13 Oct Healing Body Shame
When you grow up in a sex-negative culture such as ours, the body is considered shameful because it’s the opposite of heaven. If you were brought up with the story of Adam and Eve, you’ll remember that right there at the beginning, the pair realized their nakedness, were ashamed, and quickly hid their genitals under fig leaves. Before that, we assume they felt perfectly fine running around in their birthday suits.
Today the worldview that the natural body is shameful permeates social media. The only bodies that are not deemed embarrassing are those altered by AI and Photoshop and therefore don’t look like real people. The rest of us should feel bad because our boobs/butts/dicks/biceps are not big enough, or that our heads/labia/bodies-in-general are too big. We should feel ashamed because our bodies have hair, and we have not spent enough time removing/grooming it. We should feel horribly unattractive if we have begun to show any signs of aging, let alone have actually aged at all. Wrinkles are erased by Botox or photo editing. All this needs to be put together in an algorithm-satisfying way, or we will experience media shaming for not living up to these unattainable standards.
Okay, so how do we heal from this? Because as mentioned before, it will show up in the bedroom if you or your partner don’t feel good about your bodies. First thing is to become aware of the issue, that you and your self-love are at stake. There is a war going on between advertisers who want to manipulate you to feel bad about yourself so you’ll buy stuff, and you, who wants to love yourself and your body. It is a vicious, unrelenting war, so you must stay alert to win. It will become more vicious the older you get, so decide now to win this fight for the right to love your body as it is for the long term.
After you make the decision that you are not going to be made to feel bad about yourself by a bunch of greedy companies with inhuman values, get quiet with yourself. Touch yourself. Admire yourself. Feel your skin, your muscles, your padding, and your bones. Feel the miracle of being embodied, and how much pleasure lives within your sensitive nerve endings.
Do mirror work. Look at yourself. Look at your genitals. Engage in yoni gazing, your own or someone else’s. Watch YouTube videos about how to dress your gorgeous body for your type. There are alluring, sexy people at every size, age, and gender, so make it a loving hobby to present your body as sexy as it is. Learn to appreciate the variety of other people’s attractiveness.
One thing that really helped me heal my body issues was going to places where people are naked, such as health spas and gyms, and learning to appreciate how people actually look when they’re not airbrushed. When I witnessed our collective vulnerable, fragile flesh, I developed such deep compassion for all of us struggling with these inhuman standards. The truth is, our bodies and our souls are beautiful, and that includes you and yours.
© 2026 Catherine Auman
This is an excerpt from Catherine Auman’s book Tantric Healing: Nourishing Practices for Enhancing Sex, Love and Romance