Sexlife, Body image

The way we feel about our bodies generally has a significant effect on our sexualality, if we feel embarrassed by or ashamed of our physical selves, that will change the way we have sex and may even stop us wanting to have it all together.

I have an extra large labia. I think larger than normal. I had pain in my crutch when I was a teenager and I asked my mother to tell me what might be the matter, when she saw my labia she reacted like I was an alien and bought the whole bridge club in to take a look. It was so humiliating, later on I had a boyfriend with an unusually large penis. When we broke up he said he thought he'd never find someone who mashed info genitally. He called me his Hottentot.

I've struggled with my body image for as long as I can remember. In early 2007 I was diagnosed with anorexia and BMI was less than 15 of the time. My BMI is now 19 and I'm still in the treatment faze. I hate the shape of my body and I hope someday I may change my feelings about my body. It has affected my sexuality and my past relationships. Where I have struggled to have any form sexual activity. 

But women aren't the only ones who may experience poor body image.

I have an unusually thin penis. When I was a teenager, this got round my school and the name 'pencil Dick' plagued me for many years. I compensated by building my body, so I attracted lots of women but I never wanted to have sex with them as that was meant they would learn about my tiny little secret. I found a woman who seemed kind and understanding and married her, eventually learned to please my wife and keep her perfectly happy sexually. But I wonder how my sexuality would have been if I hadn't been born that way?

Men's insecurities about their penises, especially size often start in childhood. Its not too difficult to sell an insecure man a bottle of snake oil if you can convince him that it will make him larger than the next guy.

Mobile phones are the only subject on which men boast about who's got the smallest Neil kinnock 

Men resort creams, potions, herbs, prayers and even surgery in the hope of achieving larger penis. In several other cultures men modify their penises, often through dangerous processes such as splitting them, infibulation, inserting pearls or other objects under the penis skin to achieve a rigid affect. If only men could understand that the vagina is very accommodating organ, you can be happy with most sizes. In fact an overly large penis can be more of a problem, than a small one and that in any case many women are far more interested in how a man pleases them in non penetrative way.

Dr Pamela Stephenson Connelly