54 HOW DARE HE HAVE A GOOD
We love placing people on pedestals… then tearing them down! Simon Dunn unpacks the new phenomenon of “fit shaming” and says it’s time we learned to be kinder to ourselves and others.
Simon Dunn unpacks the new phenomenon of “fit shaming”.
As much as most of us look forward to summer, it often leaves us staring into the mirror feeling underwhelmed with ourselves. Regardless of how hard we’ve trained, somehow there’s always a little bit more that can be done. We look around, comparing ourselves to everyone else, and our insecurities bubble to the surface, often accompanied by feelings of shame that we don’t look the way society has told us we must.
Subconsciously, this mirrors the same insecurities we felt growing up gay; feeling unworthy or lesser. Our inherent desire to feel accepted rears its ugly head once again, weighing heavily on our mental health.
We seem to feel that by some miracle, good looks will shield us from mental health issues. However, our community is over-represented when it comes to depression, anxiety, eating disorders and self-harm, and this has been exacerbated during the covid crisis.
Then, with social media at our fingertips, we have access to the lives of other gay men all over the world. This is great for connecting us to our tribe, but by following, liking and commenting, we end up placing certain kinds of men on a pedestal. This naturally, though unfairly, leads us to compare ourselves to them, turning social media feeds into a competition and making it every man for himself. Those bestowed with the most likes and followers acquire a revered position, like a minor celebrity.
But that is only half the story. What is also apparent is that with our admiration of these men comes a certain level of distain for them.
There is a tendency to make assumptions about them, their lives and who they are. We place them on high without really knowing much about them, other than their ability to look good in trackpants or shirtless. We forget that regardless of their looks or physique, they are like us, exactly like us, going through the same daily struggles, hurdles and hiccups we all face as gay men. They will read and react to hurtful comments in exactly same way that you or I would.
The dangerous assumption here is that having abs makes them immune to the judgment of others, or that they don’t feel the sting of criticism like other people do. This assumption is sometimes accompanied by the assertion that it’s their fault that the rest of us judge ourselves harshly.
A recent case in point was the BBC’s article and news story, Too Ugly To Be Gay. The story introduced us to gay men whose desire to achieve the “perfect” body had led them to extreme lengths, like surgery and steroid use. It positioned them as victims who felt compelled to take this course of action in order to feel accepted by the gay community, and desirable. It even threw in a mixture of magazine covers and footage of men with athletic bodies as if they were to blame.
The subtext of this story was clear: men with “perfect” bodies should feel ashamed for how this makes others feel. I call it “fit shamming”.
It’s a case of, “Other people’s attractiveness is the reason I feel unattractive”. Or, to put it another way, “I feel unattractive because I think other people are more attractive than me.”
This attitude is not only unhealthy but unsustainable because there will always be someone else you consider better looking or more attractive than you. Instead, working to change the things we can change, and learning to appreciate the things we can’t, seems like a better, healthier strategy.
Last year, The Biggest Loser trainer Jillian Michaels was labelled “fatphobic” for her comments regarding the weight of US pop star Lizzo. She touched on the health ramifications of being overweight, however, what really needed to be celebrated was Lizzo’s body positivity, rather than her weight in itself.
By being in the public eye and posing naked on her album cover, Lizzo helps countless young boys and girls feel comfortable with themselves regardless of their weight.
Similarly, in our world, it would be more helpful if our focus was on celebrating our own bodies, rather than criticising others.
Of course, fat shamming is terrible and we as a community should promote the acceptance of all kinds of body types, but in doing so we should also avoid turning to fit shamming. There are far more important aspects to body positivity than image alone, notably a person’s mental health.
Remember, the person they’ve chosen to portray online is often very far from their daily reality. Therefore, our feelings about them may be misplaced. With our snarky comments we project our own insecurities onto others in an attempt to make ourselves feel better. We become the bully. We feel it is our right to do so, as if being bullied ourselves gives us a hall pass to bully others.
We need to resist the temptation of becoming the bullies. Belittling others, making assumptions about them or judging them says more about us than them.
Let’s look deeper into the hard work and commitment required to achieve the bodies we admire and give them props for that, rather than diminishing them, or turning them into little more than sexual objects. Let’s appreciate them for who they are as people, their achievements, their beliefs and all the things that make them who they, not just how they look.
Having a good body doesn’t make you exempt from mental health issues just as much as being gay doesn’t give us the right to bully others.
The subtext was clear: men with ‘perfect’ bodies should feel ashamed for how this makes others feel.