In my experience, women are reluctant to let go of their self-critical thoughts and the cultural thin ideal even when they believe that it’s all nonsense—which it is—and they’re even more hesitant to believe that they are beautiful just as they are—which they are.
Later in the chapter I’ll describe three evidence-based strategies for shifting from self-critical ways to live in your body, to compassionate and healthful ways to live in it. But in the end, it will come down to a decision to stop cultivating the weeds of self-criticism and instead nourish the flowers of confidence today—and then remaking that decision each day.
“dirty”
I keep a basket of single-use bubble packs of lubricant in my office.
They’re all different colors, so it looks a little like a basket of candies or lip glosses. Coming to my office for the first time, a student will poke her finger into the basket, drawn by the colors, and ask, “What’s this?”
“Different kinds of lube,” I say. “Feel free to take as many as you like.”
About half the students say, “Cool!” and rummage around for a few they like. And the other half yank their hand away like the basket is suddenly filled with snakes.
That’s sexual disgust. It’s a learned withdrawal response from things that are “gross.” Everyone has something that grosses her out sexually, and everyone’s yucks are different. And nobody ever needs to use packaged lube (though I recommend it; you’ll see why in chapter 6)—we got along just fine without it for a few hundred millennia—so it may not matter much if lube is on your list of yucks.
But what happens when that same sexual disgust is activated by one’s
own body?
“My partner wants to . . .”
I have a lot of conversations that begin this way, trailing off into embarrassed silence. In one particular case, the student continued, “. . . He wants to give me oral sex,” and then she turned bright red.
“Okay,” I said. And I waited.
So she said, “Well . . . I mean . . .” and she trailed off again, not making eye contact.
“Would you like him to give you oral sex?” I prompted.
“I . . .” she said, wincing.
“I mean . . .” she went on.
“Isn’t it . . .” she finally asked, “dirty? Down there? The hair? The . . . mucus . . . ?”
My instinctive response to a question like that is, “Of course not, it’s beautiful down there! Congratulations on having a partner who appreciates that fact!” And sometimes that is effective. But often there’s a huge resistant knot of beliefs that has to be untangled before the person can get there.
Fortunately, science has provided me with a knife specifically designed to slice through that particular knot: Moral Foundations Theory. Jonathan Haidt and his team have found that there are six “moral foundations” in the human brain, each of which is a solution to a particular evolutionary 15 problem our species has faced.Of the six, it’s the “sanctity/degradation” moral foundation I find most relevant to sex.
The sanctity foundation is about contaminant avoidance, and it’s powered by disgust. Humans have generalized from avoidance of physical contaminants (we’re innately grossed out by rotting corpses) to avoidance of conceptual contaminants (we can feel grossed out just by the words “rotting corpses”). You can visualize sanctity as a vertical axis, with stigmatized and taboo behaviors described as “low” and “dirty,” and socially sanctioned behaviors as “high” and “pure.”
We judge as wrong anything associated with lowness.
In the Judeo-Christian ethic, bodies are low and spirit is high, animal instincts are low and human reason is high, and very often women are low and men are high. Sex draws attention downward to the base, the animal, the contemptible, and it therefore triggers the disgust response.
16This isn’t true in all cultures or belief systems—quite the opposite.
And even notoriously “sex-negative” Christian traditions may view sex as sacred under certain, “sanctioned” conditions. A religious fundamentalist friend in grad school surprised me after she was married with her eagerness to learn about pleasure and exploration, so that she could share it with her husband. She had to learn to think differently about her body in this new context, but once she had made the shift, her entire experience was revolutionized.
In the right context, sex and bodies are not “low” or “degrading,” they can be sanctified and glorious.
But many of us were raised in cultures that say our own sexual bodies are disgusting and degrading, and so are the fluids, sounds, and smells those
bodies make, as are a wide array of the things we might do with our own bodies and our partner’s. “Avoid sex! Sex is gross, as well as dangerous!”
If a sexual behavior or a part of your body is considered “low,” do you
suppose that activates the accelerator?
Nope. Disgust hits the brakes.
Disgust is physiologically distinct from the stress response; it’s more akin to parasympathetic “freeze” than sympathetic “fight or flight.” Disgust hits the brakes in the emotional One Ring, it slows your heart rate, stops your gut, and closes your throat. It doesn’t matter whether it’s activated by the stink of skunk or the stink of hypocrisy, the sight of blood or the sight of 17cruelty, the physiology is basically the same.
As Merritt thought more about her brakes and her lack of trust in her own body, she came to this conclusion: “I want to learn to trust my body.”
This became clear as she and Carol sat together, talking about what and how to teach their teenage daughter about sex. They made a list of all the things they wanted her to believe and experience, including • Recognize her own beauty of body and spirit • Feel fully in control of who touches her body, and how, and when • Know how to protect herself against consequences like infections and pregnancy When Carol (she of the feminist consciousness-raising group in the ’80s) asked, “How about pleasure? I’d love her to know how to give herself pleasure and to enjoy her body,” that was a tough one for Merritt. It’s not that she didn’t want that, it’s just she . . . couldn’t . . . quite . . .
Rare is the American parent who feels comfortable talking to a kid about sexual pleasure—rare but not nonexistent. My favorite story of a sex-positive parent came from a guy who told me that the first time he ejaculated (by rubbing his pelvis against his mattress), he ran to his mom, terrified that he had broken something. “Mom! Mom! All this white stuff came out of my penis while I was rubbing it!” And the mom was amazing. She calmly explained what had happened, that it was normal, and how to deal with it in the future.