Every boy or man, whatever his shape and size, has the right to feel good about himself. After all we are all human beings, and simply being alive is amazing. It would be nice to think that everybody can value the miracle that is their own life, and value the body that supports them. Unfortunately this is not the case, and things seem to be getting worse. Why is that?
Well for decades feminists reported the negative impact the media was having on women’s self esteem. Post World War II sexualised images of beautiful women were increasingly used to sell products as widespread as cigarettes to films. As a strategy, of course, it works. Men will pay attention to messages delivered by beautiful women. The impact on women, however, was to create a vision of beauty that few women could legitimately lay claim. The size of current supermodels is biologically impossible to achieve by 95% of the female population. The female form was ‘fetishised’, and real women suffered as a result. Simply being human, for many women, was no longer beautiful enough.
Now it’s the turn of men. In fact since the 1990’s, the sex appeal of men has been increasingly hijacked to sell to an increasingly affluent female market. This trend is epitomised by the David Beckham Emporio Armani underwear adds (yes women do still buy blokes pants!). It is not just glossy advertising that is of concern, here is a couple more.
Video gaming is huge business and very popular with teens and young men. The characters often depict men who are grossly muscular presenting a distorted image of what a real man should look like. In fact gaming has been held responsible for why boys, some as young as 8, want to build bigger muscles.
Then there is porn. Twenty years ago the only readily available porn was ‘soft’ depicting women in teasing states of undress. Judged by modern pornography this seems a quaint vision of a bye gone age. Modern porn shows real men having sex with real women. Of course the reality is an illusion. The male models are chosen for their good looks and, let’s face it, large equipment. The bottom line is men are being exposed to an image of male sexual power that most of us can’t hope to live up to.
So how male bodies are represented matters. It matters because, we can’t help but compare ourselves to the men in magazines, in video games or in porn. As the feminists found in the 20th Century, men are finding out in the 21st, the cultural ‘fetish’ for the male body undermines our self esteem.
Men, of course, are different to women, and the ways we show our low self esteem differ in some important respects. Although anorexia is suffered by a significant number of men, what is far more common is muscle dysmorphic disorder, what is more often known as ‘bigorexia’. Men try to compete with the representations of male beauty in the media by slimming down and adding muscle. It is sobering to realise that the models on the front of Men’s Health magazine have to strip fat from their bodies for weeks and sometimes months in advance of the shoot. The lean look is not even viable long term for the models themselves. After the shoot, they put the weight back on, but the impression that lasts is that to be so thin is realistic, even normal.
Building muscle is a skilled, and time consuming business. If you don’t make the gains in the gym fast enough, there are, of course, steroids. I asked my PT, in his experience, what proportion of men in gyms use steroids. His estimate was a third which tallies with what I had estimated. Taking steroids is not risk free: they cause acne, mood swings, the development of male breast tissue and potentially life threatening illness.
Bigorexia is not the only self esteem issue facing men. There is also the more general problem of body dysmorphic disorder. In this condition men find fault with certain discreet areas of their body. It may be their forehead lines, for example, or possibly their nose, even their genitals. I don’t know what your email in box is like, but mine is barraged every day with offers of various penis enhancement pills which plays to just this vulnerability.
The trouble with looking and checking body parts is that we become extremely skilled at it. Just as an artist can ‘see’ things in a painting I, with no artistic talent, just don’t get, so it is with body dysmorphic disorder. ‘Imperfections’ that are imperceptible to others take on an increasing significance and become an endless source of misery. Many people with body dysmorphic disorder often consider surgical intervention.
So, as men, what should we do about it? Well as the feminists discovered to their cost, there seems little point raging against the machine. Sex sells, and beautiful people, men and women, will continue to front products for our consumption. We can, however, understand that our unhappiness is something we do to ourselves. It is in the comparing and judging ourselves harshly that is the source of our misery. It is in the assumption that beautiful people have happier lives that compounds our distress. It is in assuming women want and expect the models we envy that brings us our unhappiness. In short we can notice when we get caught up in the thinking that distresses us, and choose to do something different instead. Being open to the wonder of being alive is as good a place to start as any.
Dr Phil Tyson is a Men's Psychotherapist based in Manchester in the UK. He offers:
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