How To Cum More And Shoot Further Part 5

Every dribbler has had the experience of shooting 6 inches to 3 feet further than normal. Why then? Why not now? Why not always?

You came like a porn star then in part because you were so incredibly turned on that your sexual plumbing went into overdrive and produced a master shot-put of the white stuff.

The question becomes how can you re-create that kind of revved up desire. By knowing how to make yourself so sexually excited that it comes out of you like a broken water main.

Dialing up the turn-on to Defcon 1 can be physical (like when your partner licks your balls) or psychological (how much passion gets generated in a session with her).

Here’s a funny but accurate example of how physically dialing up the turn-on results in more forceful orgasms: Jerk off while standing over a space heater (you know, those little room warmers that sit on the floor). The heat will stimulate your penis and testicles. It will be absorbed into the body heating up everything from the muscles to the semen itself. All that warmth will amplify the sensations and you’ll have an awesome orgasm (if you don’t electrocute yourself, first!).

That’s a great example of how something so simple can increase libidinal sensations, but obviously you’re not going to bring a space heater along with your toothbrush and condoms to your lady friend’s house. You need a better way to dramatically increase how turned on you get and I’m about to show you. It’s all about approaching sex in a way that spirals up the erotic energy.

How To Put More Passion Into Your Sex Life So Your Orgasms Pole Vault Across The Room.
Think back at the most memorable sex you’ve ever had. What do you remember most–that thing your partners did with their tongue or the feeling of getting sucked into a vortex of sexual energy that made you temporarily forget your name?

Being good in bed isn’t about what you can do to her; it’s about where you can take her. It’s not that technique isn’t important, but technique without passion just makes you a skilled worker.

Passion is a funny thing. You can’t teach it because it’s not a skill. You can’t acquire it because it’s not a possession. And you can’t learn it because there are no instructions. Like the wind, you can’t see it but you can feel it.

If passion has one defining characteristic, it’s energy. Movement. Action. Convergence. By movement I don’t mean sexual calisthenics–setting up a trapeze, swinging from the chandeliers and diving into pillowed mosh pits. There’s nothing wrong with that, but passion defines movement as something that builds and resolves anticipation. Movement that creates the unexpected. Movement that travels from dissonance to harmony. It can be subtle, silent or loud. It can make you shiver, sigh or scream. It can pull you down like a whirlpool, suck you up like a tornado or waft you aloft on a magic carpet.

Consider the passionate kiss:

Your partner stops an inch before your lips. The space between crackles with anticipation. Your partner doesn’t back up. Doesn’t move forward. You’re caught in the tease. Your heart climbs the stairs. Your partner leans in. Your lips part and…

This is sexual energy in motion: It holds a chord and waits for the resolving note. It pushes you to the brink and pulls you back just in time to push you again. It has an upward trajectory, transferring from one partner to the other. Movement is passion’s starting point. It can be subtle–an unresolved kiss–or explicit–throwing each other around like rag dolls.

Next in the series:  Exercises to increase your passion quotient.

Resources

Gay Body Language Part 2: Words Lie Bodies Don’t

 

The truth leaks out of our bodies like a pockmarked water pail. As soon as we put a finger in one hole another one opens up. You may think you look calm, cool and collected, but look down– your foot’s tapping the floor like a woodpecker. You can stop it, but now look—your fingers are beating the table like a rented mule. Communication researchers call this “body leakage.” Think of your body language as the emotional version of a full bladder: At some point, you’re going to take a leak.

Sexual signals bounce all over the place whenever gay men get together, from “fuck me” to “fuck off” to everything in between. And they’re being sent with heads, eyes, arms, hands, legs, and feet. Yes, feet. Long story, keep reading.

Your body language changes when you see somebody hot. And you’re usually not aware of it.

Hidden camera studies show that a man’s posture changes when he sees somebody that turns him on. He, or more to the point, YOU, will:

• Pull in your stomach. (To look sleeker)
• Throw your shoulders back (to occupy more space)
• – Lift your head (To look taller)
• – Protrude your jaw (to look more dominant)
• Puff up your chest (to look bigger)

It’s a form of preening. So is touching or combing your hair, touching or stroking your face, smoothing your beard or mustache, flicking your hair, brushing off imaginary fluff, invisible specks of dust and rearranging your clothes. We’re like birds fidgeting with our plumage. Researchers call it “Auto-erotic signaling.” I call it the body taking a leak.

The first step to mastering your body language is to become aware that it changes when you’re around somebody who makes you homo-glycemic. You can’t undo what you don’t know you’ve done.

Body language doesn’t just reflect your inner emotions. It creates them.

Remember the Hitler salute? Keeping your palms open isn’t just critical to changing other people’s moods and attitudes; it’s critical to changing yours. This concept doesn’t just apply to your hands or your palms; it applies to everything. Think back to the last chapter–remember when my friend Anthony told me to fake a smile even though I didn’t feel like it? He was right.

Not because it’s manipulative, but because it eventually changes my mood. Burn this into your brain: The more you “fake” open and inviting gestures and expressions, the more genuinely open and inviting you’ll become.

Don’t take my word for it; test it. Cross your arms against your chest. What do you notice? After a few minutes, you’ll get quieter, more introspective and less likely to smile or laugh. It’s the body’s built-in feedback loop—‘bad mood’ body positions result in bad moods, period. It works the other way around, too.

Uncross your arms and keep your palms open for a couple of minutes. Hmm. Is that your spirit lifting or are you just happy to see me?

Remember, your gestures, expressions, movements and postures don’t just reflect your mood, they create it. This knowledge is going to be critical to getting yourself in the right headspace to meet guys.

The best way to meet and attract guys is to use open and inviting gestures.

Keeping your body open and inviting is so important to attracting guys that almost nothing else matters. If you cross your arms, for example, you might as well spray man-repellant on yourself. This goes for any gesture or movement that forms a barrier—holding your hands together, crossing your legs, closing your knees, slouching, or holding anything that blocks your chest, heart and stomach. Think of ‘closed’ body language as something that flashes a “No Vacancy” sign while ‘open’ body language changes it to “Unit Available.”

Our bodies point toward men we like and away from men we don’t.

Does he like you? Look down. Men subconsciously point with their feet. It’s our way of saying, “Hubba Hubba.” Once, I was in a coffeehouse macking on a hottie who was ignoring his friend. He turned his body toward me, made lots of eye contact, and directed most of the conversation to me.

Yet, for all those positive signs, I wasn’t feeling the vibe. My napkin fell to the floor and as I bent down to pick it up, I cursed under my breath. His feet were pointed to his friend! Sure enough, I saw them on a date a few days later. Guilty feet have got no rhythm but they never lie.

We don’t just point with our feet, of course. When we’re sitting, we tend to cross our legs

towards the men we’re attracted to and away from the guys we’re not. When we’re standing, we’ll square our hips to the guy we like and angle them to the one we’re not sure of. And when we gesture we point with our fingers, hands and forearms. Yes, forearms. Long story, keep reading.

While we point with everything, we’re the least aware of what our feet (and legs) are doing, and that’s why they’re such reliable indicators of how we’re actually feeling. Research shows that the further away the body part is from the brain, the more unaware we are of what it’s doing. That’s why we can control our facial expressions or the way we hold our shoulders easier than say, our hips or legs. If our bodies leak, our feet pour.

The biological roots to pointing are obvious—we developed legs and feet to get food or avoid becoming it. We were—and still are– always moving toward something or somebody we want or away from something or someone we don’t. That’s why foot pointing is so revealing. If Shagability’s feet are pointing toward you, congratulations.

Unless the exit door’s behind you.

Putting it Together.

These five core principles drive all the meeting and attraction techniques you’re about to discover. Keep them in mind, whether you’re the pursuer or the pursued. Just a word of warning: Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. You cannot interpret another man’s feelings with one or two gestures, movements or postures.

Just as it’s impossible to understand the meaning of “block” until you see the surrounding words (around the block; block that kick), there’s no way to understand a gesture without knowing the surrounding circumstances.

Are his arms crossed because he’s anxious or because he’s cold? Is he scratching his head because he’s confused or because he’s got dandruff? Does he have a weak handshake because he’s a submissive little mouse or because he’s a musician protecting his hand?

If the circumstances are murky, your interpretations will be too. You don’t have to be in a bad mood to cross your arms, you know. It’s exhausting to let them hang—arms weigh a lot!

Gay Dating Resources

Gay Dating Advice
Gay Texting Tips
Gay Body Language
How To Meet Guys

 

How To Cum More & Shoot Farther Part 4

Kegels should be a conscious contraction of the pelvic-floor muscles followed by a conscious relaxation of those same muscles. Just contracting them as long as you can is not going do you any good (except as a variation). It is the contrast between the contraction and the relaxation that will strengthen the muscles. Remember, do NOT use your glutes or abs while doing kegels.

Visualization: Imagine a jellyfish swimming to the surface of the sea with its outer edges coming together as it propels upward. Then the tentacle opens and relaxes and prepares for the next propulsion. Or imagine your partners opening and closing their thighs. Your choice.

Either way, remember PC muscles surround the urethra and control everything that passes through it—urine, semen, and on a Saturday night, 100 proof alcohol. They are the muscles that surround the base of the penis. If you want to cum harder, those muscles have to be in better shape to squeeze the semen out with more power.

On a side note, you can’t do anything to strengthen the urethra or the prostate other than having frequent orgasms. Which is a great excuse to yell out next time somebody knocks on the bathroom door and asks what you’re doing (“I’m strengthening my urethra—back off!”).

The Types of Kegels You Should Be Doing:

* Contract the PC muscles and keep them tightened for a count of three, then relax.

* Contract and relax the PC muscles as quickly as possible (flutter).

* “Pinch & Hold” (tighten and don’t let go till you count to 15).

* Do them when you’re flaccid but also when you’re hard (your penis should jerk up when you tighten). Have your partner hold a finger about an inch above your penis and flex hard enough to touch it 10 times in a row (now, THAT’S home fitness training!)

* Do them standing.

*Do them sitting.

* Do them laying down (each position works different areas of the muscles and helps tone them better.)

Reps

Start by doing 10 reps of each variation and work up to 100. On a daily basis for six to eight weeks.

I know these exercises are a pain in the ass (pun intended). But remember, urologists and sex researchers have proven these exercises can give you greater staying power, a greater number of orgasms and firmer erections.

And those are the things that contribute to an ability to spray semen like a depressed teenager with an Uzi at a suburban high school.

For maximum results you need to do them for six to eight weeks but you will see progress after a couple of weeks. And once you do I want to show you a neat way to add up to a foot in ejaculation distance: When you get to the point of “ejaculatory inevitability” start doing your Kegels.

It’s like turbo-charging the pelvic floor muscle contractions that are already underway, adding more force to the squeeze and more distance to the launch.

See the appendix for more detailed instructions on kegel exercises.

Now hit the floor and give me a hundred Kegels.

Resources

How To Cum More & Shoot Farther Part 3

If you really want to cum farther, you have to master the domain between your legs. Strictly speaking, your penis isn’t a muscle, so you can’t exercise it. You can take it for a swim in the tunnel of love or make it do push-ups and pull-ups with your hands but it’s not the same thing. It’s the muscles around your penis that need exercising. Namely, the pubococcygeal –“PC”–muscles, which are located in the lower pelvis and form a horizontal sling between your legs.

This sling is filled with muscles crucial to putting the flex back in sex. Experts agree that regularly exercising your PC muscles (also called Kegels) can increase the strength of your erection, give you more control of your ejaculations and deliver more powerful orgasms.

What are pelvic floor muscles and why are they so important to cumming like a porn star? Let’s do an experiment. Grab a full tube of toothpaste with the cap off. Give it a lame squeeze and see what happens. Dribble, dribble, right? Now take the same tube of toothpaste and with both hands sharply squeeze it as hard and as fast as you can.

Bam! Porn star toothpaste!

Think of the tube of toothpaste as your dick and your hands as the pelvic floor muscles (urologists call them “PC muscles”—short for pubococygeous, the muscles you use to stop and re-start the flow of urine). The lighter you squeeze the toothpaste the weaker the toothpaste will come out. The harder and sharper you squeeze it the more forcefully it will come out. It’s the same with your penis—only it’s your PC muscles doing the squeezing.

Guys who can shoot their load like a hammer-burst have far stronger pelvic floor or PC muscle contractions then you do. It is a gift they were born with. You know how some guys can crush your hand during a handshake like it was a vise even though they don’t work out? They are simply born with strong muscles. It’s the same with PC muscles. Some lucky guys don’t have to work them out and yet they’re strong enough to cause their jizz to arc across the room. The rest of us have to go to the pelvic floor gym to make that happen. It’s possible to build up those muscles to squeeze “the tube” so hard and so fast they’ll catapult the toothpaste right past the toothbrush onto the bathroom mirror.

So how do you train the PC muscles? Kegels. Named after the doctor that developed them, they are known by urologists as facilitators to strong erections, powerful orgasms and stronger cum shots.

Your Pelvic Floor Muscle Training Exercise Program.

It starts by knowing where your PC muscles are. They are the muscles that surround your bladder your prostate and your anus. They stop and start the flow of urine. All you have to do to strengthen them is to tighten and then relax them in a series of repetitions.

It’s important to actually tighten the right muscles. If you are not sure that you’re doing it correctly there is a foolproof way of finding out: Insert a finger into your rectum, tighten the muscles as if you are holding in your urine, then let go. You should feel the muscles tighten and move up and down. Now take that finger out.

Is it me or does it smell funny?

Another way to think about the location of your PC muscles is to pretend you’re trying to stop yourself from farting in front of somebody after you’ve eaten a loaded burrito. Yeah, those muscles you’re furiously using to shut your sphincter? They’re the PC muscles.

Now, it is very important that you keep all other muscles relaxed while you are training the pelvic floor muscles. Do not contract the following muscles:

Your abs
The buttocks (although the anal sphincter muscles should contract)
The thighs

The reason you don’t want to contract these muscles is that they will distract you and you’ll end up exercising your thighs, butt and stomach rather than the pelvic floor muscles.

Next week:  The type of kegels you should be doing.

Resources

Can Body Language Help You Attract Hotter Guys?

 

Welcome to our series on gay body language.  We’re going to cover the basic principles of  body language, namely, It’s not what you say. It’s not how you say it. It’s how you look when you’re saying it.

Second, we’ll look at self-awareness. Know what you’re doing or it’ll be your undoing.

Third, we’ll go over what it takes to approach a hottie. It’s easy to start talking to somebody if he glances back at you, but if he doesn’t?

Then we’ll talk about how to make yourself more approachable.  Our maxim: Chase him until he catches you.

Let’s start with a scenario:

There he is by the corner. Pure Shagability. You want him in the worst way but you can’t bring yourself to go over there. He may not be out of your league but he’s bumping up against the fence.

Damn, if he just gave you a look, a signal, you’d go over and say hello. Your mind goes into monkey chatter overdrive: “Maybe I should go over anyway. Maybe he didn’t really see me. Maybe I should take another five laps around the bar.” On and on the chatter goes until the blame has been laid and the reasons for staying put exhausted.

Suddenly, a flash of courage. “Fuck it,” you say. “I’m going in! No balls, no blue chips!” You shake hands with Shagability. He flinches slightly. He’s not smiling and as you talk, his hands go deep in his pockets.

And just as you… Oh, no! He just crossed his arms! Even you know what that means. You feel like a fighter plane about to get a big helping of missile. Smoke fills your cabin, you go into a tailspin and sure enough, he leaves. And you think to yourself, that’s it. From now on, I only hit on guys who look like the hindquarters of bad luck.

Why did Shagability flinch when you shook his hand? Why did he frown? Why did he put his hands in his pocket? They were all clues to his attitudes and emotions. And because you didn’t know how to interpret them, you didn’t know how to reverse them. And worse, you didn’t know you caused some of them.

In this series, we’re going to answer those questions and more.  Stay tuned next week when we talk about what most gay men get wrong in their body language.

 

Gay Dating Resources

Gay Dating Advice
Gay Texting Tips
Gay Body Language
How To Meet Guys

 

 

What To Say When The Texting Goes Drier Than A Popcorn Fart

 

Did you hear about the dyslexic bank robbers?  They burst in and yelled, “Air in the hands, mother-stickers, this is a fuck-up!” 

Sometimes, in the heat of the moment, words come out the wrong way.  Or they come out the right way but get taken out of context.  This is especially true if you’re teasing him or being sarcastic.  Or worse, trying to be funny out of context.  A friend once complained to me that a guy he just met suddenly stopped texting him.  I grabbed his phone and read the last text he sent:  “Do you know how to get blood out of tile grout?” 

I beat him with it until the casing cracked.

Sometimes women aren’t much better.  I had a girlfriend who over-texted an ambivalent guy.  She never got a reply to her last text and she’s wondering why:  “What’s the best way of slicing a tire with a knife?”

Texting lacks tonality.  Sometimes good-natured joking comes across as a personal attack.  Sometimes a text can come across angry when it is not.  Sometimes it can come across as an insult when you meant it as a compliment. The best way to avoid this?

• Read your text out loud BEFORE you send it.
• Ask yourself, “Is there any way this text could be misinterpreted?

What To Say When The Texting Goes Drier Than A Popcorn Fart.

It happens all the time.  Text threads end.  You need a new subject matter but your brain farts are so strong they’re blowing you across the room.  What to write?  Icebreakers.  Something to start or restart the convo.  But what?  Well, what are you curious about?  What do you want to learn?  

Conversation starters can be trivial or substantial.  The only thing they have to be is sincere.  You have to be authentically interested in what you say because a)  Shawn Shagability’s bullshit detector operates on a high frequency and b) The point is for you to be fun and have fun and the only way you can do that is to talk about things that interest YOU.

Pick Your Ethical Dilemma.

The best conversation starters are personal stories.  What dilemma have you faced that you could get advice on?  Here’s a worksheet that’ll help you come up with your own unique dilemmas:

 

Ask Yourself	Worksheet
What dilemma have you faced?	“A friend’s girlfriend takes food from buffets and puts it in her purse.”
What’s the central question in the dilemma?	Is that stealing?
What’s your role in it?	Should I say something to him?  To the management?
How can I phrase this as an opener?	State the reason you’re asking. “Let me get your take on something.  Trying to give my friend some advice and he’s not quite buying it.”   State the general question to build suspense. “His girlfriend takes food from buffets and puts it in her purse.  Okay, first question–is that stealing?”    Ask the specific question. “Should he say anything to her?”

 

The ethical dilemma icebreaker works conversational magic.  If you can’t think of any personal dilemmas, then simply Google “Common ethical dilemmas,” where you’ll find gems like:

• Should you tell a friend that his girlfriend is cheating on him?
• What’s the difference between cheating on a math test and lying about your age?

Always refer to a friend when you text your guy–it gives you a basis for why you’ve started a conversation. The more detailed, the more interesting it’ll be.  If you can put age, profession, country, background and other details, the more curious he will be.  

An ethical dilemma almost always ensures a give and take conversation.  Eventually you’re going to be asked your take on the matter.  And then you’ve got yourself a chat that’s going somewhere.

You can also take your interest in travel, health, history, business, pop culture or anything that’s happening in your life and use it as an excuse to talk to him. It’s easy.  Just…

Ask yourself…	Sample answer
What subject are you passionate about?	Geography
What specific aspect about this subject fascinates you?	Land masses.
What fun factoid about this aspect would many people know?	The number of continents on Earth. [Answer:  7]
What is the specific answer to this factoid?	North America, South America, Africa, Europe, Asia, Antarctica, Australia.
How can I turn this into a question with a one-word answer?	“I know 6 of the 7 continents but I can’t figure out the 7th.  Help!”
How can I phrase this as an opener?	State the reason you’re talking. “Help me win a bet with a friend.   What are the names of all the continents?”  Give a time constraint. “I’ve gotta be quick because first one to guess without Googling the answer wins.”  State the general question to build suspense. “How many continents are there?”  Ask the specific question. “Exactly.  There’s North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Antarctica.  BUT WHAT’S THE SEVENTH?”

 

Suppose you want to build a bunch of geography openers.  Google “Geography Quiz” or “Common questions about geography” and you’ll come up with fascinating questions like:

 

• Why is it dark in Antarctica all day in WINTER but light all day and night in SUMMER?
• What country does Latitude 0 intersect with Longitude 0?

Resources:

How To Cum More And Shoot Farther Part 2

Ejaculation is, basically, the complex process of moving sperm from a tube in your testicles to the head of your dick, resulting in the expulsion of semen. Let’s say you’re playing with yourself or with any luck, banging some chick, when you feel close to the point of “inevitability.” Here’s what happens:

Sperm moves from a tube in your testicles to the part of the urethra that starts in your prostate, where it mixes with seminal fluid created by the prostate and seminal vesicles. The bladder neck automatically shuts off to prevent sperm and semen from going backwards into your body.

This creates the beginning of a “pressure chamber.” Now, there’s only one way for the semen to go: Up and out. By the way, the “pressure chamber” theory was first outlined in The Science of Orgasm (2005) by Barry Komisaruk and colleagues.

This triggers the “propulsatile ejaculation”—rhythmic contractions of the seminal vesicle, prostatic, urethral and pelvic floor muscles that propel your load out the end of the urethra at the tip of your penis. It’s important to note that there is virtually no voluntary control of this phase (or haven’t you noticed?). If we could control it the male O-face wouldn’t look like Jerry Lewis being electrocuted!

There are four major factors that contribute to an explosive ejaculation. Pay attention because if you understand the factors you’ll understand why the urologists in my panel recommend the tactics you’ll find later in this book:

1. A Pressure Chamber Works Better When There’s More Substance In The Chamber To Pressure.

The more semen in your system the more pressure it creates in the chamber. Your body knows it’s going to have to apply a lot more muscle to propel the semen out through the urethra if the load is bigger than usual. If you squeeze an almost empty tube of toothpaste you’ll create little pressure. But squeeze it when it’s full and you’ve got good news to brush your teeth with!

Same thing with the pressure chamber in your nether regions: The less semen in your system, the less pressure it creates, resulting in less propulsion.

Your goal: Make more semen. We’ll talk about how to do that in chapter five.

2. A Pressure Chamber Becomes More Explosive When There Are More External Forces Squeezing It.

What are the external forces squeezing your chamber? Muscle and organ contractions. The seminal vesicles, the prostate and the entire urogenital and pelvic floor muscles act on this chamber to propel the white stuff out of the chute.

Your goal: Strengthen the muscles that are in your voluntary control (some aren’t). See the next chapter for how to do that.

3. Intensity of Sexual Desire Coils the Pressure Chamber For A Stronger Release.

Orgasms aren’t just a physical phenomenon; they are strongly affected by your thoughts and feelings. It’s a well-known medical fact that the intensity of your desire acts as six-cylinder fuel injection for the orgasm. It puts more pressure on all your body parts and you know what pressure does in that pelvic floor chamber, right? KA-BOOM.

Your goal: Amp up the intensity of your sexual desire. You can do this in any number of ways, which we’ll cover in chapter four.

4. A Harder Erection—Not A Bigger Dick—Causes Explosive Ejaculations.

Ever notice the variations in hardness between your erections? Sometimes it’s so hard it could cut glass. Other times it’s like, okay–hard enough to get the job done but nothing to brag about. The difference in hardness is attributed to blood flow to the penis. The more blood the harder you get. And the harder you get, the faster semen will propel through the urethra out of the opening of your penis. The hardness squeezes the urethra so that semen coming out of it is going to launch, not dribble .

Your goal: Get more blood into your penis when you masturbate or have sex. Details in chapter six.

An Orgasmic Aside.

Did you know that the male orgasm lasts longer than a woman’s? Research shows that women’s orgasms last about 18 seconds of loveliness while men clock in at 22 seconds. Of course, these are just averages.

Another neat factoid.

Ejaculations can reach speeds of up to 28 miles per hour. Damn, that’s faster than Usain Bolt can run the 100-meter. Ahh, but sperm like to take their time once they’re in the vagina (who doesn’t), slowing down to about 4 miles per hour.

Okay, last one.

Spermine, a powerful antioxidant in human sperm, is believed to diminish wrinkles and smooth the skin. They’re being bottled and sold in swanky spas as a “sperm special.” Think about how much your partners could save if you’d just do it for them!

And one more. Okay, I lied. But this one’s great.

Ever notice that most porn stars “shoot” rather than “dribble” when they ejaculate? All is not what it seems. To get the money shot they want, directors will often use synthetic semen, which is shot-squeezed from a small tube. The preferred substance is condensed milk.

Resources

How The Media Gets You To Hate Your Body Part 3

Excerpt From Not Tonight Dear, I Feel Fat

So, an older fish swims up to two younger fish and she says, “Hi girls, how’s the water?” The young fish smile, nod and the older fish swims away. About a minute later, one of the young fish turns to the other and says, “What the hell is water?”

To understand the process of how media gets you to hate your body you first have to realize, like the older fish in the story, that you’re surrounded by water– in the form of endlessly repeating images of a single form of feminine beauty; an inescapable, singularly monolithic idea of what you’re supposed to look like if you want male attention and female admiration. Once you realize the “water” you’re swimming in, it’s easier to understand the reaction so many women have to the image-overload: “There must be something wrong with me because I don’t look like that.”

Your conviction that there is something seriously wrong with your body–that it needs work, that it is not worthy of looking at and especially not worthy of having sex, is not a fact you discovered, it’s a fiction thrust upon you. You didn’t make the judgment that there’s something wrong with the way you look. The media did. You just bought into it. You did not come to the conclusion that you should be ashamed of your body. The media did. You merely accepted it.

But how is that possible? The images of thinner-than-healthy women may be inescapable, but they’re just images. Even if they’re repeated endlessly, how can they make you feel so bad about yourself? Because the singular representation of beauty isn’t just presented as an ideal but as the solution to all your problems, the path to a happy life, the road to sexual ecstasy.

If you look like the women they present, you’ll get your man. If you can fit into a size 2, you’ll get the respect you crave. If you can take the curves out of your figure you’ll put love into your life. If you can get your thighs to look like tubes you’ll be the envy of all women. If you could just look like the media-sponsored women, men would fight over you, shower you with attention, and make you feel loved and cared for. If you just looked like them sex would be something you’d deserve, look forward to, be confident about, and get pleasure from.

The media purposefully presents these skinnier-than-possible models because they’re trying to move product. They can’t sell diet books, plans and programs to women who are satisfied with their bodies. They can’t sell slimming foods or exercise regimens to women who like their form and shape. The can’t sell magazines filled with beauty makeovers to women who think they look fine. No need means no sale. Therefore they must create a need and the best way to do that is to create dissatisfaction.

Advertisers are quite literally giving you a problem so they can sell a solution. From Cosmopolitan Magazine (“Get A Banging Beach Bod In Three Days!”) to People Magazine (“Fastest Celebrity Post-Baby Slim-Downs”) to O, The Oprah Magazine (“Dress 10 Pounds Slimmer”), the messages are clear and unmistakeable: There’s a problem with the way you look and we know how to solve it.

Media To Women: Get Thin Or Get Out.

The media’s feminine ideal comes with a premise (thinness is vital to personal happiness) and a promise (thinness solves every problem, especially in bed). The playbook is clear: get thin or get out. You either get as thin as those models or you’re doomed to a lonely life without male attention or female admiration.

Now, who wants to be damned into eternal loneliness? Who wants to be invisible to men? Disrespected by women? Celibate in the bedroom? Understandably, you don’t want to be left behind. You see how everybody is constantly observing and evaluating the female form and you understand, intuitively, that you must also. In order to be loved and accepted you must be able to present your body the way the media presents bodies. You must be able to look at and evaluate your body the same way others do or you won’t know if you’re acceptable. So, you do what a lot of women in your situation do. You…

Take on the role of the observer. Slowly, gradually, without knowing it, from the time you were a little girl, you agreed to take on the role of observer of your own body. Just like so many look at you as something to be evaluated, as an object that might be worthy of desire, you slowly started observing and evaluating your body the way others do. And now you devote a great deal of your attention to self-surveillance, habitually and constantly monitoring your body’s outward appearance.

But what happens when you observe that your body doesn’t look like the media ideal? You react the way the same you react to any public rejection, like being benched in front of your teammates, being passed over for promotion or failing a college entrance or medical board. You react with shame, guilt, worthlessness, anger, and self-loathing. You call yourself stupid, lazy, incapable of discipline. You get anxious that others will see your obvious failure and judge you. You become afraid of being the butt of jokes. They’ll say you’re so dumb you got locked in a grocery store and died of starvation. They’ll say your blood type is Ragu. And if they don’t make the insults you’ll gladly do it for them. .

Every day, the media asks you to take a ‘yes or no’ test: Do you look like the women we say are beautiful? Pass the test and you get rich, handsome men to adore you over a candle-lit dinner. Fail it and you spend Saturday night alone eating cat food.

If you buy into this fiction–caviar if you pass the media’s beauty test, cat food if you don’t–you are destined to a world of hurt. It is anatomically impossible for all but the tiniest fraction of women to look like the ideal of beauty the media peddles. For example, the average fashion model has a BMI of 17.1 according to Will Lassek, M.D., a former Assistant Surgeon General, while the average American woman has a BMI of 28.1. Unless you’re already there or close to it, trying for it is a recipe for self-hatred. You’ll look at your shortcomings and have a field day with the disappointments. You’ll dislike yourself, sure, but the real hatred will be reserved for the un-cooperating body parts–the tummy that won’t go flat no matter how many crunches you do, the thighs that won’t slim down no matter how much you run.

“I avoid certain sexual positions because I’m afraid of how my partner will react when he sees parts of my body I’m ashamed of.”

But you persevere anyway. You formulate an action plan. You start investing a lot into your appearance, particularly dieting and exercise. You blast your butt, feel the burn, crunch those abs. You mainline hope into your veins. You don’t buy that bullshit about the anatomical impossibility of achieving the kind of body you see flickering on the screen or staring out at you from every page. Yes, you’re average sized for an American woman–close to 5’4 and 142 lbs. And yes, those media beauties are 5’9 and 110 lbs (the average size of models and starlets). But it can be done. You’re sure of it. Maybe you can’t grow 5 inches, but you can lose thirty pounds, drop four dress sizes and decrease your body mass index by a third if you just worked hard enough. How do you know? Because the media tells you so. Why are they telling you? Because they’ve got product to move. So they create the need, then the hope, and finally, the sale.

Every day they trot out new workouts and diets that promise eternal salvation from the mirror. They treat the body as a construction site, assuring you that with the right motivation and materials you can turn stadiums into skyscrapers.

So you go for it. Again and again. And fail again and again. Oh, sure, you have moments, true victories, but they’re temporary. The only thing you end up losing permanently is balance and self-respect. The cycle of self-loathing is set: Try, fail, shame. Try, fail, guilt. Try, fail, despair. You live out a daily pattern: Compare your body to the media ideal, constantly monitor it for flaws, spend time and money trying to fix it, then collapse into a cycle of shame, depression and despair.

But enough about the first half half of your day. Let’s move on.

How This Plays Out In The Bedroom

Now that we know how you got in this mess, let’s answer a specific question: Exactly how does a poor body image affect you in the bedroom? Studies have shown body image has a direct cause and effect relationship with almost all sexual functioning. A poor body image can choke the life out of your libido. It can make you turn down sex even when you want it. It distracts your attention from pleasurable physical feelings to your perceived imperfections.

The shame lowers or eliminates your ability to ask for the things that turn you on, reducing the overall pleasure of an experience. It forces you to emotionally disengage from what’s going on, leading to difficulty climaxing or less pleasurable orgasms. As stated before, a study in the Journal of Sex Research went as far as saying that body image has as much of an impact on sexuality as menopause.

“I want to want to have sex, but at least my lack of desire keeps me from experiencing shame and embarrassment.”

Let’s concentrate on desire for a moment, as low libido is one of the issues that women complain about most. Body anxieties can turn you into a sexual camel–somebody who can go great lengths of time without sex. A simple study was conducted a few years back that powerfully demonstrated the link between body esteem and libido. Women were asked to read aloud an erotic story and then asked about the state of their sexual desire. Women with a negative body image reported much lower arousal levels than women with positive self-judgments.

The link between body image and sexual desire does not correlate with actual body size, by the way. Studies are remarkably consistent in their conclusion that BMI (Body Mass Index–the ratio of height to weight) is not related to levels of sexual desire. In other words, your weight isn’t the problem; it’s your perception of your weight. To be clear, actually being overweight or obese increases susceptibility to a poor body image, but studies show that body image is far more important than actual body mass in predicting sexual function.

Which brings me to a refrain you’re going to hear often: Unless you are seriously overweight, losing weight is not going to improve your sex life. Let me repeat this. If you are waiting to have sex until you lose ten pounds, forget it. It’s the perception of your body, rather than your actual body size that’s affecting your experience of sex.

“I refuse to have sex unless I wear lingerie or clothing that covers up my flaws.”

Researchers have known for years that body image has a profound impact on women’s sexual functioning. They’ve examined the effects, documented them, and then replicated the results with a multitude of studies over the last twenty years. They know what it does but it’s only recently that they’ve been able to explain how it does it. While there are differing variations among academics, the critical path pretty much goes like this:

Self-Objectification

You take on the role of the observer

Self-Surveillance

You scrutinize, inspect and monitor your physical attributes for perceived imperfections

Appearance Anxiety

The self-surveillance reveals that you are not, in fact, a supermodel. So you invest a lot of time, money and energy trying to upgrade your appearance to acceptable standards, but the self judgments don’t go away. Your fear of being evaluated, scorned, and rejected results in a constant preoccupation with weight and other aspects of your appearance. You’re caught in a cycle of shame, embarrassment and anxiety.

Self Consciousness In The Bedroom

Appearance anxiety compels you to avoid sexual positions that give your partner an unflattering view of your body. You insist on lights out, and wear some type of camouflage clothing. You feel inhibited, passive and unable to articulate preferences that would make sex more enjoyable. You restrict your movements in bed to ensure limited views of your body.

Unwanted Sexual Problems

You experience a significant reduction or a complete loss of desire. You emotionally disengage from your partner. You experience reduced physical sensations because your attention is focused on your appearance. You find it difficult to climax and when you can it is less pleasurable than it used to be.

This is the typical way self-conscious women experience sex and it is no wonder that they seek relief in any way they can. But the preferred solution aggravates the problem. You don’t need to get a better body or improve your image of it to experience wonderful, shame-free sex. You can do it by activating a series of feedback loops that I’m about to introduce.