In our culture, it often seems that in order to be sexy, you must be young and super beautiful. Every reference in media shows women and men who look very young. It gets kind of strange, because you see women in media starting to do plastic surgery at very young ages. I personally remember feeling shocked after seeing Lindsay Lohan possibly getting some type of facial repair in her twenties. I never thought for one second that she didn't look beautiful before the alleged repair.
I thought about how this might be affecting regular women day to day. Many women who see me in counseling find themselves feeling sexually irrelevant. I hear women say, "I'm too old to be sexy!" or "How could he find me attractive? I'm a mom." This is a sad part of our society that is affecting our sex lives.
A big part of my job is to help women build sexual confidence. Sexual confidence is very strongly linked to personal self confidence. Media has a way of guiding us in standards of what is beautiful. Maybe, we need to push back and look for alternative forms of beauty.
For example, I think mothers and grandmothers are very beautiful and deserve to feel this way even after motherhood. The women I know who have confidence post motherhood find ways appreciate their C-section scars or their stretch marks. They will describe them as battle wounds at the great battle of motherhood. But wouldn't it be nice to see women in media who could embrace these in some way too?
The problem with this pervasive need to always look young and perfect is that it can sometimes cause people to seek sexual relevance in unhealthy ways. For example, a woman who never feels beautiful may suddenly find herself in an affair when a man does notice her. Instead of having some sort of positive self image, some women constantly need approval from men to feel sexually relevant. I know that it is nice for someone to find you attractive outside of your relationship. However, I do find that extremely low self esteem can sometimes lead a person to make poor judgment choices in order to experience validation or sexual relevance.
I think it is important to find unique ways to feel sexually relevant. For example, I sometimes am able to convince women to go pole dancing or belly dancing. I love these types of dance because the classes are by and for women. The classes have this impeccable ability to help women find confidence in their sexual bodies. The nice part about belly dancing is that having curves helps the dance look more beautiful. It is not about having the perfect body, but about using your beautiful curves to your advantage and displaying them at lovely angles.
Another way some women find sexual relevance is by taking sexy photos of themselves. Whether they use a professional photographer or have an artist paint them, the important thing is to celebrate their bodies in a unique and fun way. It's perfectly fine to keep these photos between you and your partner or to display them in your bedroom. Couples can also exchange sexy photos with each other-also known as sexting. The purpose is to help a woman feel uniquely beautiful in a sexual way.
A last way that a woman may find sexual relevance is to purposefully dress in a way that frames her body beautifully. In the old television show "How do I look?" I loved how the hosts would find clothes that made any woman beautiful. The goal was not to make a woman fit into something that didn't feel comfortable for her, but instead to find unique and stylish looks that represented her beautifully. Too many women put on frumpy clothes in order to hide their bodies. Dressing this way seems to exacerbate their confidence issues not help them.
While there are many other unique ways to feel sexually relevant, I couldn't possibly list all of the possibilities in this blog. I encourage every woman to find her unique sexual beauty and practice flaunting it. We all need to find ways to experience sexual relevance and we don't need perfect bodies to do so. What are some of your ideas for how to feel sexually relevant?