always found like super cheap ones or we'd been sent super cheap ones. Yeah. When you pick it up, you understand why. Yeah. But, but I just want to be honest. Like I was like, God, that's, I don't know for a pillow. Is that really going to be worth it? But I was desperate to get a gift for this guy. So we used it and we were immediately obsessed. Holy shit. It doesn't look like much, but it really changes the angle on some of your standby, like favorite positions and it makes some positions possible that we're not making some positions pop. You could say. Yeah. So we became huge fans of this. We use it all the time. I will say you like it even more than I do. I do it. Yeah. I mean, the changing of the angle, I think is good for you and it's also great for me and it also affords you certain views as the giver. Just do that little angle of kind of being able to see more of the action that it really kind of takes things to the next level visually. We are sharing it with you now, which we are super excited about. If you want to check this bad boy out, you can go to VM therapy dot com slash pillow. There might be a little secret discount that you can check out too. We're going to be working with them some more to give you even more ideas for positions, ways to play with it. So there's lots to come, but I really, really think that every couple should have one of these pillows and you might be doubtful. You might be looking at this thing. Can I really be that big of a difference? I'm not really going to spend that on a pillow. It can. Let me just tell you right now. Trust us. We were just as doubtful as you were and now we are whole hog. Yeah. We're all in on this. We're so, we're honestly so hesitant to suggest most sex products because it's like, well, who knows? We suggest like none. You know, is this going to work? Is it will this work for everyone? Maybe it'll work for someone, but not for that many people. The quality is not very good. This one is just like a hundred percent wholehearted recommendation. You cannot go wrong with this. We're obsessed. So go to VM therapy.com slash pillow to check it out. Okay. So let's get into building better confidence, better body confidence. If you're listening to this episode and it's just like this growing pit in your stomach, like, oh God, it really is an issue. Don't worry. Of course, we are not going to leave you hanging out. We're going to talk about how to build better body confidence. So our first tip is that if you want to feel more comfortable with your body during sex, you have to start by working on feeling more comfortable in your body throughout the day. Feeling body confidence right in the middle of sex is the hardest time to feel confident about your body. And I think this is where a lot of people go wrong is we feel the impacts of bad body image so strongly when it comes to sex. So people get it in their heads is like, oh, I want to feel great about my body during sex. Like that's another one of those magazine covers that we've already always seen like feel better naked. Right. But that's a really high bar. Like that's a big goal to set if you are struggling to just feel good about your body all throughout the day. Yeah. How about just feel neutral about your body? That that that seems like a good goal. Yeah. I mean, you're talking about that's the whole difference between like the body positivity movement and the body neutrality movement is, you know, body positivity started talking about like seeing our bodies in, you know, in positive ways. And then body neutrality said, well, for some of us, that's really tricky to do and can we start by actually just seeing them in neutral ways or even taking some of the emphasis off the body in general. So that's a whole other piece of the puzzle that we could bring in, but we did want to share one really important mindset shift. I think a lot of times when people decide like, okay, I want to feel better body confidence. I'm doing it. I'm going to feel great about my body. Sometimes we think of it as this end goal that we're going to reach and this comes up a lot with bodies in general. Like, oh, once I lose that 10 pounds or once I lose those 20 pounds or once I gain those muscles, like then I'm going to be so good and happy and it's done. Right. It's never done. It's never done. Body confidence is a journey and not a destination. You are never going to reach a point where you are unflappably confident about your body a hundred percent of the time, at least in the society in the world that we live in today. Sure. Maybe in a different era. Live on Mars. In a different era, perhaps, but not today. So I like to think of body confidence as a daily practice as something that I just continue doing. Like I practice showing up for my body over and over and over again and I normalize that they're going to be days where I struggle with this. They're going to be days where it feels easy, peasy, no problem, but it's a daily practice for me. And I realize that for some people that might sound frustrating. Like, of course, it's nice to have the, like have a definitive goal and hit it and feel a sense of being done with it. But I actually think it takes a lot of pressure off of it to just think of it as like, yeah, it's going to be a journey. It's going to be ups and downs and all that I need to do is just keep finding little and big ways to show up for myself every day. It's not a, it's not this Herculean thing that I just have to grind through for the next three months and then I'm done with it. So let's talk about a couple of tools. Now, I'll be honest. I haven't wanted to make a body confidence episode until now. Like, what are we a couple of years into this podcast? Because it is such a huge topic. Like we could make an entire course about this that would be like, you know, multi months long course. And it's so it's hard to like boil such a big topic down. And I'm also the kind of teacher where like, I want to give people really practical tools that are going to help. I don't want to give the vague advice like, just feel better about your body. You know, so this was a struggle to me to figure out like, how do we find that balance of, you know, it's, it's only limited to one podcast episode, but we still give people tools that they can actually use. So we decided to give you a handful of tools that you can use. So this is not the comprehensive all encompassing guide to better body confidence. This is a few tools and the thing with tools is that different things will work for different people. So you might hear a couple of these and think like, I don't know, it doesn't really resonate with me. You might hear one of them that you're like, ooh, shit, I need to try that starting tonight. So like just see if you can land on, if you come away with at least one tool from this episode that you feel excited to experiment with and to put to use, then our work here is done. Okay. So the first thing that I want to talk about is seeing your body as so much more than just what it looks like. And especially for us women who have been socialized our entire lives to believe that so much of our value lies in our physical appearance and this extremely narrow window of what is acceptable and unacceptable for our bodies to look like, like we have just been trained since the day we were born to think of our body as just what it looks like. But there is so much more to your body than just the exterior. And so for me, there have been a couple of phrases that I've come across in my work on body confidence that really stuck with me and actually ended up turning kind of into mantras for me. Like they're these phrases that I hold on to in moments that I'm feeling self conscious. I repeat them to myself and it just like grounds me. It reminds me of what's truly important. So I'm going to share a couple of them with you. One comes from the kite sisters. They've done some really amazing research on body confidence and their whole mantra is your body is an instrument, not an ornament. There's another one that I love from our friend Liz Moody. She always says your body is for living, not looking. I really like that one too. And then this one, I actually don't know who was the first person to say it, but I heard it somewhere along the way. The way your body looks is the least interesting thing about you. Oh, interesting or not interesting. I love that one too. Cause it's that one. It's just like a fuck. Yeah. You're right. There are like, there are so many other things about my body, like other than just the shell on the outside, what it looks like. Yeah. I mean, yeah, if that were the most interesting thing about you, like you would be in for a very vain and boring existence and relationship. So hopefully one of those three will land with you. Maybe there's another one that you pick up along the way, but I think just having one phrase in your back pocket that you can remind yourself of in those moments that you're struggling can be so helpful. Yeah. I really like, I really like the, like your body is an instrument, not an ornament. I kind of come back to something similar. Yeah. I just remind myself like, you know, for me, I serve. I always go back to surfing of like, yeah, like my, like my body gives me the capability to do so many amazing things in the water. Like it, it allows me. Yeah. It allows me to, you know, to survive and really thrive like in big, bigger, scarier conditions and doing things that like a couple of years ago to me would have just been completely off the table, completely, complete non-starters like surfing waves that that were, would have, I would have would have scared the shit out of me. I would have never even like made it out, out to the break and you know, just I'm able to do so many things, all things to that body regardless of how it looks. So really powerful thing you can do is start making a list of all the amazing things your body does that have nothing to do with the way it looks. So put that on your phone, like open up a note, keep it there, add to it whenever you think of something, but that is a very powerful list to have. Our next tip is to do kind things for your body. This one sounds so obvious, but I challenge you right now to think about what is the last kind thing that you did for your body? I think the majority of people will not be able to come up with an answer. And the thing is you can't have a good relationship with your body. If you're not doing nice things for it, like think about a relationship with a human being. If I never did anything nice for you, like that would not be a good relationship. No, like we have to be kind to ourselves. And the great thing about this tip is you don't have to see your body positively in order to do kind things for it, but doing kind things for it will help you feel better about it. So I recommend coming up with some sort of body ritual, like one small thing that you could do on a daily basis. So something really small, like a minute or less, but something that you could do on a daily basis to be kind and loving towards your body. And be really intentional with this too. Like when I do something for my body, I take a moment to actually say to myself, I am doing this to be kind to my body. I think sometimes, especially now that like self care has like become such a bigger part of our lexicon, like we often do things for ourselves, but it's like we're kind of just going through the motions of it. It's like, oh, yeah, Yoss Queen, I'm taking my bubble bath or whatever, you know, but then it's like, you don't actually even enjoy it that much. So like taking that step to be really intentional. Like I'm doing this for a purpose. I'm doing this to be kind to my body, to show it love, to take care of my body. Another tip is to think about the kids. So if you're a parent, what is it that you want your kid to think or feel about their body? I think when it comes to our bodies, it's very easy for us to get into our own heads, to only think of ourselves. That's why I love bringing kids into this because your kids, they see everything. They are picking up on everything. Even if you think they aren't, they probably aren't. Like they are seeing you treat your body poorly, talk about your body in bad ways and they're absorbing that and picking that up. Yeah. I mean, it's the same way that we picked up all this stuff. Yeah, absolutely. So I think like thinking about your kids and the sort of relationship that you want them to have with their body. I mean, I want to acknowledge like this can feel like a real gut punch to some parents like, oh, the guilt that can come up, the shame that can come up. So we're not saying this to like, to make you feel bad or make you feel like you're being a bad parent, but rather to like really ground yourself in like that love that you have for your child, that complete unconditional love that you have for them, the way that you want them to have like this beautiful, healthy, loving, joyful relationship with their body. Like you can do that by developing a better relationship with your own body. So sometimes like, especially with things like taking care of our bodies, a lot of us think like, oh, I'm so busy. There's so many other things I can do. It's selfish. It's self-indulgent to do stuff like this, but it's not. It's not only important for you. It's also important for your kids. Yep. You got to walk the walk. Absolutely do. And if you don't have kids, I think it's really powerful to think about your younger self. Like I often think about little Vanessa and I think the great thing about kids is this is happening at an earlier and earlier age that they're becoming conscious of their bodies, but sadly young kids, they are so joyful about their bodies. Like they delight in their bodies. If you've ever been around young kids, like it's so freaking cool to watch them just like be so joyful and carefree about their bodies. And so sometimes I think about little Vanessa and I imagine her looking at me adult Vanessa and adult Vanessa like picking herself apart or saying mean things to each other. And I just imagine the look on her little face and that instantly pulls me out of the moment. Yeah, she'd be horrified. Yeah, she would be very sad. And so that gets me like, yeah, that gets me to stop and that gets me to think about like, let me bring some of that childlike, joyful, gleeful, curious, excited energy back to my body. We were all born feeling joy in our own skin. We were not born feeling self-conscious. We were taught to be and we can get back to feeling that joy. That joy is our birthright. It is. Yeah, I mean life is, it's, yeah, it's pretty, I mean, life is pretty incredible when you don't have all the other little lenses on it. Just the fact that we're here and we're living, we're capable of feeling joy, pleasure, excitement, all that stuff. And every kid feels that, like every single kid feels that and yeah, it's not, yeah, that's, that's available to all of us still. The next tip is maybe my personal favorite. It's had the biggest impact on my own relationship with my body and that is talking to my body. I have developed a practice where I literally will talk to my body. And so when you're talking to your body, as if it was its own entity. So I'm not talking about like talking to my body like, oh, you're so fat. Oh, your skin is so floppy. Oh, you have this horrible cellulite. Like we all do plenty of that. That is not helpful. But I talked to my body as if it was its own creature. And that instantly makes me interact with it in a softer way. Like if I'm really thinking of my body as its own entity, I don't want to be mean to it. Just like I wouldn't say mean things to Xander or to some stranger that I saw on the street. Like I would never talk to another person the way that I can talk to myself. But if I imagine my body like as its distinct entity, it just instantly makes me feel softer about it. So when I'm in a good space, I practice saying kind things to my body. I will like call out like, oh, you look so sexy in that. You know, oh, your skin looks so beautiful. Your curves are so amazing. I express appreciation and gratitude. So I don't just talk about the way my body looks. I will say like, thank you for being so strong. Thank you for getting me through that workout. Thank you for being healthy. You know, all this kind of stuff. So I really focus on, you know, the inside of my body, all the things that it does for me. But when I'm really having like tough days with body confidence, I will also talk to my body in those moments and I will say to it things like, you know, I want us to have a better relationship. Like I'm having a tough day and I know I'm being hard on you and I'm sorry for that. So it's like just that dialogue. It doesn't have to be perfect. It's not a constant like, yeah, you're so amazing. You're so great. You have the best body ever. Like sometimes it's hard and sometimes it's like, God, I'm really struggling to be kind to you today and I'm so sorry about that. You know, like just that dialogue makes me feel so much better. Like I just want you to know body that I'm trying. This is hard for me, but I'm trying. Like it's just a totally different way of relating to my body. It's been super, super helpful for me. Okay. So now let's move into how do we take this body confidence that we're starting to build outside of the bedroom and bring it into the bedroom so we can feel it during sex. Invite it to the party. So first there's an incredibly important mindset shift that we have to make here. The way that your body looks has zero relationship with the pleasure your body is capable of feeling. So you don't have to wait until you've lost those 10 pounds or you've bulked up your biceps in order to feel more pleasure. Like your body is capable of infinite amounts of pleasure exactly as it is right now and pleasure is the pathway to better body confidence. Pleasure is the pathway to orgasm. Pleasure is also the pathway to better body confidence. The more pleasure that you can feel in your own skin, the better you're going to feel about your body. Yeah. I mean, and because, you know, we were talking about, you know, the presence is really required for the pleasure and it, but it's, you know, they're kind of two sides of the same coin. The more, the more pleasure you are feeling, the more you are enjoying sex, the more likely you are going to be to be like, yeah, you know, it's screwed like, yeah, let's tune out all this other stuff. Like, yeah, let's, this is good. I want to focus on this. Yeah. So you can set yourself up for success going into sex by reminding yourself to focus on pleasure. So you can say to yourself before sex, like I choose to focus on sensation and pleasure. I have another little hack for this one because I know that it can feel like a lot to be like, Oh God, now, like every single time I have sex, like I got to be like so focused on this and not allowing these thoughts to come into my mind and blah, blah, blah. Try this. This is a little hack that sometimes can short circuit that, that's longer term thinking that ends up just shutting us down and think to yourself, what would it be like if I just one time, like tonight when I have sex, what would be like tonight if I just went all in and was like, you know what? I'm just going to focus on the sensations. I'm just going to focus on the pleasure and see how that goes. And you can decide after that what you want to do the next time and the time after and the time after that. But I think it's, it can be really easy to be like, Oh, well, I couldn't possibly do that because like, you know, whatever, like two months from now when blah, blah, blah, I don't know. You know, it just snowballs into like all these big reasons why you can't, but just try it. What if you were like, you know what? What if I saw what it would, what if I tried one time to see what it might be like for my partner who doesn't seem to give a shit about any of these? Like, and just see what that's like and then decide what you want to do with that. So in the moment when you feel self-consciousness strike, because it's going to like, you're going to have those self-conscious thoughts have come up. But in the moment, redirect your attention to the sensations that you're feeling. So you notice the self-conscious thought come up. Just take a moment to like, okay, I hear that it's there, but then redirect your attention to what is it that your body is feeling in that moment. And you can even repeat that as a mantra too. Like I choose to focus on sensation. I choose to focus on pleasure instead. And our final tip here is to enlist your partner on your body confidence journey. We think it's so powerful to have conversations with your partner about your body image. I mean, I will say like, this has been huge for me in my own journey. Like even this sitting here today, having this conversation, like hearing you say those things, and they're like, that's healing for me. It's, it's been really impactful for me. So I think like our tendency is when we feel self-consciousness, we feel ashamed and embarrassed of it and we don't want to share it with our partner. Hold it in. Don't let anybody else know. But I think airing out your concerns really can help like relieve that stress and anxiety that you're feeling and can actually create a lot of intimacy and connection. Like your partner might be struggling with their own body confidence or insecurities, but you know, even if they're not, it's like vulnerability is what creates intimacy. And sometimes when we verbalize these things that have been in our head for so long, what you'll find is when you actually hear yourself saying it using words, you might find yourself feeling like, huh, that actually feels more extreme than, or like that sounds more extreme than what I actually feel. Huh. Maybe I don't feel this strongly about it and you can start to revise what it is, you know, try to revise with words what it is that you're actually feeling inside because, you know, when we only allow things to stay in our heads, like the words that we use, they, they really ratchet up. And then very often I find this very often when we're talking about how we feel about something like, I'll say something and be like, whoa, that is actually way more extreme that when I hear that out loud. Yeah, that doesn't actually very accurately reflect how I'm feeling. Let me try to find some different words that better reflect what I'm actually feeling and you might find that actually lower a lot of the intensity. You might realize, oh, I've turned this into a much bigger thing in my head than it really is. And the reality is that your partner is not nearly as harsh on your body as you are. I can almost guarantee that like nobody is as hard on our bodies as we are ourselves. And your partner may actually be wanting to see the things that you are feeling ashamed of. Like I'm thinking about boobs hanging wherever they're going to hang bouncing around, whatever it is. Like the things that you're feeling ashamed about, there's a strong high likelihood boobs are not that your partner may actually be into them and excited to see whatever that is because what they are seeing is like stuff that reminds them of sex and stuff that they see when you're having sex and they're excited about. We asked our Instagram community, we said, okay, if you're a man with a female partner, what do you wish your partner knew or understood about her body image and sex? So like something that she feels self-conscious about that you don't think is a big deal or what it's like for you when she gets self-conscious. And we got some really, really amazing responses back. I'm going to have Xander read them so he can speak for all men again. All right. I'm channeling all the male energy here. Yeah. What I really want to encourage you to do if you're a woman with a male partner, I want you to just practice receiving these statements. Just listen to them. I would actually even say like after each statement, like pause the recording and just take a minute to like let it soak in, see if you can allow yourself to receive it because spoiler alert, there were some really amazing messages that came through. So see if you can let yourself receive these. All right. All men are saying these things coming from Xander's mouth. Most of the things you worry about are the parts I love the most. I wish you could see yourself through my eyes. I love you any way you look. Your attitude towards sex does more than your physical looks for me. Attitude, joy and having fun are sexy. You get really self-conscious about your postpartum body, but little do you know you're hotter than ever. And just by the way, this was a very popular take. We got so many. So many. iterations of this type of statement. One guy in particular said, I wish my wife knew her body tells a story of love every stretch mark or a C-section scar tells me that she grew our baby girl. I'm desiring you just as you are at that moment. There's not a thought about your body being different. Stop worrying about looking hot while we're doing it. I'd rather you just be in the moment with me. Sexiness isn't a shape. It's a vibe. I love your body and I don't see it the way you do. I still get schoolboy excited just to see you naked. I love that one. Yeah. That is that is so nice. And yeah, there were a bunch of these that kind of got at like just the energy that you show up with is so much more important than you think. That's such a bigger part of what attraction is than just the physical. Like it's especially long-term attraction. Like I think long-term attraction really has very, very, very little to do with physical attributes. It's all about energy and vibe and personality and confidence. It's, you know, maybe physical attraction is something that gets us like, you know, somewhere right at the beginning or just a little bit of a you know, somewhere right at the beginning or gives us that initial kind of zing when we see someone. But after that, it's just, it's all about energy. All right. I feel like there'd be a lot of people taking a lot of deep breaths after listening to that. I might even be a few tears there, but I just loved reading these and I think it's so important to recognize like this was an anonymous question box. Obviously, I was putting Xander on the spot asking you some questions. Like I was saying earlier, like, yeah, what are you going to say? Like, Oh, no, babe, I am thinking very critically about your body. I want you to lose 10 pounds. You know, so it's like, I get the suspicion that can come up on my part on other women's parts, but like this was an anonymous question box. Men could have said, you know, actually, I do think she needs to worry about this or something. You know, they could have said stuff, but like they didn't. They didn't say anything like, you know, complaining or negative. There also wasn't even anything neutral. Like, you know, oh, this isn't that big of a deal. Like these were beautiful, beautiful, like touching statements. Yeah. You know, so I think it's a nice note to end on. So I hope that this episode has been really helpful in giving you tools, giving you motivation and inspiration to build better body confidence. Well, that's all for today's episode of Pillow Talks. Thank you so much for listening. Join us again next week. We release new episodes every Thursday.