The interplay between love and sexuality is a complicated one, to say the very least. As we come into our sexuality and learn more about ourselves in that space, learning to love ourselves can be a more arduous challenge. It’s also easy to blur the love we feel from others with what we think is self-love. In reality, self-love can and should stand on its own — whether we’re single or not. When we begin to explore our sexuality, we’re bound to run into confusion and uncertainties, muddying everything even further.
It’s hard to think anyone will ever fully unravel self-love and sexuality, but Carmen Azzopardi is keeping no secrets as she takes us along her journey with her. With over 100,000 followers as @zigs_mom, Carmen has built a hugely dedicated audience obsessed with not only her unique style but the unfiltered conversations she encourages fans to have. Above all else, Carmen Azzopardi is unapologetically herself.
She sat down with Melissa Mason for the latest episode of POPSUGAR’s Love Rants to offer her thoughts on the interplay between love and sexuality, while sharing her own story.
Carmen Azzopardi on Discovering Her Sexuality
Everyone’s experience with learning about themselves in the realms of self-love and sexuality is different. For Carmen, the process of learning to exhibit self-love and the process of discovering her sexuality could not have been more opposite.
For me, they don’t overlap as much as they probably do for others,” Carmen told Mel on Love Rants.
“I have a very disjointed experience of self-love. I’ve battled with mental health issues like depression, anxiety, and recently been diagnosed with C-PTSD. So, it’s taken a really long time for me to feel like I can get to a mental place where I’m ready to put effort into working towards loving myself.”
“On the opposite end,” Carmen continues, “my sexuality is something I came to terms with quite easily when I was a lot younger, and I didn’t have the same struggle there that I do with self-love. So, when I think about it, they don’t actually overlap much for me.”
Expanding on how self-love and exploring sexuality as concepts are treated in society, Carmen is hopeful for the future.
“I like to think this generation has better examples and representation and better voices in their communities to support self-identity and healthy growth in that space, right?” she says.
“But when I was younger, I was so influenced by magazines and a really toxic culture of, ‘Women, hate yourself.’ Even though we’d gotten to this point where it was like, ‘You can do anything,’ you still had this intense hatred for yourself. It was so insidious, but I’m really only realizing now how much it’s affected me because I still carry it to this day.”
Listen to Carmen’s full episode of POPSUGAR’s Love Rants below.
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