An impossible, perhaps even dangerous standard

FRE

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I do know that I've met men in real life who in order to be as lean as some of the guys in those pics have been and are doing unhealthy things, because no matter how hard they tried by healthy means they couldn't get below 5% body fat.

When I was a preppy, I became aware of the pressure put on wrestlers to try to get into a lower weight classification. They would starve and dehydrate themselves to "meet weight," even if they already looked thin. Even at that time, I found it alarming. The opposite extreme, as exemplified by Japanese sumo wrestlers, is also unhealthful.
 

D_Tim McGnaw

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First of all, the obesity epidemic is NOT limited to “a handful of developed world countries.” I lived in Fiji from 1994 to 2004. Fiji is NOT a developed country but, because of changes in eating habits, Fiji has developed an epidemic of obesity resulting in serious health consequences. So has Tonga and several other poor Pacific Island countries, and these countries are attempting to deal with the problem. Nauru, a tiny Pacific Island country, has a type 2 diabetes rate of 40% because of obesity. If you doubt that, follow the following link and do searches on “diabetes” and “obesity.” Nauru - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia However, the case of Nauru is slightly different because their extreme problems resulted from easy wealth.

Also, please point out where I stated that obese people are disgusting. The fact is that some of them are lazy and undisciplined, but I never stated that ALL of them are and I never used the word “disgusting.” Moreover, I clearly and explicitly stated that many poor people lack adequate access to healthful food, and that does not imply laziness.

Of course it is not irrelevant that many people suffer from anorexia and bulimia, and I never said that it is. However, the plain fact is that obesity is causing more health problems than anorexia and bulimia are.

I suppose that I could accuse you of ignoring the problems caused by obesity and saying that people should make no effort to keep their weight under control, but I shall refrain from doing do. But pointing out the problems of anorexia and bulimia and ignoring the problems of obesity would surely result in more obesity. People should be encouraged to keep their weight under control and to be physically fit, but that does not mean that they should go to unrealistic extremes.

Certainly some people have, to their detriment, yielded to pressure to conform to impossible standards of physical appearance, but balance requires also considering the problems resulting from obesity.

You are entirely too quick to attack.


Obesity in the South Pacific is at least in part a cultural phenomenon, the result of a culture which for centuries prized obesity as a sign of health, well-being and general superiority.



Seriously are you really going to insist that any time anorexia is mentioned obesity must be mentioned? Why does it matter that obesity is more prevalent when this is a thread which is supposed to be about male anorexia and closely related conditions to it and some of the current social influences which may be causing them?

Your vaunted concern for the obese apparently stretches no further than accusing them of being lazy and undisciplined so excuse me if I don't take any advice on having concern for anyone with an eating disorder from you.

That this kind of unhelpful nonsense would be an insult to many people with a compulsive eating disorder is beside the point that in this context (a thread about anorexia and starving disorders) it is doubly unhelpful since it reinforces some of pressures which anorexics already face.

At this point you're just threadjacking and I'd sincerely ask you to stop doing so.

You're entirely too interested in being right rather than doing right at this point, and I think you need to look at your motives.
 
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SirConcis

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Hilaire, looking good is the result of a healthy lifestyle.

While one may not achieve parity with what the ideal portrayal of men in magazines, you can get much better body and feel much better about yourself if you have a healthy lifestyle which , as a side effect, brings your body closer to this ideal.

And seeing those "ideals" does motivate you to continue to train to keep on improving your body.

You may know that you'll never win a world level marathon, but seeing such an even will motivate you to train harder to keep on improving your running. That is the whole point of idols that motivate you to improve yourself.
 

thetramp

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The first part is interesting in that you posit the existence of a fixed cultural standard of male beauty, the problem is that this standard has in fact been adapted and changed with cultural trends.
I would not go as far as saying it is a constant, and i do agree with you, that it has changed less than the womens standard.
But what i do think that throughout history the ideal of a mans body can still always be categorized as lean. It has always been inspired by power in combination with the slenderness of youth. And throughout the ages we find periods were the standard is a little slimmer. And we also are not the first culture to be obsessed with it, in ancient greek philosophy we find a strong appreciation for male beauty which is defined by the young athlete.
Young men worked harder and sacrificed more for their looks than women did.
Nietzsche in Twilight of the Idols claims that the christian contemptuousness is responsible for this not carrying on. He is a big admirer of the ancient greek idea of beauty, as he is of the revival of that standard in renaissance and enlightenment. he thought that tastefulness requires great sacrifices, which also does reflects the current zeitgeist of the 19th century.

So my point is this ideal and obsession with it is not new, rather than it has always been that way. I do acknowledge change and adaption of the standard.


I agree that failure or feelings of inadequacy caused by the experience either of actual failure or perceived failure have a potent effect on people. No doubt these feelings provoke a vast array of human behaviour, some of them perfectly useful and some of them self destructive.

There's every reason to think, indeed the best opinions seem to confirm, that feelings of failure related to personal appearance (especially a prolonged one experience of them) can be the spur to a variety of self destructive habits. Being excessively self critical, being equally critical of the appearance of others, developing food phobias, and unhealthy eating habits (such as binging and purging) or a sense of shame related to food and eating in general which can cause both over eating and under eating. This sense of shame, about food and personal appearance, can be so intense that it causes depression and a variety of knock on mental illnesses and conditions.

That different people react to the same kinds of pressures in different ways in evidenced by the variety of behaviours and conditions which result from these diverse reactions. That they might all be prevented if the root cause were somehow eliminated seem axiomatic, but is not so simple in practice. This means that this spectrum of conditions and behaviours need ultimately to be treated in similar ways when they are similar in nature, but in different ways when they are different in nature, even if the root cause is as we have seen the same.

Certainly the obese compulsive eater and the anorexic compulsive starver share a large amount in common in terms of the cause, nature and psychological mechanics of their respective conditions and it all reflects deeper human behavioural imperatives programmed by evolutionary pressures.

I agree

SirConcis said:
Hilaire, looking good is the result of a healthy lifestyle.

While one may not achieve parity with what the ideal portrayal of men in magazines, you can get much better body and feel much better about yourself if you have a healthy lifestyle which , as a side effect, brings your body closer to this ideal.

And seeing those "ideals" does motivate you to continue to train to keep on improving your body.

You may know that you'll never win a world level marathon, but seeing such an even will motivate you to train harder to keep on improving your running. That is the whole point of idols that motivate you to improve yourself.

Not hilaire, yet i have to make a point here.

Looking good is the result of a healthy lifestyle is not the issue here, the issue here is that people leave the path of a healthy lifestyle to look the way another person is looking as the result of a healthy lifestyle.
There are many people that can not achieve looking like some models in best health even if they are in best health, to near that look they need to damage their body with obsessive diets.

And the marathon actually is a good point, because believe it or not training your self to the level to be able to win a good marathon which means a personal record of about 2:10 h or less does decrease the life expectancy, being an athlete at that level actually damages your health long term.
And that is true for those who got the talent and the genes, it is even worse for those who don't, i could train exactly the same as Haile Gebrselassie and i would likely not beat him, but i would likely damage my body more than he does. I could train the way Usain Bolt does and i wouldn't beat him.
There are personal limits for everybody, aspiring to reach ones limits is a good thing tho it can be unhealthy, aspiring to reach somebody else's limits can be dangerous.
 

D_Tim McGnaw

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I would not go as far as saying it is a constant, and i do agree with you, that it has changed less than the womens standard.
But what i do think that throughout history the ideal of a mans body can still always be categorized as lean. It has always been inspired by power in combination with the slenderness of youth. And throughout the ages we find periods were the standard is a little slimmer. And we also are not the first culture to be obsessed with it, in ancient greek philosophy we find a strong appreciation for male beauty which is defined by the young athlete.
Young men worked harder and sacrificed more for their looks than women did.
Nietzsche in Twilight of the Idols claims that the christian contemptuousness is responsible for this not carrying on. He is a big admirer of the ancient greek idea of beauty, as he is of the revival of that standard in renaissance and enlightenment. he thought that tastefulness requires great sacrifices, which also does reflects the current zeitgeist of the 19th century.

So my point is this ideal and obsession with it is not new, rather than it has always been that way. I do acknowledge change and adaption of the standard.


I'm not sure I agree that the standard has always been lean, at least not lean in the sense that it is currently used. Even if for the sake of an example we only look at images from ancient Greece, what we see are several different classes of male physical archetype.

Images of Greek athletes, mostly sculptural, tend to show men with extremely robust musculature, indeed the classical standard in heroic sculpture is famously out of proportion since it shows the head as being far smaller than it should be in comparison to the epic size of the body and limbs. In most cases it's difficult to even describe ancient Greek images of athletes as lithe, and in no way could one describe them as thin. The musculature is bulbous, thick, these are bodies which are well fed, and strong. They don't have excess fat certainly, and they are quite vascular, but they're not strictly speaking lean.

Here is a reasonable modern analogue - http://lh4.ggpht.com/_c9BPAbXRnys/T...lint-mauro-santiago-sierra-homotography-1.jpg

The guy in that pic is athletic, not lean, has has low body fat and his muscles are well defined but he isn't skinny and his skeletal architecture is well covered.

Images of Greek younger men, Ephebes and the like, are even less lean. In a world where it was sometimes difficult to be certain of a person's exact age, and bearing in mind that ancient Greece was an Age Class dominated society (meaning that different age groups were expected to behave in certain ways and mix mostly only within their age class, and have different kinds of responsibility towards the polis according to their age) it was the physical appearance of signs of age which formed the basis of defining a man's social status.

So while again, the images of Ephebes and youths are often fit, muscular and healthy, in line with the social custom of requiring youths to visit the gymnasion regularly in order to prepare them for the physical requirements of being a man, they are deliberately shown as being softer, fuller, more rounded, less angular and with less muscle definition than older men. Indeed depending on a range of subtle visual signals, such as length of sideburns, position of hair on the body, overall proportions of the musculature it was intended to be possible to be able to tell which age class the youth actually fitted in, the Greeks had several. Very few of these images would be considered lean by the standard of the current fashionable use of that term, since showing some degree of softness and remaining "puppy fat" (even if in only tiny amounts) was necessary to indicate the youthfulness of the young man depicted.

Older men, which is to say men whose contribution to the polis would no longer be expected to include going to war or be of a primarily physical nature come in a slightly more obvious range of physical types.

There are the Old War Heroes, with the super massive heroic musculature of the Athlete/Hero shown but with less torsion and tension. The body is shown as slackened the skin just ever so slightly less tight, in some cases the former perfection is shown as having been marred by the healing of wounds, making the body look somewhat tired even. Again this body isn't lean, because the body is shown as well fed, and bulky, the reward of physical labour and violent exertions on the part of the polis being bounty and feasting.

There are also Statesmen/Philosophers, whose bodies are perhaps the closest to the current standard of leaness which ancient greek figurative art depicts. These older men are shown with the universal musculature, the result of the universal requirement of all citizens to be physically fit, but their bodies are not shown with the super massive muscles of the Athlete/War Hero, instead their bodies are shown as being more lithe, more atenuated, more bony and in some cases even wizened and skinny by ancient Greek standards. Ribs, and other skeletal architecture are more pronounced in this group of images of ancient Greek men than in almost any other. But it is debatable as to whether these images were presented as aspirational archetypes and in city states with little or no real democracy they are infrequent

There are other kinds of image of ancient Greek male ideal, but they occur less frequently.


My point is that even when these images show men who would have a very low body fat percentage they do not show men who are lean in the modern sense of the word, because even when these men are in the prime of physical development they are depicted as having a musculature which is too robust too large and too dense to fit the current modern fashion for leaness.


So I'll certainly agree that the standard of male beauty has frequently tended to been fit, muscular and low in body fat, but not lean. Indeed leaness, in ancient Greece, and in other historical cultures was seen as a physical attribute of the poor and under classes whose bodies were expected to do harsh labour on meager nutrition. Slaves and peasants were shown with good muscle definition, but their bodies were thin and their limbs puny (even if well defined) by comparison with the thick heavy muscles aspired to by the upper classes whose body image was the only image prized in most ancient cultures, especially the classical Greeks. The current Lean fashion in male beauty most closely resembles images of slaves and peasants from ancient art rather than heroes, gods, athletes and Kings.
 
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thetramp

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Well the time frame we are talking about is much to big to talk about one standard, we are talking about several hundred years, and there are many statures and drawings of athletes than can be called lean by todays standards.

Just one example the drawings on a http://www.hellenica.de/Griechenland/Olympia/StamnosBNP252.jpg Stamnos that can be found in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris.
I also know of one in the Metropolitan in new York that is about 2500 years old and shows four very lean runners.

Wouldn't you call those athletes lean?

And if you search you will many more who show similar lean bodies. And i would say that they occur as frequently as the more muscular ones, in fact if you browse through german museums and look at the original portrayals of ancient athletes you will find that the lean standard is more common to those exhibits.
There seems to be a tendency that those sculptures who are not found in their original form but only in copies made by the romans, the bodies get thicker and more muscular.
 

D_Tim McGnaw

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Well the time frame we are talking about is much to big to talk about one standard, we are talking about several hundred years, and there are many statures and drawings of athletes than can be called lean by todays standards.

Just one example the drawings on a http://www.hellenica.de/Griechenland/Olympia/StamnosBNP252.jpg Stamnos that can be found in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris.
I also know of one in the Metropolitan in new York that is about 2500 years old and shows four very lean runners.

Wouldn't you call those athletes lean?

And if you search you will many more who show similar lean bodies. And i would say that they occur as frequently as the more muscular ones, in fact if you browse through german museums and look at the original portrayals of ancient athletes you will find that the lean standard is more common to those exhibits.
There seems to be a tendency that those sculptures who are not found in their original form but only in copies made by the romans, the bodies get thicker and more muscular.


The image you link to doesn't contain men who're lean by modern standards of the term no. It does contain men who are muscular and low in body fat and thin hipped, but they have broad chests, thick thighs and thick arms and shoulders.

Here's an example of the current fashionable standard of "lean" as a comparison Exclusive Interview with Ignacio Lozano | Homotography

If anything the guy in these pictures is (probably entirely naturally) closer to the classical standard for an Ephebe or youth, but the overall leaness and evidence of skeletal architecture make him also in some ways similar to the Philosopher/Elder statesman archetype.
 

thetramp

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i consider them definitely lean, the shoulders and chest are not that broad, they do look like that because of the incredible slim waist, if you look at these proportion there to me is no doubt that they should be called lean, the legs are a little exaggerated.
And i think if they would be even slimmer you could hardly call them lean anymore, simply because they would not have well defined muscles anymore, they would be just naturally slim.
 

D_Tim McGnaw

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i consider them definitely lean, the shoulders and chest are not that broad, they do look like that because of the incredible slim waist, if you look at these proportion there to me is no doubt that they should be called lean, the legs are a little exaggerated.
And i think if they would be even slimmer you could hardly call them lean anymore, simply because they would not have well defined muscles anymore, they would be just naturally slim.


We can only go on what the image tells us though. We can't for these purposes speculate that the proportions were exaggerated and then presume the men are lean because that isn't really how they're depicted.

The point that I made in my OP is that a few years ago, Lean meant what I think you think it means, but it's now been developed as a euphemism for skinny, in some cases extremely skinny, but with muscle definition.
 

thetramp

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but that is exactly what will happen when you are skinny with strong muscle definition, you will get those proportion, that are only achievable for those who got a rather small body frame an add muscle definition. That will lead to that skinny waste, slim forearms and calfs, while other muscles because of their natural size will give that look of broad shoulders, if you have definition in your back muscles and your breast muscles and yet stay skinny you will achieve exactly that look. While those who have naturally a bigger frame and a bigger waist can starve to death and never achieve that standard, and i would say that is what is the topic here.
 

D_Tim McGnaw

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but that is exactly what will happen when you are skinny with strong muscle definition, you will get those proportion, that are only achievable for those who got a rather small body frame an add muscle definition. That will lead to that skinny waste, slim forearms and calfs, while other muscles because of their natural size will give that look of broad shoulders, if you have definition in your back muscles and your breast muscles and yet stay skinny you will achieve exactly that look. While those who have naturally a bigger frame and a bigger waist can starve to death and never achieve that standard, and i would say that is what is the topic here.


Very much so. :smile:
 

B_jeepguy2

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So I'm an artist and I paint naked men a lot, which is fun, I tend to prefer athletic and fit men as muses, for a variety of reasons, not least because they're just so god damned nice to look at :biggrin1: But that's not the only reason.

I worked as a model scout in the years before selling my paintings earned me a living and I've noticed changes in the fashions in male beauty over the years and the expectations of what men "should" look like.


With images of semi-naked men everywhere literally selling anything and everything and with big businesses investing huge capital and resources in marketing a variety of products and services to men (and women) by using images of male models and movie stars and sportsmen, the pressures on men to conform to a certain image standard is ever growing. It seems that while sensitivities regarding objectification of women are at least paid lip service to (even if they're ultimately ignored) there are no qualms whatsoever about making men purely objects of beauty or sexual allure and objectification for any purpose at all.

The current trend in male beauty is to look "lean" which basically means skinny but with well defined muscles, requiring those who wish to achieve this look to obsessively monitor their calorific intake and workout like demons the whole time.

Images like this one- Homotography

or this one - http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Homotography/~3/4JrZbaKQCbE/leandro-maeder-by-dean-isidro.html


or this one- Homotography


or this one- http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Homotography/~3/A3NnfxLo4_Y/6-naked-scents-by-karl-simone-john-tan.html


-are hardly uncommon in a mass media context these days.

In my opinion while any of the models in the images above may be naturally that lean there's also a strong possibility that they have effectively starved themselves to be that thin, in order to conform to the current prevailing fashion in the male modeling industry.

There's no question that everyone should aspire to be as healthy as they can, and eating well and getting plenty of exercise are essential to that aim, but do any of the men around here feel pressured by the constant barrage of images of ultra lean teenagers with less than 6% body fat?

Anorexia is on the rise, steeply so, among men, is anyone else concerned that whereas the debate about pressures on women to conform to the size 0 image is everywhere and part of public discourse that the similar pressures on young men (and older men too for that matter) barely get a mention and are disguised by the fact that men tend to exercise themselves thin rather than starve themselves thin? Do people even understand that over exercising and obsessively restrained diets are have basically the same effects on men as they do on women?

You look at a skinny guy on the street do you think "I wonder if he has an eating disorder?" or do you just think "wow he's as skinny as a rake" and think nothing of it, because we all just think some guys are skinny sometimes?

Professionally I've met so many young guys who work out 5 times a week and who eat absurdly controlled diets and think they're really healthy, when they look like someone who's survived a death march, and under their superbly defined abs and pecs all you can see is bones and sinews.

Is the unrealistic standard of beauty which effects women now beginning to effect men too? Do any of the male members of this site ever feel the pressure to look like the models in adverts, do you feel inadequate if you aren't able to achieve the current look?

What do people think about this? Are we endanger or letting a body dismorphia and eating disorder epidemic among men sneak up on us while the rest of us more average guys end up feeling like fat freaks?

Dude, all of those models are probably about 18-22. I looked like that too at that age. I was in college and eating a steady diet of pizza washed down by pitchers of beer, as well as dining hall fare which was not exactly health food. I also played intramural sports and walked or biked several miles a day around a 300 acre campus because I didn't have a car. Many of the guys in my freshman dorm looked that way too. I am 37 now, drive to work, and spend the day sitting in front of a computer. Needless to say I don't weigh 130 lbs and have a 28" waist like I did back then. Neither do those other guys I went to college with.

Guys, especially gay guys who are over 25 see these models, and think they should look like that. If you are over 25 it really is not possible to be that thin without starving yourself, or living at a gym. Most guys who are over 25 simply do not have the metabolism of a teen anymore therefore it is unrealistic to expect to look like one at 30, 35, or 40.
 

Mule

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Men absolutely feel the same pressures as women in contemporary society, it's just women have been dealing with those pressures for longer. The pressures on men have changed in the past three or four decades and become far more about the physical than the material (although I think the material expectations are still there too). The physical expectations started with huge muscles (the Charles Atlas days) and then evolved into extremely low body fat, driven in large part by the obsession over washboard abs and the elusive six-pack.

Those of us that go all goo-goo and ga-ga over unrealistic (and often photoshopped) fashion photography, male or female, simply perpetuate the problem.

While I don't claim to be immune to advertising, for me sexiness is about health. A healthy person is a self-confident person is a sexy person. Extremes on either end of the scale are not usually healthy, don't look healthy, so aren't usually attractive.
 

SyddyKitty

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I'm a former anorexic. My anorexia didn't stem from my body image, at the time, though. It was a time I had been kicked from my mother's home and forced to live with my heavily Christian father's side for a year (my freshman year of highschool and the summer preceding it). I wasn't allowed to play my video games for extended periods of time and was COMPLETELY banned from using the computer, I didn't have friends to hang with, I didn't like the outdoors. I needed SOMETHING I could control at the time. For that entire year, I practiced anorexia. I started with just a body chart, keeping track of my exercises that day along with my intake. At first, I was doing 1500 calories or so a day with less than 40 grams of fat. After the first two months I was down to two pop tarts a day with lots of water. I ate somewhat normally on weekends because the church family ALWAYS went to restaurant. Ate light but still more than I was during the week. I eventually worked myself down to living off a cup of jello at school and a few spoonfuls of sugar at home. My exercise was over the edge, up to 500 crunches after running in place for 30 minutes ten doing 100 to 150 push-ups. That may not sound like much but what I was taking in shouldn't have allowed me to endure that kind of exercise.

After being able to live back home with my mom, I slowly eased out of that mind set but never fully escaped. The first 8 months of being back, I practiced vegetarianism and ate very few and very small meals. I wouldn't eat 3 hours before bed (which is actually good practice) and still kept track of what I was taking in and my exercises (which were no longer anywhere near as high). In this time, however, I became deeply interested in porn. Especially the twinks. I started to become more self-conscious and stuck to wearing baggy pants and loose shirts. I won't go over my entire high school career, but I was pretty messed up socially and mentally. I still carry many issues from that time, including my self consciousness.

Every once in a while, I go through an exhibitionist stage, wanting to be praised for my body. The praise is never enough so I shut myself back in. You may notice I haven't posted nudes of myself in a while again, that's pretty much why. I'm not happy with my current body, even though it looks "ok" it's not something I'm fully comfortable with others seeing again. I hold myself to a certain physical standard that's a bit of a pain for me to live with, especially with my lack of income (because there's a certain WAY I want too do it as well). I still hold extreme envy to the "twink" and slender builds. I'm somewhere between slender and average but I have meaty thighs that just don't fit my own tastes. Exercise has only made them larger too. I no longer have the willpower to go back to anorexia, especially since I'm more knowledgeable about how much I could have fucked myself up. I've also been in a state in which I feel I have very little control. I constantly think about the negatives of my body, I've even become a supplement junky over the past few years.

I'm honestly not sure if my body image issues are purely for myself or if they really are related to me wanting to be "sexy enough" for others.

This may have been slightly off topic and heavily disjointed but I just felt like sharing this. It always feels better to let a load off my shoulders onto strangers for some reason. I don't feel the need to argue with them.
 

thetramp

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While I don't claim to be immune to advertising, for me sexiness is about health. A healthy person is a self-confident person is a sexy person. Extremes on either end of the scale are not usually healthy, don't look healthy, so aren't usually attractive.

Yeah but that is not the point, the point is that those who can not achieve those looks and be healthy try it anyway because they feel the pressure to do so. There are persons who can look that way and be at their best health and there is nothing wrong with that. Those who can't and try to do achieve that look with whatever means mostly end up not looking attractive because they are really not healthy, not in peace with them self and lack of energy.
A problem is that many who suffer that way recognize that they are not well, but think they can counter that if they work a little harder and eat a little more disciplined. They are literally caught in a treadmill.


@hilaire

if we agree that there have been standards around before that have not been achievable for a large portion of the population, than it does not matter whether we consider that standard similar to this, because we do have the same issue coming with it. So rather than asking why do we have an unrealistic standard we should ask why are so many so effected in a negative way by that standard. I do believe that the omnipresence of it that comes with the new media is part of it, and as i said before i do believe that the illusion of the reachability is part of it, i also think there is a lot of misinformation coming with that, so that many don't know what really is healthy. One more thing might be the society makes it hard for those who have much self confidence, who don't deal well with the pressure who might develop inferiority complexes and depressions, it is a taboo to admit to those things, to ask for help is frowned upon and there always comes even more the feeling of failure with it. Maybe more openness about psychological problems and a better and easier accessibility of qualified help with a lower inhibition level would go a long way.
 

D_Tim McGnaw

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I'm a former anorexic. My anorexia didn't stem from my body image, at the time, though. It was a time I had been kicked from my mother's home and forced to live with my heavily Christian father's side for a year (my freshman year of highschool and the summer preceding it). I wasn't allowed to play my video games for extended periods of time and was COMPLETELY banned from using the computer, I didn't have friends to hang with, I didn't like the outdoors. I needed SOMETHING I could control at the time. For that entire year, I practiced anorexia. I started with just a body chart, keeping track of my exercises that day along with my intake. At first, I was doing 1500 calories or so a day with less than 40 grams of fat. After the first two months I was down to two pop tarts a day with lots of water. I ate somewhat normally on weekends because the church family ALWAYS went to restaurant. Ate light but still more than I was during the week. I eventually worked myself down to living off a cup of jello at school and a few spoonfuls of sugar at home. My exercise was over the edge, up to 500 crunches after running in place for 30 minutes ten doing 100 to 150 push-ups. That may not sound like much but what I was taking in shouldn't have allowed me to endure that kind of exercise.

After being able to live back home with my mom, I slowly eased out of that mind set but never fully escaped. The first 8 months of being back, I practiced vegetarianism and ate very few and very small meals. I wouldn't eat 3 hours before bed (which is actually good practice) and still kept track of what I was taking in and my exercises (which were no longer anywhere near as high). In this time, however, I became deeply interested in porn. Especially the twinks. I started to become more self-conscious and stuck to wearing baggy pants and loose shirts. I won't go over my entire high school career, but I was pretty messed up socially and mentally. I still carry many issues from that time, including my self consciousness.

Every once in a while, I go through an exhibitionist stage, wanting to be praised for my body. The praise is never enough so I shut myself back in. You may notice I haven't posted nudes of myself in a while again, that's pretty much why. I'm not happy with my current body, even though it looks "ok" it's not something I'm fully comfortable with others seeing again. I hold myself to a certain physical standard that's a bit of a pain for me to live with, especially with my lack of income (because there's a certain WAY I want too do it as well). I still hold extreme envy to the "twink" and slender builds. I'm somewhere between slender and average but I have meaty thighs that just don't fit my own tastes. Exercise has only made them larger too. I no longer have the willpower to go back to anorexia, especially since I'm more knowledgeable about how much I could have fucked myself up. I've also been in a state in which I feel I have very little control. I constantly think about the negatives of my body, I've even become a supplement junky over the past few years.

I'm honestly not sure if my body image issues are purely for myself or if they really are related to me wanting to be "sexy enough" for others.

This may have been slightly off topic and heavily disjointed but I just felt like sharing this. It always feels better to let a load off my shoulders onto strangers for some reason. I don't feel the need to argue with them.




I'm really really glad you shared this with us and I'm glad you felt able to use this thread, thank you for being so honest. Your post is incredibly interesting and extremely OT.

Some of the things you describe, being envious of certain kinds of body type, being heavily in to supplements and working out to extremes are things I've encountered in other young men.

You say you hold yourself to a specific physical standard, could you say how you came by that standard? Is it something you've picked up from porn? Or elsewhere? Or is purely a self generated thing?
 

SyddyKitty

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I think it may be a mixture of a few things.

My interest in porn started with drawn porn before finding real porn. I still look into both but my personal image revolves more around something "stylistic". Large pecs, slim upper body, large ass, toned but thin arms and neck. Some people are lucky enough to have this perfect body which leads me to believe it's not fully impossible, so I still pursue it... I'm very careful when I work my arms because I build muscle easily. I want them to stay thin but bulking up seems almost inevitable for me. My entire father's side of the family is that way, really. I also put a focus on this because I want to keep my flexibility. I'm extremely flexible but I fear I'll lose it when I put any weight on, be it muscle or fat. Oddly enough, my younger brother has a hard time gaining muscle. He has bird-legs that I'm extremely envious of... However, I'm starting to accept and even my thicker thighs and lower legs on myself. I love them on other men but I previously didn't so much on myself. I also like tummies on other men but would likely hate myself if I ever formed one.

It could partially be how I was raised too. My mother and grandmother (still) always say "never get fat like your dad". It's also always been an in-family "joke" about me having a flat ass (which apparently isn't common for black people). That bugs me and is pretty big reason I focus on that area of myself.

The sheer amounts of porn I have or have watched likely have a more subconcious effect. I only actively think about their bodies when I'm feeling shitty or when I'm (oddly enough) drawing. When drawing, I tend to think negatively about my body and draw it how I'd like it to look. I definitely feel I'm not feminine enough, physically, for the type of guy I want. This may stem from porn or just "social expectations" I grew up with while not having any male friends or role models.
 

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Yeah but that is not the point, the point is that those who can not achieve those looks and be healthy try it anyway because they feel the pressure to do so. There are persons who can look that way and be at their best health and there is nothing wrong with that. Those who can't and try to do achieve that look with whatever means mostly end up not looking attractive because they are really not healthy, not in peace with them self and lack of energy.
A problem is that many who suffer that way recognize that they are not well, but think they can counter that if they work a little harder and eat a little more disciplined. They are literally caught in a treadmill.

That's a more focused way of expressing what I was saying. For me, healthy is sexy. If your healthy weight for your body type/height is 210 pounds, that's attractive, just as it's attractive for a curvaceous non-petite woman to be 160 pounds and 26% body fat, or a tiny petite woman to be 95 pounds and 15% body fat. The very fact that someone is at a healthy weight for them is what is attractive to me. Of course, I still have my body type preferences as far as sexual attraction goes, but the healthy factor trumps that every time.
 

D_Tim McGnaw

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I think it may be a mixture of a few things.

My interest in porn started with drawn porn before finding real porn. I still look into both but my personal image revolves more around something "stylistic". Large pecs, slim upper body, large ass, toned but thin arms and neck. Some people are lucky enough to have this perfect body which leads me to believe it's not fully impossible, so I still pursue it... I'm very careful when I work my arms because I build muscle easily. I want them to stay thin but bulking up seems almost inevitable for me. My entire father's side of the family is that way, really. I also put a focus on this because I want to keep my flexibility. I'm extremely flexible but I fear I'll lose it when I put any weight on, be it muscle or fat. Oddly enough, my younger brother has a hard time gaining muscle. He has bird-legs that I'm extremely envious of... However, I'm starting to accept and even my thicker thighs and lower legs on myself. I love them on other men but I previously didn't so much on myself. I also like tummies on other men but would likely hate myself if I ever formed one.

It could partially be how I was raised too. My mother and grandmother (still) always say "never get fat like your dad". It's also always been an in-family "joke" about me having a flat ass (which apparently isn't common for black people). That bugs me and is pretty big reason I focus on that area of myself.

The sheer amounts of porn I have or have watched likely have a more subconcious effect. I only actively think about their bodies when I'm feeling shitty or when I'm (oddly enough) drawing. When drawing, I tend to think negatively about my body and draw it how I'd like it to look. I definitely feel I'm not feminine enough, physically, for the type of guy I want. This may stem from porn or just "social expectations" I grew up with while not having any male friends or role models.




This is really interesting because it highlights the way these kinds of disorder are part of an internal dialogue. It's as though you create an inner world in which things make sense to you when they might not make sense to others.


It's also interesting that you compare your own body with an ideal body which you see other people as possessing and that this leads you to believe you could achieve their body type.

I presume that at times the rational side of you contradicts the impulses you feel about your personal image, is it part of the process leading to remission that you listen to the rational side of yourself or is it about learning new habits and new impulses?
 

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Obesity in the South Pacific is at least in part a cultural phenomenon, the result of a culture which for centuries prized obesity as a sign of health, well-being and general superiority.

Seriously are you really going to insist that any time anorexia is mentioned obesity must be mentioned? Why does it matter that obesity is more prevalent when this is a thread which is supposed to be about male anorexia and closely related conditions to it and some of the current social influences which may be causing them?

Your vaunted concern for the obese apparently stretches no further than accusing them of being lazy and undisciplined so excuse me if I don't take any advice on having concern for anyone with an eating disorder from you.

That this kind of unhelpful nonsense would be an insult to many people with a compulsive eating disorder is beside the point that in this context (a thread about anorexia and starving disorders) it is doubly unhelpful since it reinforces some of pressures which anorexics already face.

At this point you're just threadjacking and I'd sincerely ask you to stop doing so.

You're entirely too interested in being right rather than doing right at this point, and I think you need to look at your motives.

Obesity in Pacific Island countries was rare until 30 or 40 years ago. Now it is a common crippling disease resulting in joint damage that has forced some people to depend on wheel chairs. It also causes diabetes resulting in amputations, blindness, kidney failure, and fatal heart attacks. I knew several people who suffered for years before dying as the result of obesity. Although anorexia is also a serious problem, I have never personally known anyone who was anorexic.

Here in the United States, diabetes caused by obesity is the major cause of blindness. I have a neighbor who is probably about 75 pounds overweight; it is difficult for him to walk even one block.

Ignoring the suffering caused by either anorexia or obesity is not a kind and loving thing to do. Also, it is not thread jacking to point out that the way you have chosen to address the problem of anorexia while over-looking the problem of obesity risks enabling people to deny that their over-eating is endangering their health.

It’s interesting that some people believe that they have the infallible ability to determine the motives of others. Attacking motives is a common obfuscational technique.