What Zumba taught me about s*x

There was a moment in my Zumba class this week that stayed with me.

I realized, again, why I sometimes ignore the mirror.

Why I close my eyes when I dance.

It’s not because I don’t want to see myself.

It’s because I want to feel myself.

When I’m not tracking how I look…my body opens.

I let the music move me.

I make the choreography my own.

I exaggerate, soften, circle, pulse in ways that feel sensual and alive.

And in those moments I’m not a body to be evaluated.

I’m a body being experienced.

Yes, my body is full.

Yes, it doesn’t conform to the thin ideal our culture worships.

And in those moments?

I truly don’t care.

Because I’m inside my pleasure.

And my body feels like a source of beauty, expression, and aliveness.

Now here’s the connection that landed for me:

The same thing happens in s*x.

When we’re focused on how we look: our stomach, our thighs, how we sound, how we move, we leave our body and enter our head.

This is what psychologists call Spectatoring: watching yourself instead of being yourself.

And it’s one of the biggest, most overlooked contributors to:

  • low desire

  • difficulty feeling pleasure

  • trouble reaching orgasm

  • feeling disconnected during s*x

Because pleasure requires presence.

And presence requires safety inside your body.

But most of us were never taught to feel safe in our bodies.

We were taught to judge them.

Through:

  • fatphobia

  • diet culture

  • beauty standards that keep shifting

  • messages about what’s “desirable” and what’s not

We learned that our bodies are projects. Problems to fix. Objects to be looked at.

So of course, when we’re naked with someone,  we perform.

We brace.

We monitor.

We try to “get it right.”

And in doing so… we disconnect from the very thing that makes s*x feel good.

Here’s the truth I come back to again and again:

Pleasure is your birthright.

Not when you lose weight.

Not when you “fix” your body.

Not when you look a certain way.

Now.

In the body you have.

The shift isn’t about thinking better thoughts about your body.

It’s about building a new relationship with it.

Learning how to:

  • come back into sensation

  • stay present while being seen

  • feel instead of perform

  • access your erotic energy without self-monitoring

This is the work.

Odelia Shargian