Asexuality & body image: Beyond desire

So much of the literature that exists about body image treats it as almost entirely intrapersonal ("How do I perceive my body?"), but after attending a talk about sexuality and embodiment, I've been considering the ways in which it is also interpersonal ("How do I experience my body as being perceived, appreciated, and reflected back to me by people I trust?"). The talk, like so many on sexuality, excluded asexual spectrum (aspec) experiences and prompted many brainstorms about all the unique ways the themes the presenter spoke on–attractiveness, pleasure, intimacy, desirability–might impact the body image of my fellow aspec folks.

Traditional body image interventions tend to assume that disconnection or dissociation from one's body is a pathological (albeit protective), mechanism by which we have learned to shut off connection to a body that feels unsafe to inhabit. They encourage people to reconnect with their bodies by noticing pleasurable sensations, practicing mindfulness, exploring touch, or embracing their sexuality. For many allosexual people, those approaches may be incredibly healing. But as someone who identifies as ace, I find myself wondering where that leaves me.

Asexuality is frequently left out of conversations about body image entirely, just as it is left out of broader conversations about sexuality and out of pride events, despite being the "A" in LGBTQIA+ (it's not for "ally," I promise). This is called ace erasure. When it is included, it's commonly framed as something to explain away or overcome rather than a valid way of existing. That omission doesn't just make us feel invisible; it also means we're missing an opportunity to understand the unique ways body image can develop when sexual attraction isn't a central part (or a part at all) of someone's life.

Body image is about more than attractiveness

Perhaps I'm being a bit generous or idealistic here, but I do think that conversations about body image have largely moved away from the single question, "Do you think you're attractive?" and that's a good thing, because our relationships with our bodies are much richer than that. Body image may be affected by:

• How comfortable we feel existing in our bodies

• Whether we trust our bodies

• How we experience physical, sensory sensations

• Whether our bodies feel like "home"

• How we relate to our health, disability, and gender

• Whether we feel autonomous in our bodies

• Whether our bodies feel appreciated, respected, or safe

For many of us on the ace spectrum, attractiveness may occupy a very different place within that relationship than it does for allosexuals.

The pressure to feel desire

Rather than the pressure to meet appearance ideals that anyone can relate to, one of the biggest body image burdens for many ace individuals is the expectation that our bodies should want. To crave, respond, and enjoy sex. To experience sexual attraction at all. So many of us first came to understand our sexual identities as a result of asking the question, "What's wrong with my body?" or of being asked by partners, implicitly or explicitly, "What's wrong with your body?" Before we had the affirming language of asexuality, we searched for a problem: hormones, trauma, dissociation? Maybe I just haven't met the right person? Do I need more mindfulness? To learn how to relax? To communicate better? While any of these possibilities may be true for a person, it's when they're assumed that the underlying message becomes "The correct version of your body is one that enjoys sex." That is a body image message. It says, "There is something wrong with your body as it is. There is something to make up for."

Embodiment isn't universally pleasurable

The talk I attended included a meditation meant to support reconnection with the body through sensory awareness. A dietitian in the Zoom chat shared how they use mindful eating to teach the skills needed to find pleasure in sex. Whether it's noticing the warmth of the sun, feeling your feet on the ground, paying attention to touch, or identifying the texture and temperature of the food as it touches your tongue, the goal is clear: become more embodied. These practices, beautiful as they may sound in theory, rest on an assumption that becoming more aware of your body will generally bring you closer to pleasure. What if it doesn't?

Some ace people may experience touch as neutral, while some of us find it falls on a spectrum anywhere from unpleasant to overwhelming or aversive. Some may simply not experience sexual touch as rewarding, and for many neurodivergent folks, differences in sensory processing further shapes these experiences. Touch might be over- or under-stimulating, confusing, or simply not intrinsically pleasurable for any number of reasons that don't need to be investigated. Becoming more aware of those sensations doesn't necessarily change what they feel like. Sometimes greater embodiment simply brings greater clarity: "Oh. I really don't enjoy this!" That awareness should never be automatically interpreted as pathology.

A desire to be attractive

A common (and understandable) misconception about asexuality is the assumption that if someone doesn't experience sexual attraction, they must not care whether anyone else finds them attractive. It's important to understand, though, that these are entirely different experiences. My own lack of sexual attraction toward other people doesn't mean I don't want someone to think I'm beautiful, desirable, captivating, or lovely to look at. Wanting to be appreciated is not the same thing as wanting sex, but these ideas unfortunately become tangled together.

People seem to assume that expressing attraction is an invitation to sex and that if an ace partner doesn't reciprocate attraction in the same way, they must not want to hear it at all. In reality, many ace people deeply value hearing things like, "You're gorgeous," "I love looking at you," or even an expression of aesthetic appreciation more specific that zooms in on a body part without objectifying like "I love how bold your lips look right now." When these statements don't come with an expectation for sexual activity, admiration and sexual initiation can exist separately, and aces can feel included, seen, met where we're at.

Bodies are relational

Can you notice your body? What do you feel in your stomach? Are there things you appreciate about your body? These are the kinds of questions that usually come with "embodiment" work, which steers away from experiences of the body from the outside, as though these are always superficial and unimportant. I believe the question, "Does your body feel witnessed?" matters too. We don't only experience our bodies from the inside; we also experience them through relationships, through being seen, through being delighted in, through being appreciated, through knowing someone smiles when we walk into the room.

Healthy body image isn't built in isolation. It develops, at least in part, through the ways trusted people mirror us back to ourselves. For many allosexual people, sexual relationships may naturally provide some of that mirroring. When that pathway is absent or functions differently, there needs to be another intention way of experiencing that same sense of being seen. In my personal experience, that unmet need being named and pursued has been labeled as dependence on external validation and thrown onto a treatment plan as a target to eliminate. As though humans beings aren't relational.

"Your body is an instrument, not an ornament."

I hear this phrase a lot in body image work, and I can understand why people find it empowering. It encourages us to appreciate what our bodies can do rather than how they look, and that can be useful in a culture that values vanity to such a degree. Every time I hear it, I find myself thinking, "That's easy to say when your body already gets adored." This is parallel to critiques of body positivity that say it's rooted in able-bodied assumptions and and "pretty privilege." For someone whose body already feels invisible, being told not to care whether it's appreciated can feel more lonely than liberating.

Bodies don't have to be only instruments. They don't have to be only ornaments, either. Please excuse my cheesiness here, but maybe they're homes. Stories, canvases, companions, works of art, places where relationships happen. Appreciation isn't inherently objectification. Being lovingly noticed by someone who values you isn't the same thing as being reduced to your appearance.

When body image advice assumes sex

Many eating disorder recovery and body positive spaces encourage people to rely less on external validation and more on internal experience, and while this can be important, I wonder if some ace people are missing an entire category of relational affirmation that treatment models assume everyone has access to. That is, when sex isn't where we experience our bodies being appreciated,

If our partners are afraid to express attraction because they don't want to pressure us, if people assume we don't want to hear compliments about our bodies–either because they might trigger our eating disorders or because they misunderstand what it means to be ace–what's left? It isn't necessarily that we need more appearance-based validation than everyone else. But it may mean that intentional, non-sexual expressions of appreciation become especially important.

What does that sound like?

• I love watching you laugh

• You look incredible in that color

• I love your freckles

• I could look at you forever

These expressions, when authentic, can be enough; they don't have to lead anywhere.

Mixed-orientation relationship challenges

There are unique body image challenges at play when ace people are partnered with allosexual people. The ace partner may wonder, "Am I enough for them? Do they wish my body worked differently? Am I depriving them?" Meanwhile, the allosexual partner might wonder, "Am I unwanted? Am I unattractive Why doesn't my partner desire me the way I desire them?" Neither partner is doing anything wrong, but when differences in attraction get mistaken for rejection, both people can end up blaming themselves, or their bodies, for pain that actually comes from misunderstanding.

Pressure to engage in unwanted sexual experiences can of course lead some ace folks to disconnect from their bodies, ignore internal signals, or dissociate. This is even more likely before we arrive at the self-understanding of ourselves as aspec, when we're still closeted or masking as allo, and dissociation allows for autopilot mode. But there's another possibility. What happens when everyone is so afraid of pressuring you that your body becomes invisible? That is, attraction is unspoken, appreciation is filtered out, and no one wants to make you uncomfortable, so no one even tells you they like your body? How do you feel embodied if your body feels unseen?

The incompleteness wound

I have noticed a pattern in my conversations about body image wounds that correlates with sexuality. Allosexuals tend to point to a belief that their bodies are unattractive, while aces tend name a fear of incompleteness. So much psychoeducation presents sexual attraction as a marker of health, a universal human need, a defining human drive. I've heard, "It's what separates us from animals." I've been asked by doctors during a routine physical if I want to try a medication to increase my libido and whether my partner is "okay" with my "celibacy." I get it; they're uneducated. But my asexuality only becomes a problem when it's treated like one, like it makes me less of a person.

Any lived experience that diverges from what's considered "normal" has the potential to lead us to wonder whether we're somehow less human, whether our bodies are missing something essential, and whether we're only okay with that because we don't know better. This is a body image injury, too.

Expanding the conversation

None of this means that embodiment, mindfulness, or body appreciation aren't valuable. Instead, I implore you to think bigger. If you're currently wondering, "How can I help this person enjoy sex more?" can you shift to...

• What does this person's body allow them to experience that they value?

• What kinds of touch, if any, feel good to them? What other forms of pleasure could be highlighted more?

• What pressures have they internalized about how their body should function?

• What kinds of appreciation make them feel seen?

• How can they build a relationship with their body that reflects their values rather than cultural expectations?

Bodyminds can bring joy through creativity, nature, music, learning, humor, aesthetics, friendship, emotional intimacy, movement, rest, special interests, and countless other experiences. A fulfilling relationship with your body doesn't have to culminate in sexual expression of any kind. The goal of body image work should not be to help an individual reach a uniform ideal relationship with their body. It should be to support the development of a relationship with the body that is authentic and self-directed. Asexuality does not fall outside of that goal! It does remind us that there are more ways to be at home in a body than the culture teaches us to imagine.