You may have been a bit shocked today when you navigated over to GMP and found our Editor-in-Cheif butt-ass naked on the front page…
Well, that’s the point! We want to talk about men and body image.
What hangups do you have? How does society encourage those hang-ups?
Are David Beckham and the mostly-naked underwear models that adorn billboards and magazine ads doing in your sense of self-worth?
How do you combat that?
This is an open discussion, so you can talk about anything here relating to men and body image.
If you haven’t yet, head on over to the Men and Body Image section… Don’t worry, they don’t all have naked photos in them!
Photo of Danny courtesy of his post, Presence.
About The Good Feed Blog Editors
as many GMP readers know I am a fan of metrosexual men:
http://goodmenproject.com/arts/in-praise-of-metrosexual-men/
Beckham has done a lot I believe for men in making it acceptable for men to be more into what they look like and to experiment with their look. The wearing of the Sarong for example was an iconic image.
I am not a man. But as a woman though I am influenced by images of women with perfect bodies in advertising etc, I don’t see this shift towards men being ‘objectified’ and ‘idealised’ as women are as wholly negative.
My latest crush is William Levy (Cuban telenovela/ DWTS hottie/JLo “I’m Into You”)….what’s really hot is also his vulnerability and those big sad brown eyes of his….and, of course, his cha cha and tango!
Kaleb’s piece, What If I Don’t Have It, describes a couple of different ways in which we can view our bodies: functionally and aesthetically. As a weight lifter, I also effected this kind of transformation, and like both Kaleb and Danny, found out what mixed messages men can receive about having larger bodies. We’re strong and capable, but like Danny finds out, you can be so large (read: highly visible) that it’s practically you’re defining characteristic, and still be accused of sneaking up on people. We had a thread here on the site back when Shrodinger’s Rapist was the subject, about men who feel the need to make extra noise coming up the street so they don’t frighten people by doing something so natural as showing up quietly on foot. I see men struggling with how much space they take up, and taking up space has different meanings for men than for women. We’re more privileged to do this, but nowadays men are supposed to be more self-conscious about our privilege. Is it okay to take up space?
We had a thread here on the site back when Shrodinger’s Rapist was the subject, about men who feel the need to make extra noise coming up the street so they don’t frighten people by doing something so natural as showing up quietly on foot.
Yeah and I also remember that as men we are supposed to be okay with being held to this standard unlike you know, any other group of people on the planet being held to such an unfair standard.
I see men struggling with how much space they take up, and taking up space has different meanings for men than for women. We’re more privileged to do this, but nowadays men are supposed to be more self-conscious about our privilege.
There’s a big difference between being self conscious about one’s privilege and trying to speak up about a valid problem. This isn’t the first time I’ve mentioned this and was basically told that since I’m a man its okay for people to make presumptions about me.
It’s pretty damn painful to actually live with being a big guy that gets treated a certain way because of it and then have people going around chirping about how my life supposedly is because I’m a big guy. Its the kind of stuff that makes you want to snap at people.
As long as people continue to think that its okay to rag on guys that struggle with taking up space that struggle will continue.