Single & Fabulous? | ‘Do our future husbands expect us to have six packs?’

“You’re going to get SO much attention, now you have a six pack,” gushed an old friend a few years back.

My ears pricked up. Excitement surged through my veins like a baby’s first sugar rush. I’d wanted abs sever since the ‘Slave 4 U’ video.

I had premonitions of leaving the club draped in a different kind of anaconda. Of being something I’d never felt… wanted.

As if we haven’t felt unaccepted by heterosexual society most of our lives, the gay community can be more difficult to navigate, (even if you’re not in a dark room).

It only takes a few cutting remarks from a handful of bitchy queens, and a couple nights out to clubs where our doughy bodies are kneaded by the protruding pecs of real-life Action Men, and we feel more out of place in our own community than we did throughout puberty.

Much like school, we begin to pick up on a kind of ‘pecking order’ (where ironically, those with pecs, are the apex). Sure, everybody loves ‘Mean Girls’, but not when it’s real life.

Attitude’s Body Survey (2017), revealed that 84% of men admit to feeling intense pressure to have a good body amongst their queer counterparts.

The media plays its part, of course. Although if we listened to everything they told us, we’d all be squashed into waist trainers, with black pore masks on our noses and penis pumps hanging off our cocks.

I was the worst for it. I suffered with body dysmorphia during college and tried every fad diet under the sun; clutching my Evian bottle of cayenne pepper and maple syrup, trying not to faint on the DLR.

While many will avoid the scene entirely, others will conform to the way we think we should look in order to be accepted. In fact, 90% of gay men* admit to attempting to change their body in order to be more attractive to other men.

Even now, I push myself to train five times a week. I tell myself that I do it for me because I want to look a certain way, feel good and preserve my health. And that’s is true. But what about the part I don’t admit, is to be admired?

 

We fall into the Insta-trap of obsessing over the bodies of social influencers, with high metabolisms, good genetics, soft lighting, and the time to workout twice a day.

But despite virtual adoration, most of these men are single too. So clearly, it’s not a solution for finding love. (A hamper of disposable shags perhaps, but not love).

I mean, do I feel better about myself since getting fit? Of course. But do I go on more prosperous dates? I wish. And do my knees now creak like a haunted rocking chair? Unfortunately, yes. 

Is it possible it’s all counter-productive in meeting a mate? I know I’d probably be too intimidated to approach Hercules in the club. I might get sweaty palms, completely ignore him, and forever refer to him as ‘the one that got away’, but you’re on acid if you think I’m approaching him.

How many men have avoided dates or intercourse because they feel like their bodies are inadequate? More than would care to admit.

But do guys really care if a we have a six pack? Or is this just what we look up to because the Michelen men are standing on podiums?

When speaking to my friends about their bodies and those of their partners, although they admit they desire a “gym body”, it’s only on themselves and not their partners.

 

I’ve certainly never kicked anyone out of bed just because they had love handles or stretch marks.

“I want to be the hotter one out of the two of us,” one confessed.

So despite the perceived importance and valued placed, is it only a small majority of people that actually care?

Me and mine care far more about our own bodies, than those of our partners. In fact, we’re all quite partial to a dad bod.

So if we don’t expect that level of physical effort from our men, why do we expect it from ourselves? And furthermore, do they expect it from us?

Maybe more men are looking to heal years of having their self-esteem bruised rather than fulfilling a physical fantasy they think men desire.

Any psychologist will tell you that happiness comes from how you feel about yourself, not how others feel about you. So it’s possible that how we think men feel about our bodies is something we’ve projected onto the entire community based on our own self-critical nature.

Convincing ourselves that it’s something everyone desires, and even expects, and that the “immense pressure” we feel comes from all gay men; not just the shallow ones, the fickle media and our own insecurities.

Maybe the men we sleep with don’t expect us to look like Pietro Boselli. And – shocker – maybe they don’t even want us to. Because maybe, just maybe, we’re deeper than we give ourselves credit for.

Anthony Gilét is a London-based writer, blogger and YouTuber – follow him on Twitter and Instagram.

To read more from the Single & Fabulous? series click here.

Attitude’s Body Issue is out now. But in print, subscribe or download.