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.

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.

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

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 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.

GAY MEN AND BODY PERFECTN

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.

GAY OR STRAIGHT? HARD TO TELL

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.

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

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. 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).