Do you want to be the skinny guy? It’s not all that great, warns writer Kevin Kelley.
“Your hips are pointy,” my friends say. They examine the curve of bone that rises above my swim trunks and declare this fact as if it had never occurred to me. I have also heard this from women while having sex. “Ouch! Are those your hips?” Yes, they are. If you turn the light on and examine me, you’d see that the skin where the hips point is whiter than the rest of my pale body. I’m guessing the lighter tone is from my skin stretching tight across the bone.
My current girlfriend tells me, “They’re not just pointy, they’re sharp. There’s no cushion there.” The first time she saw my body was in the middle of winter. Like normal people, I wear a few layers to keep myself warm. Winter is also an opportunity to look bulkier— the sweaters and scarfs and my trusted, thick pea-coat. Now that I think about it, I have always done better dating-wise in the winter. But once the clothes come off the reality of my skinniness appears along with the eventual comments. “You weigh less than me. The boyfriend should always weight more than his girlfriend.”
I have tried more than a few times to put on weight ever since I lost it through puberty. As a college student, I spent nights at the gym making genuine grunting noises while picking things up and putting them down. I upped my calories by gorging at the cafeteria on campus. Carbs, meats, and desserts were my three food groups, and it was always all you could eat until you get sick for me. I’d tell my friends that I was trying to bulk-up, and they’d approve, but after one such gorging, I became sick and threw-up in the dorm toilet. “I told you he was bulimic,” I heard someone say from the other side of the bathroom. At the end of a year of intensive eating and exercise, I put on a mere ten pounds. The next year I cut exercise while keeping the diet. I lost five pounds.
◊♦◊
I know what some of you are thinking because I hear it all the time, especially from women: “I wish I could stay skinny like that,” and, “You make me feel bad for my weight.” But if you’re a man and someone says, “You have a girly figure,” would you feel good about your body?
I sifted through message boards where I ran into advice from drinking protein shakes to eating a carton of ice-cream a day to using steroids. Protein shakes did nothing and ice-cream just made me sluggish. Maybe steroids would work, but I decided my overall appearance takes a backseat to my health. I have known a handful of men pressured by pop culture and a history of the importance of physicality in male pride to dose until their arms ballooned to match size of their dreams and insecurities.
Two of my older brothers are skinnier than me, and most everyone in our genetic line are rod-shaped, except for those who have grown a beer belly, and unless everyone has had a thyroid disease, we just seem to be naturally skinny people. But being naturally skinny is not usually appealing. A woman at a party once told me “I’d rather have a man who is overweight than under.” Once a friend compared my body to her husband’s and concluded: “I like my man with a little meat on the bone.”
Before puberty, I had packed on weight. My older brothers called me fat. Sometimes my dad would try to make me feel better by saying, “You just have a body built for football,” but mostly I’d fight back with insults. “Look at that blubber,” Randy, my skinniest brother would say and poke me in the gut. “You look like a meth-head” I’d say, hoping to hurt him enough that he’d get too sad or upset to play the insult game. Later I would hear these insults from others after I lost my weight through puberty.
My brother (“The Stick” as people have referred to him), had his hip and femur crushed under the weight of a slow moving commercial truck. After the first of three surgeries, the doctor operating on Randy said, “His skinniness saved him.” “How is that possible?,” I asked. “Randy’s organs had moved from the area of impact into his torso. If he had been fatter or more muscular,” the doctor said, “his organs would have had nowhere to squeeze inside of his body, and they would have been crushed, likely killing him.” My first thought should have been, Thank the Universe, but it wasn’t. “Score 1 for the skinny guy, right bro?”
—
Would you like to help us shatter stereotypes about men? Receive stories from The Good Men Project, delivered to your inbox daily or weekly.
—
Photo: Tony Alter/Flickr
This reminded me a great deal of my cousin – whether it’s was a metabolism that just won’t quit, or something else, nobody knows – but in his 20s he could literally eat up to the verge of feeling sick, and nada. He’s always been somewhat unconcerned with how others saw him in that way – I know I wouldn’t have handled it nearly so well. Now the only person who gives him any grief is his wife; she doesn’t resent him for not having to directly experience the weight fluctuations from giving birth to their two sons, but the… Read more »
I’ve heard from women who complain about comments due to their very slim build( see letter to the London Times from one Catrin Board, Sept 12, 2014, www thetimes.co.uk), mainly “skinny” “anorexic” or even “stick insect” but I NEVER before thought that men could have similar complaints and concerns). Gee , Kevin,thanks for reminding us that this is NOT a gender issue!
Terry
some tall thin people who never seem to be able to gain weight (especially if you have a chest that sticks in or out) may have a genetic condition called Marfan Syndrome. Many go their whole lives without knowing it, but it can sometimes have serious or even deadly health consequences down the road.. I have a friend with this so thought I’d mention it. http://www.marfan.org/about/signs
Kevin, thank you for the lesson which I believe wasn’t intended to teach empathy but in my case did.. As someone who has always struggles with too much weight, I envied the thin/’skinny guys who could buy clothes “off the rack.” Thanks again.
I was sensitive about being skinny back when I was a college student and for a few years after (5ft 11, 144lbs as recall) but now I’m in my 60s and I’m around 160, and my doctor asks me “How do you keep the weight off?” and I reply “I don’t know, just lucky I guess”. It’s not great to be scrawny, but as time passes and all those well-built guys get bellies, maybe we formerly thin fellows can feel that we’re just about at the right level. Who’s getting the last laugh?
Thank you for writing this. When I was 22 I weighed 125 lbs. and at 6’1″, that is pretty damn thin. I never wore shorts or short sleeved shirts because I was bored with the stares or obnoxious comments (someone actually asked my boyfriend if I had an eating disorder). It was only in my 30s when my metabolism started slowing that I gained weight. Now at 170, I’m still thin but not so painfully thin. It took me a long time to get to the point where I felt comfortable wearing shorts or go swimming again, which was something… Read more »
It took me my entire adult life to accept and love my tall skinny body. My parents teased me about it because they were shamed and teased about their bodies. Both my parents are alcoholics. I tried to hide it when I was a child and teenager. I worked construction and abused alcohol and drugs due to feeling ashamed about my skinny appearance in my 20’s. I was 6″ 1′ 145 lbs in high school and the same height and 155 lbs in college. I am now 6″ 2′ 180 lbs. I joined 12 step groups and stopped using alcohol… Read more »
Skinny men are the best. It is not muscles which make a man “a man”. Personally, and no matter how skinny they are, I find an especial beauty in skinny men’s bodies. I wish more women could appreciate such beauty and realise how speaking about a man’s body -intentionally or not- can hurt too.
There is beauty in every men’s body.
And I say this as a skinny girl who feels uncomfortable with her skinny body. What a paradox.
Betsa López
Sounds like my youth. The extra food will do nothing. Fretting will do nothing. What will work? Time. First off, I found an exercise that I liked, and stayed with it. That got the bony edge off with a little muscle add on. I accepted what I was, and that helped. Then, you hit certain ages, where the metabolism starts to slow down. Those ages were 27, then 32, and finally 42. At 43, I actually have to start watching what I eat, as I am learning I just can’t eat anything anymore. I can actually start to get heavy… Read more »
But if you’re a man and someone says, “You have a girly figure,” would you feel good about your body? you should smile at how of their time they are. as that body in the photo is a common male body, the athletic silhouette (slender or not). so few women naturally have that body. that that body type is used to sell clothes to women, and parade them down the catwalk doesnt change that. so when u reply, ‘and how many women without exercise, naturally have your figure compared to men’ and they then argue that the athletic silhouette is… Read more »
push the position that the hourglass figure or pear figure is a common male body type too,
edit: you should agree, and push the position that the hourglass figure or pear figure is a common male body type too,
Man this is totally my life too. Thanks for writing about this.
Thanks for commenting Dale!