AUTOSEXUALITY & FACIAL DYSMORPHIA

Imagine you have a fave shirt that you love to wear. One day, you spill something on it and it leaves a stain. Every time you wear that shirt, you feel embarrassed or ugly. The way I see my face causes self-loathing and hopelessness. Facial dysmorphia is like multiple stains on a shirt, but instead of a shirt, it’s my face.

My perceived lack of facial beauty is a mental health condition where I suffer from extreme criticism and distress because of a perception of my appearance (which may or may not be rooted in reality) despite medical/personal reassurances. This exploded on Zoom during the pandemic when I was constantly staring at myself. Sometimes I hardly recognize my reflection. It’s an obstacle course not to compare myself to others and reframe my thoughts. I started analyzing my features and comparing them to other people’s. It got so unmanageable that I couldn’t watch TV without compulsively studying actors’ faces.

How did I get here? Probably trauma. To complicate things further I’ll present a paradox. Ever catch your reflection and damn...I'd tap that. I’m also intensely sexually attracted to myself!

Autosexual folx are attracted to themselves. Autoeroticism, a form of ethical egoism, isn’t the self-centered admiration, vanity, or arrogance of a narcissist and is distinct from having high confidence. Some autoerotic people may only ever jerkoff in the mirror, while others enjoy sex with others.

How is it possible that I can experience self-loathing and erotic arousal toward myself simultaneously? I don’t know. What I do know is that this is proof of the fluidity and complexity of my erotic ecosystem. How the vastness of pansexuality and the nuances of kink, nurturance, and attraction are the mélange of sounds in the playlist.

Mental and physical pain, power, and pleasure are all fluid paradoxes that can influence one another and our experiences of ourselves and reality.