Gay Men and Body Perfectn | Psychology Today

Contents:

• GAY GUYS REALLY ARE THNER, STUDY SAYS
• BODY POLICS: JT HOW IMPORTANT ARE LOOKS TO GAY MEN?
• GAY MEN AND BODY PERFECTN
• GAY OR STRAIGHT? HARD TO TELL
• WHAT ABOUT THE GUYS WHO DO F THE 'GAY STEREOTYPE'?

GAY GUYS REALLY ARE THNER, STUDY SAYS

) And Kate McKnon, playg a so-lled Weird Barbie who experienced an extreme haircut and makeover at the hands of an experimental child, never actually answers the qutn anybody would have upon seeg her gay-ass haircut and knowg the actor’s sexualy.

And nversely, also found that gay women tend to be heavier than their heterosexual rearchers termed that gay women were more than twice as likely as straight women to be obe, while gay men were 50 percent ls likely to be obe pared to their heterosexual unterparts, acrdg to a report published the Amerin Journal of Public Health.

BODY POLICS: JT HOW IMPORTANT ARE LOOKS TO GAY MEN?

Earlier studi that looked at health the gay muny foced mostly on sexually transmted diseas and mental health, rather than on chronic illns like oby and heart disease, says the study’s lead thor Kerh Conron, an associate rearch scientist at Northeastern Universy and a rearch fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health. “People sexual relatnships wh men — heterosexual women and gay men — get more prsure to look th and to otherwise nform to attractivens norms than do people sexual relatnships wh women — lbians and heterosexual men, ” Rothblum said. "I'm lookg for a partner who probably do f a relatively narrow fn of attractivens, to be hont, ” he people aren't que so blunt, which is why the study of 500 gay and bisexual men ed what rearcher Derek Jon lls the “polygraph” method to terme what rponnts really want – not jt what they’re willg to say they want.

Cred: Ed PurnomoLike straight men and women, who have prevly had the D&M Rearch polygraph treatment, gay and bisexual men unrplayed the power of physil and sexual attractn and showed they are won over by good looks and rponnts also played down the power of a ls pleasg appearance to turn them might have been loath to adm , but men who are overweight and too ‘feme’ were a major turn-off, alongsi personaly tras of “bchs” and talkg too much.

GAY MEN AND BODY PERFECTN

“Gay and bi men do seem to be more fixated on fdg a partner who is f or physilly attractive” than straight men and women, he are unrlyg reasons for this that Mr Power believ stem om the prejudice the muny has faced, and even the AIDS crisis. “For many men, whether 's bee of ternalised homophobia or difficulty g out, or feelg fortable their sexualy, gog to the gym and focg on somethg they n ntrol – and also to create this image of health and fns and valy – has bee credibly important. Bee of the fluence of Schorr put siarly Natnal Review: “To suggt that social suggtibily uld be playg a role the skyrocketg numbers of young girls’ exprsg their sire to bee mal, for example, is not of urse to say that gay and transgenr people would not exist whout the topics’ beg discsed the public square.

Lt we fet the potential ser nsequenc of havg sex whout ndoms, I clu the latt rmatn about the health risks of ndomls sex, discsg the relative safety of HIV-posive men who bareback wh other fected Men Are Takg Sexual RisksThere are abundant theori but no five answers about why gay men take sexual risks. After more than three s of safer sex msag agast the backdrop of gay men sickeng horribly and then dyg, new medil treatments have stemmed the ti of the panmic and offered real hope for longer-term survival to people wh HIV. Queer theorist Tim Dean (2000) wr: "In view of statistics on new seronversns, some AIDS tors have begun to acknowledge that, unlikely though may seem, remag HIV-negative fact pos signifint psychologil challeng to gay men" (p.

GAY OR STRAIGHT? HARD TO TELL

To those who have not been workg the gay men's muny for the past 25 years, this statement might seem absurd, but is te that HIV-negative gay men face unique challeng that make seem almost easier to Francis Bay area psychologist Walt Ots (1995) was one of the first mental health profsnals to qutn why gay men who had th far ped beg fected wh HIV were placg themselv at risk for beg so.

The unfected men's growg visibily triggered old childhood feelgs of beg an outsir, and for some, ntributed to an acute psychologil crisis that often created a nfluence of behavrs and thought patterns that placed them at risk for ntractg have suggted that durg the '80s, gay men unnscly llud wh the general public's equatn of a gay inty wh an AIDS inty (Ots, 1995; Rof, 1996). The dynamics scribed by Ots and Ball are part of the munal and psychosocial reali that early the epimic played a role ntributg to the spread of 1988, I wrote about how fear was one large ponent of what propelled gay men to change how they were havg sex (Shernoff & Jimenez, 1988). Gay men who were recently surveyed about their failure to e ndoms durg anal sex repeatedly told rearchers that current AIDS preventn msag do not feel relevant to them and do not nvey an urgency about why ndom e is important (Halkis, Parsons, & Wilton, 2003; Carballo-Dieguez & L, 2003; Mor et al., 2003).

WHAT ABOUT THE GUYS WHO DO F THE 'GAY STEREOTYPE'?

Crossley suggts that is impossible to evaluate the efficy of safer-sex msag and of themselv sce ncurrent to when they first began appearg, gay men were overwhelmed by the terror that they might be fected by the then-new disease that was rapidly killg their iends and lovers. The clu:Negative attus toward ndom e (Ots, 1994; Flowers, Smh, Sheeran, & Beail, 1997; Hays, Kegel, & Coat, 1997; Kelly & Kalichman, 1998; Van Ven et al., 1998a; b; Appleby, Miller, & Rothspan, 1999)How beg a mted pared to a nonmted uple relatnship affects whether a ndom is ed (Elford Boldg McGuire & Sher, 2001; Vcke, Bolton, & DeVlechouwer, 2001)Strongly intifyg wh or feelg alienated om the gay muny (Hospers & Kok, 1995; Hays et al., 1997; Seal et al., 2000)Internalized homophobia (Meyer & Dean, 1998; Can, Dolci, & Adler, 1999)A sense of the evabily of beg fected wh HIV as a gay man (Kelly et al., 1990; Kalichman, Kelly, & Rompa, 1997)The effects of substance e (Stall, McKick, Wiley, Coat, & Ostrow, 1986; Stall, Pl, Barrett, Crosby, & Be, 1991; Leigh & Stall, 1993; Stall & Leigh, 1994; Hospers & Kok, 1995; Woody et al., 1999; Royce, Sena, Cat, & Cohen, 1997; Chney, Barrett, & Stall, 1998; Ostrow & Shelby, 2000; Halkis, Parsons, & Stirratt, 2001, Halkis et al., 2003; Halkis & Parsons, 2002; Kalichman & Wehardt, 2001) are probably a multu of other issu at play as well.

As psychologist and former rearcher at the CDC Ron Stall was quoted as sayg an article the Manhattan gay newspaper Gay Cy News, "There are studi that monstrate a variety of psychosocial health issu, cludg prsn, antigay vlence, childhood sexual abe, or substance abe, n lead gay men to have unsafe sex" (Stall, quoted Osborne, 2002, p. In my own practice, I have intified several factors that appear to lead to sexual risk-takg: lonels, beg HIV-posive, havg unmet timacy needs, feelg alienated om the gay muny, beg love, and a cravg for eper timacy and San Francis, Mor and lleagu (2003) intified a number of issu that ntributed to the cisns gay men make to bareback.

Even when gay men posss a sophistited unrstandg of how HIV is transmted and accurate perceptns of how dangero risky sex n be, many gay men unrtimate their vulnerabily to HIV fectn (McKick, Horstman, & Coat, 1985; Bman & Siegel, 1987; Richard et al., 1988) (2003) also discs a tegory of barebackers that he labels irratnal risk takers. Suarez and Miller (2001) feel that many gay youth who bareback fall to the tegory of irratnal risk takers sce they may have never known anyone wh HIV and hold psimistic attus about the future largely related to their beg gay.