![hairy gay men fat hairy gay men fat](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f6/1c/37/f61c374d3d03ebab596eef714e126250.jpg)
My preference? That genres don’t center themselves on body type and industries don’t treat demographics as monolith.īut those rigid standards pervade way into Western media too. According to most accepted definitions, female audiences prefer yaoi, which often focuses on romance between thin, young men, while gay male audiences prefer bara, which focuses on romance between hulking, cuboid men. The relatively large markets of Japanese comics ostensibly about queer men - Boys’ Love/yaoi and bara - they feature rigid genre tropes, particularly when it comes to body type. More and more, I worry that those very limited beauty ideals are the contingency to queer male representation in comics, even in circles that ostensibly understand the importance of body diversity. You know the refrain: no fats, no femmes, no anyone with dark skin.
#HAIRY GAY MEN FAT FREE#
They focus on what’s considered attractive by normative ideals, prioritizing men with white or light skin, athletic musculature shorn free from visible body fat, and a presentation consistent with gender norms. But the progressive comics landscape I’ve carved often reads as lockstep in its gay male body politics as an aforementioned Ryan Murphy television show. I have been fortunate to carve out for myself a relatively safe and progressive community in queer comics internet online - thanks to the hard work of my peers and heavy curation on my part, the world outside my social media front door has way more inclusive images of gender, race, sexuality, and more than, well, the world outside my actual front door. Gay male-focused magazines like Attitude and even queer-focused ones like Out have been rightfully called out for their limited range of who appears on their covers, who ostensibly deserves to be seen.Īccording to research from the National Eating Disorder Association, 42% of men with eating disorders identify as gay, alarming for a population thought only to be a single digit percentage of all men. This is the consistently apparent standard across the scraps of mainstream media, niche “gay” media, the online communities so crucial to gay dating, and even in otherwise benign spaces online. If gay men want representation, it has to be the kind that’s most palatable to male attracted audiences: thin, white, masculine, and equipped with six-pack abs. Or, as I sometimes feel, normative body standards are the contingency to representation. As far as most media narratives are concerned, fat gay men aren’t worth being seen.
![hairy gay men fat hairy gay men fat](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/d1/ed/ab/d1edab7858e2ef375f7f289d4cc3d71a.jpg)
None of those were particularly pleasant to endure in eighth grade, but the last comment (and all its permutations - do fat gay guys even exist, does the “gay gene” include a better metabolism, etc.) haunted me, a fat gay guy, in particular.īut, as asinine as those assumptions were, I couldn’t really blame my peers for them.
![hairy gay men fat hairy gay men fat](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/a5/6f/2c/a56f2cebe48fc1c703449fb4dc7ebc07.jpg)
“So gay guys are basically girls, right?” “I wish there were a gay here to style me.” “Gay guys are so hot, how are all of them skinny?” (For clarity: this anecdote does not include lesbians who, according to most straight archaeologists, weren’t invented until the much later debut of Orange is the New Black.) As a consequence, I got to marinade in their gay education growing pains.
![hairy gay men fat hairy gay men fat](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/86/8d/45/868d453ac3683ae69944b99755bf863f.jpg)
I spent my childhood and adolescence during the era which, according to straight people, gays were invented: from the debut of Wil & Grace to the finale of Glee.