How Sex Changed My Body Image

I hadn’t known to take my body seriously.

To a degree, I saw my body as a foreign object for as long as I can remember. I knew that I needed it to carry me places, to relieve my hunger when I fed it, and to memorize information that I needed to know for school. I was taught to keep my body clean, and to protect it from being taken advantage of. In my sheltered mind, what I knew of my body and what I was taught to do with it was all that existed.

As I got older, my body started its natural changes. It began to curve and jiggle in ways I hadn’t observed before. I was told about training bras that I didn’t want to wear. I was asked why my legs were so hairy before I even knew that it was the norm for girls to shave them. I was congratulated for being fertile when my period first reared its god-awful head when all I could do was feel like vomiting from the pain.

One night, I carried all these observations with me to the mirror and looked at myself completely nude. I cringed at what I saw. I was shaped like a defective rectangle; had nothing too ladylike about the outline of my body. My boobs looked, to me, like down-sloping bananas from the side, instead of the full, perky ones I’d seen in movies. My ass was supposedly where it should’ve been, but not fully visible, and it held stretch marks in place of the invisible growth. My stomach ebbed and flowed, instead of remaining completely flat like I figured it should have. I wouldn’t even look at my “down there” area. I didn’t entirely know what to identify my body as, though, from what I’d seen in all forms of media at the time, it didn’t look the way it was supposed to. From that point on, things were different… I saw my body as something that was happening to me. I knew that it needed more attention, but I wanted to be as separate from it as I could. I felt ashamed of it. 

I knew about sex, of course. Like most kids, I was definitely curious about it. The way directors made sex look in movies and TV shows was enticing, and I knew that rubbing something “down there” felt good. However, I was the golden child, an innocent angel. I was me, and I was too pure to see or do anything that pertained to sex. Even asking about it made people think I was growing too fast. It ruined people’s perceptions of me, and it ruined my perception of myself. Naturally, it all left me confused, but still wanting to know more. It was like a forbidden fruit.

All I knew was that, in the right circumstances, a body could provide pleasure and a unique emotional closeness with another through sex. I found this idea one of the most interesting and beautiful things, and I sheepishly searched about it on Google in my free time. But even once I’d gotten my period and was “fertile,” sex still wasn’t something I could connect to myself. It was always something for the more experienced, for people who’d already owned their bodies and knew how to use them. As someone who had a separated and awkward relationship with their body, sex seemed like a distant reality.

So when I first experienced it at twenty-one, it was obviously a tricky process. I didn’t want my partner to see the body I hadn’t fully owned yet. It felt incomplete, like it would never be good enough. I showered him with apologies about my body, and was initially afraid to go too far. This caused frustration on both sides. This was a sexually experienced man, who couldn’t even get a chance to cum because his lover was too afraid, and I was an all-around inexperienced woman, who wanted so badly to see firsthand what sex was like, but felt it was out of her league.

Thankfully, my partner was patient and straightforward with me while we explored sex together. When he and I finally orgasmed together for the first time, something else changed for me. I felt more natural in that moment than I had in any other. I got to do something with my body that not only made me feel good, but also made someone else feel good. My rectangular shape and my sad banana boobs didn’t matter in the enormity of a climax. Instead of seeing my body as something that had happened to me, I discovered how to use it to serve me and how strongly I would cum. It was the most freedom I’d felt in a long time; probably ever.

I began to see my body differently once I experienced sex. Slowly, but surely, it became less foreign to me. I became more confident from seeing it as a sexual temple that I held the reigns to. I could go out in public without a bra. I could look in the mirror without grimacing (as much, at least). Hell, I could sleep entirely nude if I wanted! Those things felt like such breakthroughs for me as a person who’d hidden her body away in embarrassment for so long. At the same time, those things felt so natural, like my newfound confidence revealed to me that I’d been capable of this the all along. 

I still don’t feel comfortable in my body all the time, but I’m more willing to explore it now. I no longer apologize as much for how it looks in front of my partner, and knowing how to work it during sex has become second nature to me. I’ve found more importance in being in tune with my body and what helps it to thrive, realizing I control whether or not it does. Today, I can look at my “down there” area, and know that it’s mostly comprised of my vagina, and not feel uncomfortable about what functions it serves. Now, I can talk to people more freely about sex, as I see that sex shouldn’t be something scary. Most importantly, I’ve learned to take my body seriously. I can say that it’s mine now.