2010/02/22 by Martin S. Weinberg, Colin J. Williams · 1 citation
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Eating Disorders and Behaviors #Media, Gender, and Advertising #Gender Roles and Identity Studies #Pleasure #Objectification #Feeling #Human sexuality #Expansive #Gender studies #Social psychology #Psychology #Sociology #Political science #Psychotherapist
paper · doi:10.1111/j.1573-7861.2009.01156.x
openalex publication_date 2010/02/22 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
This article examines the role of nude embodiment as it affects sexuality, intimacy, and pleasure when people seek to align their nude body with cultural values. This research, based on open-ended and closed-ended data from 184 young heterosexual adults attending a large Midwestern university, finds the experience of nude embodiment and its effects to be strongly gendered. For example, among both men and women, comfort with one’s nude body is associated with a sexually expansive point of view, but it is only found to be associated with sexual behavior and pleasure among the women. For women, too, feelings of objectification in nude embodiment are shown to be mitigated through positive relationships with their male partner. Throughout we emphasize the “lived experience” of the body, especially as experienced in the body techniques used in the pursuit of sexual intimacy and pleasure. Discussion relates these results to objectification theory and how wider social changes may impinge on sexual embodiment in general.