The Surprising Link Between Poor Body Image and Low Libido

Physical factors, like hormonal imbalance or illness, are not the only causes for low sex drive. How women look and how they think they look can be two vastly different images, and this discrepancy in perception can lead to how attractive (or not) women view themselves, and consequently, how desirable they feel when it comes to sex.

Poor Body Image Can Cause Low Libido

Women are generally more in touch with their emotions compared to men, so when it’s time to get intimate, it may take more than just visual cues to get a woman aroused. Women often come to bed with plenty of emotional baggage – job stress, relationship problems, financial difficulties – that she has difficulty tuning out. As a result, she can’t focus on the “task” at hand and consequently, don’t enjoy it.

Compounding external stressors is a woman’s body image. She is much more easily influenced by subliminal messages from her environment that she is not attractive enough (needlessly comparing herself to skinny models on the runway, or full-chested women on the cover of magazines) even though she may be a picture of perfect health and beauty. If she doesn’t feel sexy enough, how can she feel desire for sex?

How to Be Always Beautiful in My Eyes

It’s a virtue to be able to accept the way you look. But if there are certain aspects of your appearance that bother you – ‘panda’ eyes, crow’s feet, double chins, love handles – and you can afford to get the treatment, you qualify as a patient, and you feel like some improvement will make you feel more comfortable in your skin, then there is no reason why you should not take steps to improve your looks if it will lead to a positive body image.

Thigh gaps, for example, are idealized by many, but due to varying body shapes, not everyone will have naturally skinny thighs. You can chastise yourself for not being diligent enough with your workout or diet, or you can take advantage of non invasive fat reduction treatments like CoolSculpting and Trilipo to spot-correct those resistant bulges.

Bothered by age spots, wrinkles, hairy legs or acne scars? There is a variety of non surgical treatments for those, too. Age spots and other types of skin pigmentation can easily be erased by laser skin resurfacing or faded by chemical peels or skin care products containing hydroquinone. There’s Botulinum Toxin (or more commonly known as Botox) and dermal fillers for wrinkle reduction, and intense pulsed light or IPL hair removal for unwanted hair. Acne scar treatment ranges from micro-needling, chemical peels, laser, and dermal fillers.

All these is to say that you have a choice – you can allow poor body image to distress you (and ruin your sex drive), or you can take steps to redefine your idea of beauty and then make it happen.

The Connection Between Vaginal Laxity and Lack of Sexual Desire

Women who have given birth often feel less sexually inclined with a newborn to care. Once she’s past childbearing age and the children have grown, she is once again confronted by the reality of dwindling hormones as menopause inevitably arrives in her late 40s or early 50s.

Coupled with lower estrogen levels is the fact that as a woman ages, her reproductive system also undergoes changes that make her all the more uninterested in sex (low estrogen leads to vaginal dryness, which can make intercourse painful). Understandably, at this stage, a woman’s body image, and consequently self-esteem, may be at their lowest.

Modern women do not have to endure these issues in silence anymore, not with so many options to help her boost her body image and how she feels about herself. In the past, vaginal laxity is accepted as a natural consequence of multiple childbirths, and women just leave it at that, even though it deeply affects how they feel (or more accurately, how little they feel) during sex.

Today, there are options for non invasive vaginal tightening treatment that could help restore women’s confidence in their bodies. Geneveve by Viveve uses safe radiofrequency energy to stimulate natural collagen rebuilding of the vaginal walls to tighten vaginal and introital tissues that have been stretched by multiple childbirths. Consequently, this vagina tightening procedure eases the feelings of inadequacy that most women experience by restoring genital sensation during vaginal intercourse.

HRT: Low Libido Treatment?

Hormone replacement therapy can also help women battle not just vaginal dryness but also midlife bulge, both of which inevitably come as a result of declining hormones.

After menopause, weight gain in women tends to cluster in the abdomen (rather than hips and thighs before menopause), making it all the more frustrating for women who have apple-shaped bodies. But there’s more to midlife bulge than just appearances: visceral fat, the kind of dangerous fat that wraps around the organs in the abdominal cavity, accumulates as one’s ‘spare tires’ inflate.

Hormone therapy, which is often a part of a more comprehensive age management treatment, helps slow age-related decline in postmenopausal muscle mass and strength. In a Singapore anti aging clinic, for example, hormone treatment is coupled with the right exercise regimen, nutrition and supplementation in a program called Optimagenics Age Management. The aim of this program is not just to hormonally increase sex drive, but also to help postmenopausal women get back in shape – the kind of shape that makes them feel healthy and look sexy.

Tags: viveve, age management treatment, anti aging clinic