I was 20 years old when my life changed in an unexpected way. I was sitting in a college class in between eating disorder treatment sessions that were barely helping me. The professor stood before the class and said, “Today, we’re going to talk about sex.”
About…what?!
I mean, sure, I knew what sex was. I’d been having it with my long-term partner, as a matter of fact. But even we didn’t discuss it.
I left that class dizzy with questions: Why hadn’t I talked openly about sex? Why did I feel embarrassed about my own body? Where exactly was this clitoris thing the teacher mentioned?
While I wouldn’t realize it until later, that was the day I stopped wanting to brutalize my body.
I believe that starting to investigate my beliefs about sex and turning my anger away from myself and toward the cultural messaging that wonkifies things for so many saved my life. While I still had a whole lot of healing to do before I could really get there, that change also paved the way to more pleasurable sex, and bolder, freer orgasms. And those orgasms gave me a gift I couldn’t have imagined prior: gratitude and respect for my body, even when I struggled to love it.
I’m far from alone in my experience.
In my sexuality work over the years, I’ve heard from hundreds of folks who’ve found healing through orgasmic pleasure. An expert I learned of recently, rev. syd yangexternal link, opens in a new tab, has lived a powerful example.
Now a spiritual counselor and Buddhist chaplain, yang is on a mission to engage recovery – from eating disorders, addiction, and self-harm – as a practice of collective liberation for all bodies. And their work is rooted in very personal experience.
yang’s orgasmic healing followed an upbringing in a “really restrictive and conservative, evangelical Christian community” where there “wasn’t space to be queer or trans” or to be a sexual being at all, they told me. “There was this expectation that I disavow desire within my own body, regardless of whether it was heterosexual desire or queer desire or anything that was remotely sexual.”
Still, yang found ways to connect with their pleasure, teaching themself how to masturbate as a kid. “I was like, oh, this feels good, but it had to be secret,” they recalled. As yang grew older and explored “desire and touch with others in queer ways,” they said, they knew that had to be hidden, too. “And yet, there was this knowing, which I’m really grateful for, that something about this can’t be wrong because it is here. It is a part of my lived experience. It is in my body. And it feels good.”
While it took yang a long time to embrace their sexuality and desires in more open ways, doing so led to a reframe.
They began to see their sexual desire, and within that, their orgasms, as rebellions, “like I was reclaiming rebellious energy against these really oppressive, patriarchal, Christian rules that had been imposed upon my body to make it one way or to make it smaller, to make it quieter,” they said.
That reclamation “was so instrumental within my own healing around eating disorders and other self-harm practices,” yang said. “Orgasm, whether it’s with myself or with somebody else, has been a core practice of mine for many, many years.” The same body that had felt like the source of so much suffering, yang learned, could be the same body where they could find freedom.
“In these moments of orgasm and orgasmic pleasure, especially with myself, it’s almost like I’m rewiring the neurons in my brain in a way that it’s like rebalancing,” they said. “Like, oh yeah, I do belong here.”
More ways orgasms benefit body image
Beyond challenging societal notions about how sex, pleasure, and orgasms are “bad” or unimportant (especially for anyone besides cisgender men), and providing the rebellious reclamation many folks with body image challenges need, orgasms can:
Improve your sleep (and moods)
Have you ever noticed how much harder it is to feel good or neutral about your body or appearance when you’re sleep deprived? While clinical research is limited, lots of anecdotal evidence shows that sleep loss makes self-perception worse. A lack of sleep can also increase levels of stress hormones in your brain – and feeling stressed can exacerbate body-related angst.
Thankfully, the flipside is also true. Sufficient sleep supports more positive body image and a better regulated nervous system. And while orgasms aren’t always a cure for chronic insomnia, they do help many people snooze more quickly or soundly. (If sex or orgasms make you more alert at first, which is also normal, you can try leaving some time between your play and bedtime, and see how that feels.) Orgasms through both solo and partnered sex have been linked with improved sleep.
Ease gender dysphoria
Orgasms can “absolutely help ease gender dysphoria and be gender affirming,” said yang. The notion ties into questions yang brings up in their care work: “What does it even mean to live in a body? How can we live in a body that feels resonant, safe, affirming, possible, and enjoyable? Is that even accessible?”
“For queer folks and trans folks…many have learned this sense of you’re wrong, or your body is wrong, or your desire is wrong, or your understanding of self-needs to be questioned, which is such a damaging way of being,” yang pointed out. “What’s powerful about our bodies is what’s exciting or what’s interesting.” And that powerfulness could well involve orgasms.
When dysphoria flares up, lessons learned from orgasms may help. “I want these moments when I feel so good or so strong or so alive to be a permanent moment,” said yang. “I’m like, I wanna hold onto this forever. But it passes. And that’s a reminder that these moments of discomfort, of disdain of, oh, why do I have to live in a body, also pass.”
Help you manage the effects of trauma
Orgasms flood your brain with feel-good neurochemicals, like dopamine and oxytocin. If you’re among the many folks whose history of trauma affects how you feel about your body, those pleasurable rushes may ease some stress while also helping you to build body confidence.
It’s 100% okay, and often recommended, that you start out only solo – especially if you feel uncomfortable naked or sexually active around another or others. It’s also okay if that’s the only way you want to or currently can explore or experience pleasure and orgasm.
Sexologist Dovie Genaexternal link, opens in a new tab experienced these kinds of benefits herself. “I myself mitigated the negative effects of traumatic situations growing up by using my own self-pleasure practice to heal,” she said. “There’s something liberating about leaning into the pleasure your body provides. Orgasmic experiences remind you that you’re more than a sum of your insecurities.”
Improving your body image through pleasure
If you’d like your body image to start benefiting, or benefit more, from sexual pleasure, consider these tips:
Think pleasure, not necessarily orgasms
Orgasms, however brief, can be great and also support positive body image, but as yang pointed out, not everyone has access to orgasms, due to factors like trauma, chronic illness, or simply not having learned how to orgasm yet. When that’s the case, you can still benefit from pleasure in other ways, and they’re all valuable. “Orgasmic pleasure is not the end all, be all,” said yang. “It is one tool or one way that a body can access liberation and access freedom…or healing.”
Pleasurable play can involve virtually any part of your body or fantasizing alone, so give yourself permission to seek out and enjoy whatever feels good.
Incorporate somatic practices
Somatic practicesexternal link, opens in a new tab help you increase awareness of the sensations in your body. Gena suggests pairing your pleasure sessions with somatic mindfulness techniques, “like deep breathing, body scans, or guided EMDR exercises with a certified expert to deepen your connection to self and overcome shame.” Mindfulness exercisesexternal link, opens in a new tab have been shown to boost pleasure and reduce difficultyexternal link, opens in a new tab reaching orgasms. Such exercises may ease performance anxiety, too.
Find affirming content, communities, or events
Taking in visual art, stories, or other media that features bodies that look nothing like yours may not give you the sense of freedom or excitement you’re looking for in terms of body image. The same goes for activities that don’t, versus do, entice you.
yang found that they could get better attuned with their desires and orgasmic pleasure through BDSM, kink, and queer porn – something that, if you’re of the age and have the ability to access ethical platforms for — may be worth considering. “Seeing the bodies of trans and queer people that I felt seen in, I felt mirrored in, and being able to witness other folks in bodies like mine experiencing desire and having sex in ways that I enjoy…was and continues to be this empowering moment of like, Oh yeah. I am a part of this, too. And that there is a shared experience in the profound hotness that I’m witnessing.”
Seek (super worthy) support
If you’re struggling with poor body image, orgasms, sexual shame or all of the above, professional support can often go a long way.
If you’re not able to or don’t want to access an affirming sex therapist, sex-positive therapist who specializes in body dysmorphia and eating disorders, or a qualified coach, you can lean on a trusted friend, credible books (I’m a fan of Gender Magicexternal link, opens in a new tab, by Rae McDaniels and Your Body is Not an Apologyexternal link, opens in a new tab, by Sonya Renee Taylor), body-positive podcasts, or nourishing communities, instead or additionally.
Meanwhile, do your best to create boundaries around influences that leave you feeling less-than. As challenging as doing so can feel, I promise that you, your body, and your pleasure are worth it.
I’m now a couple of decades into my own sexual self-discovery and pleasure-embracement journey, one that I hope never ends. Perhaps my biggest lesson learned, so far, is this: With curiosity, patience, self-compassion, creativity, and support, we can all evolve to feel more at home in our bodies and more at ease with our sexual selves.