Body Image and Sex

Becoming a woman is a bit like becoming celebrity, only more traumatic. This is either a fairly agreeable, or vastly unpleasant experience depending on what you look like and how popular you are. You go from being an uninteresting skinny child, more or less left to your own devices, to suddenly being incredibly fascinating to everyone the moment your breasts and hips start to appear.


Three months ago you were just a kid, blissfully unaware of the storm awaiting you with the onset of puberty. Nobody cared if you had hairy legs or short fingernails, chubby ankles or even if you were a girl or not, but now all of a sudden everyone has an opinion on you. From your split ends to your unpainted toenails and everything in between, suddenly everyone you know (and plenty of people you don’t) wants to tell you exactly what’s wrong with you. Magazines are full of pictures and articles and adverts of how you should look, your mother is tutting at your stretch marks, your aunts tell you how easy it will be for you to give birth with those hips, boys at school shout obscenities about your vagina across the playground. It’s all very stressful.


Then there are the body changes. Boys – a bit of extra hair and a deeper voice do not a dramatic pubescent transformation make. Try growing a pair of boobs (it hurts) and going home from school one day to discover your pants are full of blood (yeah, that hurts too). I think it took me about ten years to get used to the shock of getting an unrecognisably new body in the space of about three months. Granted, the transformation isn’t as a dramatic or fast for many girls. I was envious of my peers’ girlish bodies with their tiny pert breasts and slender hips, but perhaps they were jealous of mine too. I couldn’t do the things I used to do, like climb trees and dance and run about, without my new body getting in the way. It was like it had betrayed me.


It is against a background of all this drama and bleeding and trauma and pressure and tits and image and advertising and probably some awkward lights-out fumbling teenage sex that we emerge into our twenties. It is unsurprising then, that girls carry some insecurity into our relationships, specifically surrounding our bodies and exposing them to the critical eyes of others. I’m certainly not saying that guys don’t have insecurities too, but there isn’t quite that same intense pressure that we are under, to be perfect. Once the clothes come off and presumably there’s been some snogging, so many of us have this nagging feeling that we aren’t up to scratch. That scar, that spot, that stretch mark, that bit that wobbles a bit too much, that bit that doesn’t wobble enough…it’s a minefield.


And it can stop us from actually enjoying the experience - inhibition about our bodies gets in the way of good sex. Don’t you wish you could just laugh about the whole thing, not care anymore? Not that it isn’t easier said than done, it took me years to get over feeling inhibited and self-conscious about some aspects of my body. I’m certainly not all there yet either. But I’ve learned a valuable lesson along the way too, in that how you feel about yourself is what others see. People pick up on our carefully hidden insecurities.


Once you get over worrying about your flaws, you’ll realise no-one else really cares about them either. I once asked a male friend about whether guys are actually bothered about a bit of extra wobble, prominent ribs or boobs that are slightly different sizes whilst in the throes of passion – he said this: Woman, we’re so stoked to be having sex with you at all, we couldn’t care less or even notice. All we’re thinking is – this girl wants to have sex with me, she has tits and a fanny – awesome.


Not delicately put, but you get the idea.


Alice.


Twitter: @lucyetlapin
URL:   http://aliceetlapin.blogspot.com

Ask a Chap/Bird - April Body Issues

As all of our April articles are about ‘body issues’ we thought perhaps our Ask a Chap/Bird question could somehow tie in nicely. LYYB has a rather personal question... to shave or not to shave? Yes we mean down there... and yes gents we mean you too! It’s come to LYYB’s attention that when it comes to body hair it’s not just ladies who have it in all different shapes and sizes... we know through scientific research *cough cough* that men do all sorts of strange and wonderful things down there to, the question is chaps and birds what’s acceptable or does it really depend on the person? When it comes to first encounters is it better to have too much or too little? Do you wax, shave or pluck? We’re interested...

Ask a Chap!

At LYYB the ladies of the business are always pontificating the behavioural traits of the gentlemen they encounter. We decided we’d had enough of their constant and frustrated pondering so LYYB is putting these ever so complex questions to six men a month in a bid to put our lady issues to rest.

'At LYYB we are perplexed by the integrity of men in relationships. Our LYYB ladies tell us that the majority of men who appear interested in them are already in relationships. These 'gentlemen' claim they are 'in love' with their respective partners however they behave untoward via varied technical communications. As a guy what's your experiences\ theories on this?'

Chris, 23,

Men want the comfort and security of a relationship, and whilst they say they love their girlfriend it's more a case of them loving the situation they're in. They love the sex on tap and comfort of a girl who cares for them. And because they're not really in love with their other half, they still want the thrill and excitement that flirting with girls they don't know brings. Don't get me wrong, they probably care for their girlfriend but young guys get bored easily and they look for fun in other places.

Alex C,  20

If they are really in love with their gf then perhaps they like the fact that they are getting attention off other women as well as their gf and they like that. But then I think that’s crossing the line because if you are with someone you are making a commitment to stay loyal and not look for attention from elsewhere. And perhaps when they are sending these texts saying that they still love their gf they are covering their own backs trying not to come across as such a bad person and convince the other person that there’s not really anything bad going on when actually it is.

Jimmy, 25

Personally, i believe that if you are texting, or using social media to flirt with other girls whilst in a living relationship then obviously there's an element of emotional insecurity from the male perspective. Not saying that this is just a male trait as I know many girls that flirt that do similar. I went to school with a girl that has recently got married and she really gets a kick out of flirting with other men. Regularly emailing them. One of my best mates got with a married woman after she emailed his work account constantly. She emailed inviting him to cycles and triathlons, trying to meet whilst having the genuine excuse of undergoing their hobby.In some cases, they say that if you're in a relationship and your partner suddenly starts a health kick despite being in the comfort stage of the relationship then they've already decided that they're ending relationship, only when they're comfortable with their look...When I have been in a relationship I've always found myself texting others. Yet that was when I was younger and I've never been in love so doesn't count. Yet it's all down to the thrill of being caught. I reckon on some level you want to be caught so that you can make the hard decision, easily. Letting her break it off.

Andrew, 31

I would say it's probably something to do with us guys wanting to know that we still "have it" (the ability to pull women) and a lot of guys not really being happy with what we have.Even if you're in a relationship with a great girl you might see someone else and it might look like she's better so you might try a little harmless flirting and if you receive any kind of encouragement back it’s a real ego boost, and everyone knows we (guys) live off our egos.I also think there's a macho-ness involved with it too. Amongst friends, men are praised for their sexual exploits and therefore it could be seen as more macho to have more than one woman interested at a time. I, in my youth, had a wonderful girlfriend but decided to try and flirt with one of her friends over text. It always seems so much easier to say things in a text/chat than you would in real life. I got caught of course, and even though we stayed friends she has never forgiven me for it (and it's been 10 years!).

Phil, 26

Observation #1: They're clearly not mature enough to be in a committed relationship -- if they are doing this to their existing partner, chances are they will do it to the next one. The only way to stop it is to end the existing relationship in a decent, mature way.

Observation #2: Men are, fairly uniformly, driven by sex. If they're not getting it with their partner and don't have a stable relationship with them, then any show of affection or interest from another woman can result in the above mentioned games...

Observation #3: Likelihood is that the men from Observation #1 will never change - they are what is most commonly known as 'arseholes'.

Kurt, 23

I admit to having done this, but if push came to shove; I wouldn't cheat. It's nice to know if somebody finds you attractive. It's not a road I go down often. The first time it happened,the doubts it cast ended my first long-term relationship, but then again if that was meant to last, such a thing wouldn't have happened. I also seem to remember one young lady who "almost" kissed me when she was in a relationship too..

LYYB