Our editor-in-chief bares it all in a direct confrontation with body shame.
My body is a testament to high testosterone. I have a body type one sees a lot: male pattern baldness, plenty of body hair, builds both muscle and fat very easily. You see guys like me all the time, with our wide shoulders and wider beer guts. Burly sonsabitches, often rocking the shaved-head-and-beard combo. It is not, it’s fair to say, a body type that is highly lauded by media culture.
I didn’t always look like this. When I was a teenager, I was so skinny I won awards for dressing as Jack Skellington, which sounds like a joke and isn’t. When I was twenty, I dressed as Nightwing for a costume contest, and the woman MCing the show called me “the reason spandex was invented.”
That was a long time ago.
Nowadays, I’m technically considered obese.
Click to continue…NSFW images ahead
Pages: 1 2
About Noah Brand
Noah, good on you man.
You’re just a normal dude.
After years of hating my own body image, and still trying to do something about it mentally and physically, it never once occurred to me that men could have the same issues. What you’ve done is astounding and one hell of a punch. Way to own it! I don’t know that I would have that strength.
You are amazing. This takes such courage, such resolution, and such determination to look Insecurity in the face and tell it to go to hell.
I guess I knew that men might deal with insecurities as far as weight, but the idea that men struggle with the full suite of body image issues just as much as women is not talked about enough. We all deal with them. And you just hog-tied it and owned it! Wow.
Amazing. I admire that kind of courage.
To add further to how different people viewed the photos.
the ‘im done being ashamed’ photo was a great photo on two counts for me.
1. NB is well posed. It is a great photo.
2. The photo caused sexual arousal in me. It was the only photo in the shoot that generated arousal.
Veeery well done, Noah! Kudos!
Since someone else said it better than me, here are his words:
“Be who you are
and say what you feel,
because those who mind don’t matter
and those who matter don’t mind.”
(Dr. Seuss)
Try being HIV+/Aids for 25 years and having to move back to nowhere Montana population 4,000 because you need to take care of your aging parents and see what you have to complain about. After the HIV drugs ruin your body, wreck your sexual urges and appetite and put all the fat in your gut, you got nothing much to complain about friend. You are a normal guy with health and sexual function. If wishes were fishes. I’d settle for someone who’d just give me a good hug.
I don’t know what is up with being down with your self image…and there are guys that got it worse than both of us…some of them are even dead. So just wake up, move and shake what you have left to shake…I try to keep in practice just in case.
“After the HIV drugs ruin your body, wreck your sexual urges and appetite and put all the fat in your gut, you got nothing much to complain about friend”
I absolutely hate dismissive comments like this. Yes, that life sounds terrible, but what right do you have to assert someone with their physical health intact (note I didn’t say mental health) has nothing much to complain about? Unless you know this persons life intimately, how do you know what they go through? It’s playing the whogotitworseolympics, it’s ignorant and silly because it doesn’t matter who got it worse, BOTH can suffer quite a lot. There are starving kids in Africa who have never used a computer, face all kinds of horrors, would it be fair of me to say you have nothing much to complain about because of that?
Well said.
@Stephen: I sympathise, that sounds awful, and I can only imagine how aggravating it must be to see someone complaining about something like body image when your body has been through far worse. But body image issues are still issues, even if they’re not as destructive as cancer.
To be fair, I didn’t take it as dismissive. As Mr. Cerovski points out, he and I are struggling with similar issues and there are guys who’ve got it worse than both of us. That’s the poisonous aspect of self-hate, based on one’s body or anything else: it’s completely independent of objective reality. Sure, whatever troubles you have, someone else has got it worse, but that doesn’t solve your own troubles, does it? I don’t have to be the world’s fattest man, or even the second-fattest, to feel like I’m too fat.
Yeah, I am white, a male, live in a first world country but my depression was painful and debilitating, as I’m sure starving in a third world country would be too. I think people place too much emphasis on the situation of a person without realizing how it affects them, you can see this when the “emo’s” are insulted for being middle class n “acting like they have something to be sad about”. Thing is whilst it may not appear that their life sucks, they can have a heavy depression with a lot of pain, it doesn’t really matter what their life situation is like if they have major issues with their mental health to deal with. Some could say my life is perfect compared to others even in my darkest days, but that didn’t change the fact I wanted to die and was in a lot of pain.
I look something like you – 15 years older and somewhat worse for wear.
I just think its a bloody miracle women think we’re sexy.
As a woman who has spent most of her now 50 years overweight, I am constantly amazed men find me sexy.
My current guy looks much like Noah, right down to the bald head and beard. I adore him and his body. He seems to feel that way about me. But still, I at least once a week I look at myself in the full length mirror and tell myself “He thinks this is sexy. That’s the opinion that matters.” So I try to take it on faith and not say “Really? This? This is what you find sexy” out loud.
Yeah I am overweight and find it hard to believe women find me sexy, but then I guess I’ve realized we all like different body shapes, sizes, attributes, etc. Some will find me sexy, some will find me ugly, can’t please them all. I’ve had women say they like bigger men who are cuddly, makes them feel warm n safe, at a time I was absolutely disgusted by my body. It helps to hear it but I still have body image issues, especially my manboobs which I copped a lot of bullying over and even a lot of groping (sexual assault as the cops told me) in high-school. I guess it makes it worse that breasts are seen as feminine, so it use to leave me feeling less like a man and feeling I wouldn’t be seen as attractive.
I’ve also had women who feel they were too fat and were actually very thin, had thin women who tell me they were too thin and need to put on weight, larger women that felt too fat and when I’ve tried to tell the ones I found attractive that they were beautiful TO ME, I mean really sexy, they met it with disbelief which troubled me.
I think our society focuses too much on a universal bodytype that is meant to be the best, beautiful, and anyone failing to live up to that can feel like they’re failing which is really sad. The reality is beauty, attraction, seems to be fairly random and I’ve found there is someone attracted to everyone. Guess it just takes time to find that person.
I think the shame got me so bad that I became completely turned off to too much fat, I feel shame myself because I just can’t find some women attractive, I don’t even find myself attractive and I grew up basically hearing fat = ugly, being made to feel ugly because of my fat. It’s tough feeling disgusted by fat in the visual appeal sense, how does a person reprogram their mind against that? Is it even possible to change who I am attracted to, or should I feel shame because I am not attracted to women with a similar body type to me? I feel horrible and feel it’s probably hypocritical, but then I think maybe it’s also just random, that I could simply prefer certain body types more and that doesn’t have to mean a body type the same as mine. I’ve seen thin men and women who aren’t attracted to thin people of the gender they’re attracted to, same for people in all body types. I grew up pretty much with the feeling that we HAD to date people similar in looks to us, similar body types, that no one could stray from that as it was an unspoken rule, but is it really?
I hate the way our bodies are treated by the media, society, I hate how much bullying goes on in schools with people of all shapes n sizes, too fat, too thin, too weak, too muscly, too tall, too short, bad hair, needs glasses, pimples, freckles, etc. Who decided that only a small portion of the population should ever represent the most attractive for ALL people?
Beth, I think this issue is about comparing our bodies to “images of perfection”.
I have been looking at myself in the mirror for a long time, thinking I was ugly.
Then, one day I realized I were feeling that way, because I were comparing myself with some “perfect body” ideal I had in mind. And, of course, I were much less handsome than that.
Discarding that ideal from my mind, I realized I was just “normal”, an average guy. Not the best, but neither ugly. I could even see myself “cute”.
I really think beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
My present girlfriend is overweight, and she – like you – can’t see herself as sexy or pretty. Yet I see her that way, because I don’t let common beauty stereotypes controlling my mind.
I see HER beauty, not beauty “as-it-should-be”.
But I’m aware this is harder when it’s about ourselves.
Sometimes an external observer may see what we cannot.
Kudos for the lovely pics and your very personal thoughts on your body/body image and societal views of the body/nudity in general (I especially liked the pic with the cat…adorable!). Your body type and how you described it looks/sounds very much like my partner. I tell and show him very often how much I like his body and how hot he looks naked, but it has taken a very long time for him to get comfortable with my compliments and believe them. It really is sad that he, and so many other men I know, are unaware of or unwilling to believe that they are attractive as hell in their physical selves, and that yes, straight women DO have desire for them.
Thanks for firing a shot across the bow in the battle for appreciation for bodies of all genders!
Not sure if it’s cool to say this, but I found the pictures attractive and erotic. I like the vulnerability.
Noah,
I feel fortunate in that I have never been capable of feeling embarrassment. Shame; well that was felt and ruled much of my life, but never over anything that was actually of my control or decision. This has been true all my life.
My kids have asked me “weren’t you embarrassed” when telling stories of radical falls off motorcycles…the times (many) that I crashed my boat into other racers’ boats…Injuries when and where I would pee myself out of pain.
I’ve simply told them, “I’ve never been embarrassed over something that I did not intend or was out of my control.” When they learned of the state of undress in which we kids would go swimming at a near-by lake, they asked the same question; “weren’t you embarrassed?” No! Over what? God did not package me in crime, shame or sin.
I’ve told them that they live their entire lives in the skin they were given…the bodies that they are. They ought never be ashamed or embarrassed. Of course they are at a highly self-conscious age where even the Euro kids don’t tread without cover.
I’m not trying to encourage any particular behavior or actions. I just want to discourage any/all unfounded shame. These days, in the USA, maintenance of safe personal boundaries seem to have distorted assignment of shame or embarrassment in illogical ways.
I don’t want my son to see his future partner and think “Wow! She’s freakin beautiful…she must really be shamed by her body.”
Thank you Rob!
It’s empowering and refreshing reading such a positive, mature and constructive attitude.
Your kids are lucky having such a father.
It’s like we are taught we must fight “reality as-it-is” (our bodies included), pursuing some utopic “reality as-it-should-be” .. and that results in a life of constant fear and stress.
just want to point out you keep saying loverS, as in plural. which is awesome.
You, are a brave person.
This, sir, was fantastic and inspiring. Thank you.
My only gripe is that there were no “naked wearing a hat” pictures.
Thanks for your honesty, but this has a feeling of giving up. I am reminded of a Seinfeld episode where George kept wearing sweats.
I probably look something like you and I am at an age where i don’t give a damn but I am embracing life. Exercise, great food, great sex, great times. Your story needs more of that and less of the ” i don’t care what I look like”.
I actually DO care what i look like, but I live my life to the fullest. The latter takes precedence.
cheers!
So how do you reach the point where you care so much about your appearance? Is that genetic, cultural, some combination thereof? Because I seemed to have missed the gene and I don’t care about cultural thought. The current culture seems to drive some people towards insanity.
I always remind myself that no matter what I think of my body there is someone out there who thinks it’s perfect. I’m that person for you. You are perfect.
Rock on, Noah.
Great article! More power to you, Noah! Many a man holds shame, not just about his belly, but about his penis as well. To be seen, heard, acknowledge is imperative for each of us. Some of hide from it, fear it, and run from it. Then, there are others of us who have the balls to simply be who we are and who we want to become. All is in flux. More surprises to come. You’re one of the guys with balls, Noah. Thank you.
Ken
PS I write a blog on male sexuality. This month’s article is on “fear”. http://www.transitionpower.com/blog
I second those who are calling you brave for posting these photos and talking about body images.
This is also extremely brave for a man to do this in the current paranoid political climate. There are those who will now go after you as some sort of online predator, or at least label you as “that guy who posted naked photos online where any child could see them.” One person under the age of 17 sees these photos, and you could be looking at a shitstorm of batshit paranoid delusions. The latest boogeyman frightening people away from free speech is the fear of sexual predators, invariably defined as male and invariably detected anywhere men are unsupervised.
If we’re going to talk about male body issues about male nudity, we have to talk about the fact that many very vocal people consider what you are doing to be kind of predation. Totally unfair, in my book, but I hope you are prepared for some quite nasty fallout. You may have to say goodbye to any number of jobs on the basis of these photos alone.
Kudos to you Noah Brand, it takes real courage to bare everything for a cause you believe in. You have my respect and admiration for your display of bodily pride.