I started thinking of this after reading the thread regarding body-shaming men.
Most of us women compare ourselves to models and female actors, wishing we had slimmer thighs, bigger boobs, smaller waists, etc. Do men compare themselves to male actors and athletes? Do they wish they had a full head of hair, six-pack abs, no beer belly, etc.? Or is this more of a female thing? I know men work out more than ever these days (health reasons or vanity?), but I’m talking about the average guy sitting at home in his recliner. Do you care? Or is this something that women do because they feel more judged?
I have heard trainers on NPR say yes, some men have issues with body image, too. It manifest itself slightly differently in men versus women; women generally think they need to lose weight, men think they need to achieve bigger muscles.
I don’t know about straight guys, but it definitely does apply to gay guys. Height, weight, muscles, ass, hair, body hair, skin, teeth, and especially cock size.
But there are subsets of gay men with atypical standards, e.g. bears.
Standard issue hetero male in late middle age. I’ve always cared about it. Always aspired to be in much better physical shape than the average guy. I believe I’ve achieved that for 80% of my adult life. Still in decent shape but it’s getting harder and harder with every passing year as metabolism slows down and wear & tear builds up. I’m 10lb heavier than my ideal weight now, but can’t quite gather the will to muscle and diet my way down as easily as I used to. Fuck it, I say, I’ve earned a rest. But vanity won’t let me.
The cultural environment is crucial. In Romania, there is a traditional saying claiming that in terms of looks men should only be slightly more attractive than the devil. Traditionally the devil is the ugliest and least attractive thing you can see.
I was definitely always vain about my appearance and/or concerned about its inadequacies and undesirables, but I had my own aesthetic notion of an ideal and it didn’t tend to match up with movie stars and definitely not the muscle-bound bodybuilder kind of thing. I hated my middle-age belly after a childhood and early adulthood of being slender-to-skinny and felt fat and ugly until I managed to lose ~30 pounds. Liked my hair but not its perennial misbehavior, the way it would balk at framing my face quite the way I wanted it to. Quite vain about my legs and butt. Never liked my blocky stubby-looking hands. Mixed bag.
I can only speak for myself, and the answer is yes, but not to the same degree that women are perceived as obsessing about those things. I particularly don’t think most guys have a particular body part they hate, whereas it seems like every woman does - belly, thighs, upper arms (!?), calves, etc.
As a young teenager I was very, very unhappy with my body, to the point of refusing to go swimming with peers (even though I quite enjoyed swimming when my peers weren’t present). I never considered anything like self-harm, but my negative body image destroyed most of my chance at a decent social life as a teen, and I mostly remained a social outcast until I went to college. Puberty was no fun at all for me. Growing and maturing helped, and by the time I went to college I was happy with my body, and a few decades later I still am.
So glad I’m not gay, I’d be fucked. Or not fucked as the case may be.
I definitely had issues in high school, similar to a poster above. I wouldn’t wear shorts even on the hottest days, wouldn’t go swimming or if I did I’d wear a shirt.
I suppose I still do, but for most of the last 10 years I’ve been in better shape than most guys my age. I still have a flat ass and average schlong though… not much I can do about that. Stupid genes.
From what I see as a guy, and in the ads I see targeted to guys, the two body image issues that seem to have the most traction are:
Hair loss
Erectile dysfunction (which, arguably, isn’t body image, per se)
I strongly suspect that, on average, American men are less concerned with their body self-image than American women are, and that’s likely a direct result of the social and media pressure that women face.
I think women compare their bodies because (in general) men tend to talk about bodies a lot in specific: legs, butts, boobs, and so on.They feel judged because they are judged more. Men don’t get that constant specific commentary. In my mid-20s, new to Chicago, I was passing a gay bar when some guy on line said “Nice legs, dude!” I later mentioned this at a party and the women present unanimously agreed that I had nice legs. Not once had a woman ever mentioned this, no well-meaning relatives assuring teen-aged me I was handsome, no female friends, no girlfriends. I couldn’t have had body shame about my legs because until then they’d been a non-factor.
This may be what the incels are on about. Women seem to mention the stuff you can’t do anything about - being handsome or tall, rather than being thin or fit or not being a woman-hating jackass, which they could fix.
Look at the covers of Men’s Health magazine, and you’ll see the body ideal that’s being presented to men. I’ve seen demonstrations of how photos of women get photoshopped before publication, resulting in e.g. impossibly long legs and narrow waists. I don’t know if men’s pictures get photoshopped before publication, but it wouldn’t surprise me. The bodies seen in those photos feature the kind of upper-body musculature that requires careful diet control, along with weightlifting for at least two hours three times a week. Fat-free abs, massive pecs, broad shoulders, thick upper arms. Basically Chris Evans after his Captain America transformation. Or Thor. Or Superman. Or Wolverine. Rambo. Terminator. When was the last time an obese dude or super-skinny weakling-shaped guy saved the day in a popular movie?
Back when I was a grad student I did a lot of weightlifting and developed my upper body pretty nicely. A few years after joining the professional world I had to stop because my joints didn’t care for it anymore. I’ve kept a good amount of the muscle, although two decades later, I’ve added a layer of fat across my belly. I wish I could have back the body I had in my late 20s, but I’m not willing to work that hard anymore. I enjoy some beer now and then, concentrate on actually being healthy (aerobic exercise on a semi-regular basis, eating a decent diet most of the time), and try to dismiss the male body type that mass media shoves in my face.
The two biggest body issues I’ve observed in the *many *guys I’ve known are: height and hair.
They’re not imagining the height thing. I know women who absolutely will not even go out with a guy who is shorter than they are. He could be a Nobel laureate, rich, loves to cook, great sense of humor, infinite patience with children and dogs, but if he’s their height or 1/2" shorter, no dice. This makes NO SENSE to me at all.
For myself I’ve always loved the look of a tall woman with a man who’s shorter (or at least not taller): Jackie & Aristotle Onassis, Princess Grace & Prince Rainier, Sophia Loren & Carlo Ponti. (I said I was old.)
The other thing is hair. In my book, baldness is totally fine and 100% a non-issue. Two of the sexiest, most attractive men I’ve ever known (one of them was about 5’ tall, that’s 6" shorter than me) were bald. One of them was losing his hair and the other shaved his head. Baldness is beautiful. Hair plugs OTOH are disgusting. JMHO.
I can’t explain either of these things as I have no brothers or male children. Don’t know about childhood messages, etc. Just my observations.
Most of my male friends don’t have body image issues at all.
This may sound strange, but, IMO, those who feel dissatisfied with themselves have demands for other people’s bodies (both male and female).
I’ve always figured that guys, myself included, do compare ourselves to them. Plenty of guys, IMO, wouldn’t mind looking like an Abercrombie and Fitch model. It’s just that we don’t tend to talk about it, internalize it or obsess over it to the same extent that women do.
It may also make a difference that, what guys are looking at on male models is clothes, muscles, lack of body fat, haircut etc. All things that are achievable. And if you’re not way overweight to begin with, are actually doable (but actually doing it is a different story). If a woman is looking at a female model, and sees a large chest, pleasing face/eye/jaw shape etc. Things that, short of cosmetic surgery, aren’t going to happen with diet and exercise. Along those same lines, female models can be skinny to the point of being unhealthy or have skin, hair, body shapes only possible via photoshop.
IOW, a guy can look at a male underwear model and possibly look like that with a few years of work. A women, not so much.
And that doesn’t even touch on what people think the opposite (or same) sex wants in a partner.
