Body Image in Gay and Straight Men
So it’s that time of year, we’ve indulged over Christmas and we look in the mirror and see our bodies are bigger than before and then decide it’s time to hit the gym and get healthy. We see loads of adverts showing us how to loose weight and look hot. But body image isn’t just about weight, people have shortcomings from all different parts of their body and the way they look. I touched on this slightly in my previous article about gay stereotypes and how if you look a certain way you get put in to a box, so now feels like the perfect time to talk about body image in men. It would be unfair for me to talk about women as I would do the subject a disservice.
I’m going to start by talking about my own body image and I’m going to try and be as honest as I can. So firstly, am I happy with my how I look? No, I’m not. I am quite a hairy man and this has bothered me for a while, I don’t like. I could shave it off but according to my husband it’s part of my appeal so for his sake I can live with it. I’m not necessarily happy with my body and the way it looks, I would like to be a little slimmer and toned. I’m training to run the London Marathon and was doing a lot of training but due to a variety of work, Christmas and illness meant that I wasn’t exercising as much as I’d like to so I have put on a little bit of weight. I can’t seem to get my stomach to be flat and I can’t get rid of what looks like a ski jump from my tummy. As I’m writing this my beard is way too long and my hair is too long but this is easily sorted. It’s a temporary displeasure.
It’s not all bad though, there are parts of my body I like. This is going to sound vain but I don’t think I’m ugly and when my hair and beard are shorter I think I’m moderately (at a push) attractive. After what I said about my body, and apart from being slightly fatter and hairier than I want to be, I do actually quite like my body. I spent most of my teenage years being overweight so for my body to look the way it does pleases me. I’m not saying that being larger is bad, if you look that way and are happy with it then brilliant, but for me, I’m happy being slimmer - it’s just a personal thing. My husband likes my bottom and having seen it in the mirror I’m actually pretty happy with it myself
I look at the gay world and I realise where a lot of my body issues come from. In the gay world you see a lot of either slim young men who have no body hair and are toned and good looking to muscular gay men who are tall, dark and muscular. What you very rarely see are average looking men, guys who are hairy and have a slight tummy (OK, maybe if you are a bear you might see this) or guys who are ‘pigeon chested’ just average guys. You see these slim, toned guys with no hair on their body or these muscle men, you think ‘Why don’t I look like that?’ but the truth of it is most men don’t look like that.
It’s the same for straight men as well, the guys who you see on social media or on TV are slim, toned or muscular. We see these men and think we all need to look like this. What we need is more average looking men on TV and on social media showing the average body. Which is why I’m putting a picture of how I look on this article, it’s embarrassing but I think I don’t think you get many people with a body like me on the internet or TV.
This is how I look at the time of writing this. You may even look at me and say what are you complaining about? The issues I have are my personal view.
There are some TV shows or people who do show what the majority of men's bodies look like. I have seen it on The Big Theory, yes they’re supposed to be nerds so aren’t supposed to have hot bods, but those bodies are a better representation of men's bodies. There is a TV show in the UK called Naked Attraction in which you see someone naked before you actually meet them and go on a date after picking them out from 3 other people. From the little I have seen of it, it is about body positivity and they have a wide range of men of all shapes and sizes in all parts of the male body. Yes gents, including that part, which for that matter does come in all different sizes. Most gay men should know this anyway! It’s this sort of show we should be celebrating.
Jonathan Van Ness from Queer Eye is semi naked on social media a lot and even though he is slim, he doesn’t necessarily have a “hot” body. People in these shows are who we need to looking to and we need to forget what type of body is deemed as hot or healthy because not every healthy male bodies will have a six pack.
Something I have noticed is that a lot of men will have an issue with their body in some respect even if they say they don’t or seem confident. I have seen guys who I think are hot, say they would like to change how they look in some way shape or form. I’m sitting there thinking ‘Why you’re hot? I wish I looked like that’ but we all have an opinion of how we should look and what are bodies should look like. This has to come from somewhere. Half the time we don’t actually need to have these issues because you’re probably hotter than you actually realise and that’s the same for me. The issues I have with my body are things that my husband likes about me, sometimes you need someone telling you that you are hot, because you are.
To quote Drag Queen Ru Paul “If you can’t love yourself, how the hell you gonna love somebody else”. Amen Ru Paul, Amen.
