The size zero culture of the 00s has made a terrible comeback. Representation of mid- and plus-size models during fashion month has been falling season after season, weight-loss drugs like Ozempic have become widespread, and celebrities and influencers who once built followings within the body-positive community are now debuting radically thinner physiques. Much has been written about this return to thinness, but one aspect which has been less explored is the impact on our sex lives.

Sexual freedom holds power to disrupt the status quo, encouraging us to love our bodies, seek pleasure, and forgo the repetitive rhythms of capitalism. The pressure to pursue thinness is often diametrically opposed to fully embodying and pursuing desire. In this new erotic-symbolic order, bodies are not to enjoy and be enjoyed; they are merely for display.

Those of us who have struggled with disordered eating know that when you are obsessed with a restrictive diet, gruelling exercise routine or purging cycles, sex is not on your mind. This is supported by clinical research which shows that individuals struggling with anorexia report lower levels of sexual desire and lower frequency of masturbation, compared to the same individuals at weight restoration. Janet*, 30, concurs: “You cannot be horny when you’re not eating, it’s one of life’s great ironies.” Even in more moderate cases, dieting or under-eating doesn’t have a great impact on your libido, sex and relationships therapist Lucy Frank explains. “When the body is under-fuelled or over-stressed, sex drops down the priority list,” she says. “Libido is often a sign of how safe and supported the body feels.”

“I’m on Mounjaro and I basically never think about sex and I can’t be arsed to masturbate” – Diane*

Pharmaceutical approaches to losing weight, meanwhile, like GLP-1s Ozempic and Wegovy, list sexual dysfunction as a side effect. Although the clinical research into how, exactly, this will manifest at scale is still in its infancy, a 2024 study suggested a link between GLP-1s and male erectile dysfunction – specifically, that non-diabetic men with a semaglutide prescription had a 1.5 per cent likelihood of erectile dysfunction compared to the 0.14 per cent of men in the control group.

The anecdotal testimonies are also mounting, which Frank is seeing in her practice. “I’m hearing anecdotally from clients that libido can drop on GLP-1s,” she says. “Desire and arousal are linked to hormones, energy and feeling adequately nourished. When appetite and intake change significantly, sex drive can shift too – and emerging research suggests this isn’t something to ignore.”

This is something which Laura*, in their early 30s, echoes. “I tried semaglutide for a few months last year and the overwhelming experience was a drop in desire for anything and everything, sex included,” they explain. “It scared me so much that I stopped. Now all I can think about with GLP-1s is the societal effects of a general suppression of desire.” It’s not just partnered sex that is impacted, but masturbation too. “I’m on Mounjaro and I basically never think about sex [and I] can’t be arsed to masturbate,” explains Diane*, also in her early 30s.

There's not just the potentially libido-dampening effects of dieting or semaglutide to contend with. We’re also seeing a wider culture of body surveillance, where thanks to social media we’re constantly critiquing and comparing our bodies to influencers (and porn stars). When there is an overarching pressure to look a certain way, it degrades our capacity for vulnerability in erotic situations, as we become more focused on how we look rather than what we’re feeling.

“When people feel pressure to be thin, that anxiety often shows up during sex and intimacy” – Lucy Frank, sex and relationships therapist

It’s not uncommon to struggle at the thought of a significant other internally judging our body during sex. To cope, some of us might prefer to keep the lights off, remain at least partially clothed, or avoid certain positions for fear of how our contorted bodies might look. Naturally, this has an impact on our ability to feel pleasure. “When people feel pressure to be thin, that anxiety often shows up during sex and intimacy,” Frank adds. “Instead of being present, they’re thinking about and distracted by how they look. That self-consciousness makes it much harder to relax, feel aroused and drop into our bodies in order to access pleasure.”

What’s so interesting about all this, however, is the chasm that exists between the socially dictated idea of what is beautiful and what individuals actually find attractive in practice. For example, stats provided exclusively for Dazed Beauty by Clips4Sale (C4S), a platform that hosts creators selling erotic content, demonstrate that plus-size creators have actually become more popular at the precise moment that size zero has returned as a cultural norm. “Sales of Big Beautiful Women (BBW) and Super-Sized Big Beautiful Women (SSBBW) content have grown dramatically over the past few years,” says C4S’s Avery Martin. “Sales of BBW-SSBBW content are up more than 42 per cent since the popularisation of drugs like Ozempic. The rise of creator content has brought an increased celebration of different types of bodies, even if mainstream culture may be focused more narrowly.”

Of course, porn and dating apps are known for fetishising any number of body types and protected characteristics. A trend in the world of erotic content doesn’t necessarily translate into social recognition IRL. But it would be incorrect to say that people only find skinny bodies attractive, or prefer them over mid- and plus-size ones. While beauty is intrinsically linked to desire, it isn’t necessarily about how desired you are – but how desirable and valued you are made to feel in society.

The interconnected rise of size zero and sex negativity isn’t something which exists in a vacuum. Rather, it’s a symptom of our wider cultural moment of gender and political conservatism. Now, the body is restrained through social imperatives to be not just thin but sexually moderate. It’s all a matter of control. As Naomi Wolf argued all those years ago: “A culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty, but an obsession about female obedience.”