Things NOT To Say While Having Sex
When I was 16, my boyfriend said something to me during a sexual encounter that tilted my world on its axis. “Baby, your abs look great; I like your body better this way.”
There’s a lot of things you can say during sex. This is not one them.
He earnestly believed he was saying something positive to make me feel good. For a moment, it did. And then it didn’t.
Later that night, and for a long time after, his words rang in my ears—and not as echoes of admiration. Instead, 16-year-old me internalized it in every damaging way imaginable.
Thereafter, all I thought about was how this person I loved was more interested in me—loved me more—if I looked a certain way.
Naturally, this put pressure on me to maintain the image. His well-intended “compliment” encouraged beliefs with which I’d already been contending.
The societal influences on my struggle with body image were legion, and I was well on my way to the development of my eating disorder.
So while I was at the mercy of the same beliefs inculcated in every woman raised on forced insecurity and his comment wasn’t the FIRST exposure to unrealistic beauty standards, it was different.
The personal nature of his words—said to me, about me, by someone who knew me—catalyzed my eating disorder, shifting it from potential to actual.
From that moment, I was at war with my own body.
Here’s the thing: compliments are wonderful. We all like to make other people feel good. But because compliments encourage value assignation, things are tricky when it comes to commenting on a person’s body.
If you say, “you look great! Have you lost weight?”, you are, in a real way, telling this person their appearance is better at a lower weight.
Hearing that often enough can make them feel their vessel is the most important thing about them. Outside of being untrue, carrying that assessment leads to unhealthy behaviors and thoughts.
It certainly did for me, as it does for so many of us.
Let’s commit to stop commenting on people’s bodies and literally talk about anything else—something interesting and far more important.
xx
Devi