How do we perceive the bodies of loved ones

“Most of all, the skin excites me,” Roman admits. “I like to explore it with my lips, closing my eyes, looking for the most tender, wet, secluded corners … That’s why I can’t stand girls who don’t get out of tanning beds: they get some kind of terrible orange tint – dry, sour, hardened skin!”

“But I,” says Valery, “like to caress women’s legs – bite their fingers, kiss the lift … When they say “a beautiful female body”, I immediately imagine a gracefully curved leg. And if a woman responds to these caresses, it really turns me on. Once, when I was about ten years old, guests came to my parents, and I hid under the table and sat there, looking at them. One woman accidentally slipped her shoe … and it gave me an erection. Apparently, it all started with this: as far as I can remember, it was women’s feet that always worried me.

General and details

How do men perceive the female body in moments of love? “A man sees a woman’s body not as a single object,” explains sexologist and anthropologist Philip Brenaud. “His attention is initially directed to individual elements of the body – chest, legs, buttocks, etc. – and some of them feed his fantasies more than others.”

Gentle roundness, a special line, an exciting movement – that’s what men notice at first sight.

“It is not at all necessary that with all women a man will seek a repetition of his first sexual experience,” says psychoanalyst Ksenia Korbut. “But in any case, his impulse will be related to his early experiences. Interaction with the mother and other loved ones, one’s own inner world and fantasies – the child’s psyche is formed under the influence of emotional experience, and this affects his sexual preferences in the future.

And what do they say about the body of a beloved woman?

“I,” Zhanna shares, “I like to study my husband, look for the most defenseless corners in him, to which he himself does not pay much attention, because he simply does not think about them. There are such folds behind the ears, a hollow under the Adam’s apple, a funny piece of skin on the shoulder near the armpit … These places touch me, because no one but me sees them, and therefore it seems to me that my husband belongs to me even more!

Alina admits that from the very first moments of their acquaintance she was captivated by the impressive figure of her rather full future husband: “I just physically wanted to hide in him, take refuge. In bed, I really like it when his big body leans over, hangs over me. I grab him tightly, literally squeeze into him, knead him like dough.

It seems that women’s feelings are moving rather in the opposite direction – from the general to the particular.

Everything is different

How else do men’s and women’s views on the object of desire differ? Usually men talk about their preferences in the plural: “I like in women …”, while women talk about the body of one, “their” man – a husband or lover.

“Nothing surprising: a man prone to polygamy keeps in his feelings the outlines of many female silhouettes,” says sexologist Irina Panyukova. “A woman usually focuses entirely on the one she loves, he seems to be illuminated by her feeling, and his appearance overshadows all other partners.”

It is rather strange that in literature it is unusually rare to find a description of the body of a lover or beloved in moments of love itself.

And the point here, it seems, is not only in the writer’s chastity, but also in our involuntary conviction that the other in these moments feels everything in exactly the same way as we do.

“This is not so,” Philippe Brenaud objected. – As the great psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan explained, “in sexual relations there are no correlations”, that is, the correspondence of the sensations of a man and a woman. They are completely different!”

So how do you capture these feelings? Perhaps it is easier to approach the issue from the other side and look at what can cause disgust.

“I immediately laid eyes on this man,” recalls Lika. – I was worried about everything – how he spoke, how he laughed. Then it came to bed. Everything was wonderful, but at the very, very moment he began to sweat … and some strange smell appeared – something like milk and alcohol at the same time. Imagine hugging a baby and an alcoholic in one person! Strange, but in ordinary life, his hypnotic effect on me continued, and we were together for quite a long time.

This strangeness is explained by the fact that “loving ears” women fall in love first with a person, and then adapt to the physical data of the chosen one.

charm border

But why does it happen that the once passionately loved body suddenly ceases to be desirable and can even repel?

After two years of a passionate affair with Vadim, Galina invited him to move in with her. A month later, her desire disappeared. Why? The reason she believes is his heavy breathing during sex.

“It suddenly reminded me of how my cousin puffed, who masturbated at night in our room, when I was sent to the country in the summer as a child. And after that – everything, all the passion was taken away as if by hand.

How to explain such a transition? “The phase of passionate love plunges us into a kind of hypnotic state, where everything is seen as if in a fog, including the trauma imprinted in our body and associated with childhood sexual experiences,” says Philippe Brenaud. “When the feelings subside a little, these traumas can reappear. And then it seems to the woman that in front of her is not the one who captivated her. Alas, sometimes it is irreparable.

Nevertheless, there are couples who continue to enjoy making love for ten, and twenty, and forty years in a row.

“We have been together for twenty-two years,” says Konstantin. – And it still excites me when Tanya throws her hands back and I see pleasure in her eyes. It seems to me that I would not regret if this was the last thing I would ever see in my life.

And Tatyana talks about how the passion that her husband’s body still gives rise to in her helps her come to terms with the traces that time leaves on him: “Love transforms all imperfections. You know, two such “buns” that appeared on his sides – if they suddenly disappear, I will miss them!