Q&A: The Case of the Perenially Disappearing Ass

So, onward with readers’ questions. An unpaid writer’s work is never done. Mmph. Ha.

I find this next letter to be interesting to me in a couple ways, but a bit of a sticky wicket.

Here we have a young couple who’ve been pretty in love for more than a year. Despite a pretty good love life, he’s never seen her ass naked. Let him tell it.

My girlfriend never lets me see her ass. Never. She’s not fat or heavyset by any means, but has a bit of a ‘ghetto booty’. But when we’re spooning, or doing I’m in her from behind, or we’re showering together, she never ever lets me see her rear. She always turns around real quick or puts a towel or blanket over herself. I ask her about it and she says that she doesn’t like it and doesn’t want me to see it.

But this feels strange to me. We’ve been seeing each other for over a year now. We’re used to each other’s bodies, we don’t have sex under the covers or in the, so it feels like she doesn’t trust me or something like that to see her butt. Any thoughts or suggestions or ways I can help her feel better about her butt?

(And in a later email on the same subject):

When we’re laying together under the covers after sex, I caress her and tell her that I think it’s beautiful, and ask her why I can’t even get a peak at her rear, and she tells me that she hates it and thinks it’s too big, and then makes sure I’m not going to be able to see it. It’s weird… I thought we had grown pretty comfortable being around each other. She’s comfortable enough to fart around me, but not enough so to let me even see her ass.

I know she has some body image issues, even though she really shouldn’t. Her legs muscular, her stomach is flat, she goes to the gym 3x-4x a week, has a gorgeous body, and all that, so I don’t understand.

Ay yi yi.

Me, I’m actually overweight. I have a right to be self-conscious about my ass, and I am. Yet I’ve never hidden it from a lover. Maybe it’s because I’m inherently lazy and that sounds like a lot of work, being on the ball like that all the time, trying to sneakily hide a rather conspicuous body part. And, yeesh, after sex, too? Oh, boy.

You hit the nail on the head, though. It’s a trust issue. She doesn’t trust you. Now, waitwaitwaitwait. Don’t freak out. The good news is, she probably doesn’t realize that that’s the case. I bet that she’d feel horrible if she realized the full implications of her actions.

Basically, with her body language, she’s telling you that she doesn’t trust you – not necessarily “you” you, but she doesn’t trust that you’re going to be man enough to see beyond what she perceives to be a hideous physical attribute. She thinks that if you see her for all her flaws, that you’ll decide the whole package isn’t worth the shame of having a woman with THAT ass.

Now, the insanely stupid part about that, is this: What does she think, when she has a pair of jeans on she’s magically enacted some kind of high-powered cloaking shield so that you only see 67% of the bootay?

It’s incredibly dumb. Highly dumb. But there you go, that’s what insecurities are.

This, I remind you, is coming from someone who’s had to get medieval on her own insecurities. I spent my life engulfed in my insecurities. I remember someone describing me as “average” when I was 15, and I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. I wasn’t butt-ugly? I wasn’t some toad?

In fact, when I started this blog two years ago, I was in a world of different headspace. I decided I would not post any pictures of myself for fear that if anyone saw I was just a normal chick writing about sex, they wouldn’t take me seriously. In the two years since, I’ve had a drastic change of mindset. One, I realize now that it’s exactly because I’m a normal chick that I’m taken seriously. Two, I now believe I’m a cutie-pie, but I refuse to post pictures because I want my words taken at their value, not because of how I do or don’t look, which, I think, is cute! (‘sides, anyone with half a brain and a nose for digging around certain major websites would be able to find three or four images of yours truly, if not more.)

But my point is this. When we’re victim to esteem issues, we don’t see the big picture. We see only our flaws, and we feel that if we can hate ourselves and our flaws as much as we do, then it ought to be just as easy for you to do so.

Then there’s the point of history. You don’t know her past. You don’t know if some family member or ex-lover always instructed her to move her “fat ass” or not.

I could tell you a million different things to say or do, but ultimately it comes down to her having a change of headspace. If you’ve never told her that you’re hurt and feeling rejected because she can’t be big enough to trust that you’re being true with her when you say that you love her and her “big” ass, then you need to do that. You need to say that you love her, you find her incredibly beautiful, but that you’re feeling incredibly rejected and distrusted because she can’t she the best in you, and that it’s ultimately getting in the way – because that’s what happens when one lover can’t trust the other.

All you want to do is love all of her, and she’s not allowing you to do that. In fact, though she probably doesn’t realize it, she’s insulting you and telling you that you’re shallow. I doubt she means to do that. I suspect she thinks you’re such a wonderful guy that she wants to do everything in her power to ensure you stay by her. Little does she know, she’s doing the opposite.

You need to tell her you feel distrusted, insulted, and even unloved. You need to explain that you understand her fears, but that she’s not even giving you the opportunity to prove that you’re more man than she maybe even suspects.

Remember – you might be getting hurt in this instance, but that’s not her intention. She can’t see that. She’s trying to protect herself. Don’t be angry at her and try not to feel too hurt, but at the same time, try to make her understand that she is, essentially, hurting you by failing to trust that you’re a better man than those in her past, that you love that squeezable ass of hers.

A final thing to note is that there are people who are clinically diagnosed to be self-loathing. They could be a runway model, but what they see in the mirror is someone hideous. Therapists have a very hard time breaking their will, too. They’ll do exercises like having the person draw a life-sized outline of their body on paper, then the patient will lie down atop it and have their actual body traced, and the outline of their real body is half the size of their perceived outline, and so forth. So, what’s happening is that they have an illness causing them to distort their physical reality. Methinks it’s more common than we think, and methinks it has to do with the endless barrage of air-brushed, unrealistic beauty in magazines, but that’s another story for another time.

Like I said. A sticky wicket. Anyone out there able to share how a lover helped them overcome such an insecurity?

7 thoughts on “Q&A: The Case of the Perenially Disappearing Ass

  1. Anonymous

    I have not been entirely successful in helping my girl get over her body image issues. She’s not skinny, but boy is she fine! I tell her all the time how beautiful she is, but says “you make me feel beautiful” or “You’re biased” as if I’m the only one who thinks so. A guy just stopped by my desk and commented on how hot she is. I will keep trying, but she is prone to weght issues and will be continuously at odds with it. I can understand, we are most critical of ourselves. Myself included.

  2. Anonymous

    my lover has done SO much for my self image over the past year, basically just by whispering in my ear over and over how beautiful and cute and sexy he thinks I am. Neither of us is a “hot 20 year old model” type but the way he kisses and strokes every inch of me, and verbally tells me over and over that he thinks I’m hot is just awesome.

    So, the other day I sent him pictures of myself. 😉

    I did airbrush a few scars out, but otherwise I sent them ‘as is’ and he LOVED them.

    ~sg, aka “sexy girl” to my man

  3. jp

    you nailed it Steff!…
    some years ago, i was hooked up with a chick that had huge problems with self-body image & insecurities…at first i thought it was just early relationship shyness…lots of not wantin me to see this, or coverin that…as you said, i’m sure she was tryin to protect herself…maybe it worked for her…but it became clear to me that she didn’t trust me not to hurt her over the things she was beatin herself up about…
    turns out, things didn’t work out between us…her non-trustin and insecurities weren’t the only reasons we went separate ways…but they played a big part…

  4. scribe called steff

    Anon Uno– Yeah, it’s so hard when there’s an unrealistic expectation placed on us by the media. Then one can go and watch some reality show, like “10 Years Younger” and see overweight but nicely made up girls put in a box and judged, and you hear from the average guy that “she’s hot”.

    WHICH REMINDS ME that I’ve totally blown it and failed to report some hot news on the fashion industry out of Milan. Aha! I shall crack that nut this weekend.

    Anon 2– And that’s what it’s about. Communicating. And you’ve chosen to trust him and believe him, and that means a lot. But when that doesn’t happen, it can be problematic.

    JP– Yeah, the “it’s a trust issue” seems to escape a lot of women with insecurities like that. I realized in my late 20s that it was a trust issue, but it’s only been in the last three or so years that I can see past my insecurities to realize that the man’s telling the truth. To him, I am hot. Would I be hotter thinner? Maybe. But I’ve thus far only had one lover who had the balls/nerve to say so.

    I saw a saying to the effect that “a man doesn’t love a woman because she’s beautiful, but she’s beautiful to him because he loves her.” I choose to believe that. Wish more women could.

  5. Claire

    There is a brilliant TV programme called “How to Look Good Naked”, I don’t know if it’s shown outside of Britain though. Basically it takes women with serious confidence issues, gets them to say exactly what they don’t like about themselves without using “everything”. They post a picture of her in her underwear in a public place and get the locals to comment on her. Then she hears the tape and hears people saying her thighs (or whatever) are great and it gives her a boost. The presenter takes her out shopping a gets clothes to flatter her. Finally they arrange a photoshoot and she is asked if she’d be prepared to do it naked and in every episode I watched they all agreed to it. The photo is then projected onto a building in a busy area and again locals are asked to comment.

    I find it amazing that the presenter, I think he’s a fashion stylist, can give all these women such life changing confidence! I know that if it’s possible for them to be like that then it’s possible for me too.

  6. Mind Maelstrom

    Why it’s helpful to have your boyfriend tell you how pretty you are to overcome insecurities, I personally think mine’s biased :). I’ve found, though, that random guys on the street checking me out can help a lot when I’m not feeling my best about how I look.

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