Riddle me this: You can be killing it at work, have a solid group of friends, and generally feel pretty fucking good about yourself. But the second your clothes come off? Suddenly, you're wondering if your stomach looks weird, whether you're taking too long to finish, and if your partner is secretly judging that thing your body just did.
Yeah, it turns out having high self-esteem doesn't necessarily mean you have high sexual self-esteem. The tricky thing about low sexual self-esteem is that it doesn't always look like insecurity, explains Blair Ibarra, clinical consult manager at Octave Mental Health. Sometimes, it looks like constantly putting your partner's pleasure ahead of your own, struggling to ask for what you want, or feeling like you have to perform instead of actually enjoying yourself.
So, what is sexual self-esteem, exactly, and how can you improve yours? Ahead, experts explain what affects it, the signs yours could use some work, and how to start feeling better about yourself in (and out of) bed. Simply put, sexual self-esteem is how you feel about yourself as a sexual person.
It's about whether you feel comfortable with your sexuality, believe your needs and desires matter, and see yourself as someone who's worthy of pleasure, respect, and satisfying sexual experiences. And while sexual self-esteem and sexual confidence might sound like the same thing, there's actually a difference. Basically, you can know exactly what you're doing in bed and still feel like you're not good enough.
Relationship scientist and Bonding Biology founder Shay Levister also emphasizes the importance of trusting your choices, recognizing your desires, and believing your pleasure deserves care. Your sexual self-worth isn't determined by how you look naked, how many people you've slept with, or whether you can give someone a mind-blowing orgasm. Having healthy sexual self-esteem means recognizing that you deserve satisfying sexual experiences, regardless of how much experience you have (or don't have).
There's no single reason someone might struggle with low sexual self-esteem. Sometimes, it's years of comparing your body to unrealistic beauty standards. Other times, it's growing up in an environment where sex was treated as something shameful, dirty, or simply not discussed.
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