I recently came across an interesting study about the risk of eating disorders among queer men. Queer men are much more likely than straight men to acquire eating disorders: the authors theorize that this is because queer men tend to prize thinness in their sexual partners more than straight women do. For instance, queer men are much more likely than straight women to put body shape requests in their personal ads, and several studies have shown the gay subculture to emphasize a young, thin, muscular appearance.
The study focused on the effects of being in a relationship on the risk of eating disorders for queer men. In short, queer men in a relationship are less likely to experience a drive to be thin and less likely to diet frequently; queer men who are satisfied with their relationship status are less likely to be bulimic. The study’s authors theorize that being in a relationship means that one experiences less pressure to be thin in order to get a partner, and that intense focus on eating-related issues in the gay community may leave queer men more vulnerable to eating-related coping strategies than other coping strategies.
Of course, the study does have flaws– like almost every study, the sample is probably not representative, and it’s impossible to know which way the causation goes. It’s possible that men struggling with eating disorders are less likely to form relationships, or that men who have bulimia are less likely to be happy in their relationships. Similarly, both not having a satisfactory relationship and disordered eating could be caused by some third factor, such as other mental illnesses.
Nevertheless, assuming that the authors’ theories on how the causation works are true, it leaves us with some really interesting speculation.
Most importantly, of course, is the necessity of expanding the boundaries of what is considered attractive in gay male culture. A lot of gay male culture tends to present the same body type as attractive: young, muscular, hairless, tanned, white, cis, “straight-acting.” Although some groups (bears, for instance) have made gratifying steps towards depicting lots of different bodies as attractive, they certainly haven’t gone far enough.
Of course, policing people’s attraction is stupid. If you happen to be attracted to muscular, hairless, tanned, straight-acting men, then that is your business and I have nothing to say about it. However, when you describe that kind of man as “hot guys,” when you make fun of someone for not looking like your ideal, when the available porn is pretty much only guys who fit your ideal, when the agreed-upon “hot dudes” are all ones that look like that… that’s when it starts getting problematic. Not only does it Other men who don’t look like the ideal, it creates a social pressure to look one way that, in some men who are already susceptible, will tend to create eating disorders.
Besides, think of the poor guys who are into chubby hairy black femmes. They’ll, like, NEVER be able to find porn they like!
Equally important is one of the issues I like banging on about, which is that many people need a strong, stable support network in order to cope with mental illnesses in general and eating disorders in specific. People need other people! Friendship and relationships are important! This is not meant to shame people who are introverted and have lower needs for friendship, or who for whatever reason or bad luck do not have friends or relationships, but simply to state that as a culture we need to move towards valuing relationships.
I also wonder about how this study relates to straight men. There are certain subcultures (such as fandom, or those that produce any kind of music that could be reasonably played on an “alternative” station) that tend to have women who are very vocal about their sexual attraction and very interested in thin men. I wonder if straight men with eating disorders are more common among these subcultures.
In addition, in more mainstream culture, the physical ideal for men has gotten more and more unrealistically muscular. (See: fitness models, nearly anyone on the cover of Men’s Health.) If the authors’ theories are true, then we should be seeing an increase in muscle dysmorphia in straight men, as they try to seek a partner by becoming bigger and hence more desirable.
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- http://www.momentummedia.com/articles/tc/tc1405/shadows.htm
I think there’s a very different reason why queer men are more likely than straight men to develop eating disorders: queer men, being attracted to men, are capable of seeing the male body as an object of desire, something that at best has never occurred to most straight men. As such they’re more acutely aware of whether or not they conform to social standards of beauty. The same standards of beauty exists for both straight and queer men, but the pervasive “myth of men not being hot” means that straight men are going to be less affected by those standards.
I wasn’t able to read the article, only the abstract, but I think that only looking at anorexia and bulimia is somewhat misleading. I will concede that queer men’s higher tendency of specifically developing anorexia and bulimia is likely related to the queer “twink” standard of beauty (which at least in Western culture doesn’t really have a straight equivalent), but I think that if someone studied muscle dysmorphia they would find that it is also more common in queer men than in straight men. Gay porn star Matthew Rush cheerfully referred to his boyfriend and himself as “muscle dysmorphic gym bunnies” as though muscle dysmorphia were harmless or even a good thing.
When I was a teen, I encountered the idea that a boy or man was desirable only if he was bigger than a certain amount (and we’re talking both absolute weight and muscle, here, not just muscle). I heard that mostly from boys.
I figured it might have been about not wanting to appear too thin, thus feminine. I’ve never been able to ascertain it. I’ve certainly been told to “eat more” so much pre-transition (but not at all after), that I think it’s widespread enough. I was pretty thin pre-transition, but not sickly thin, just more on the bony side. This lasted for a good enough time post-transition…and then going from food shortage (I’m a minimalist by nature, and don’t know how to cook that much, even if I can make do – while my boyfriend is a good cook, and likes to cook when he’s not alone to eat his creation…which led to both of us eating much bigger portions than before, when we were celibate…and a decent gain of weight over time, plus we stopped smoking).
I think Dorkboy has hit the nail on the head: it seems that in our culture straight males have less idea of themselves as physically attractive than straight women or gay men. I’ve noticed that people seem to assume women go for guys based on their ‘nice’ personality, while any suggestion that they might go for looks prompts accusations of shallowness. As a straight woman I’ve tried to bring looks into a conversation about attraction (pointing out that one of the reasons women might not want to start a relationship with a ‘nice guy’ male friend might simply be because they are not physically attracted to him) and was accused by several people of being shallow. (For the record, I think physical attraction and an attraction to a guy’s personality are often VERY closely intertwined, and have often only developed an attraction to a guy physically after having gotten to know him well, but the fact remains that you can’t force that kind of attraction, or any kind, and if a woman is not physically attracted to a guy she can’t help that.)
Anyway, this article suggests to us the depressing fact that perhaps if straight men did have a much higher awareness of themselves as physically attractive in the eyes of women, a higher proportion of them would probably have eating or exercise disorders too.