Yes, Sexual Self-Esteem Is A Thing: How To Boost It, From A Sex Therapist

While many people can recognize when they're struggling with their confidence, people often neglect to consider their feelings around their sexual self.

As humans, we are sexual beings, regardless of how we feel about sex or sexuality. You are a whole person made up of many parts, and your sexual self is an important piece of who you are.

Your sexual self-esteem starts with how you feel about yourself. It's affected by past and current experiences, and it is an essential part of you as a whole person.

Regardless of how you feel about sex, your sexual self-esteem matters. It's just as important as your overall self-esteem. Your overall confidence affects every area of your life, and your sexual self-esteem does the same.

Several factors affect how you view your sexual self. Some are within your control, and others aren't—they're due to experiences that happen to you.

Those negative messages can turn into your own internal message. Maybe they've become your self-talk about your sexuality or sexual self. Take those plus any things you've been told about your performance or actions with sex at any point in your life, and you can end up with plenty of negative things in your inner narrative.

Experiences with your current or past partners stick with you, especially the negative ones. These negative narratives become your inner narrative. Your inner critic loves these experiences because it can turn up the volume and remind you of all the things "wrong" with your sexual self.

When your sexual self-esteem is not in a good place, how in the heck can you expect to have a pleasurable and fulfilling sexual experience with someone when you feel bad about yourself?

Your sexual self-esteem deserves a boost. If you are focused on personal growth and want to see improvements in your relationships, there's no time like the present to focus on nurturing your sexual self.

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 very low and 10 very high, rank how you view your sexual self at this time. Write down the number you picked and label it as current.

Make a list of your thoughts, beliefs, and things you say to yourself about your sexual self—even if some of these came from others, and you've since adopted them into your own narrative. Try to identify at least five.

Next, rewrite each of these to be more realistic and forgiving of yourself. For example, if you wrote, "I'm not comfortable with my body during sex," reframe it with "I want to learn to feel more comfortable in my body during sex." Go through each item and reframe it, which will help you begin to improve how you see your sexual self.

On a sheet of paper, brainstorm all of the possible thoughts, things, people, experiences, narratives, or anything that keeps you from feeling confident about your sexual self. For example, a past partner may have told you that you're not good at sex, and you can't stop this from going through your head.

This self-talk causes you not to feel good about your sexual self. Write out any barrier you can think of. After you've listed them out, write one small action you can take to overcome each barrier.