Fraser’s Edge / Are gays more obsessed with beauty?
Brad Fraser

In the early 1990s I had an agent in LA whose name, when mentioned, always elicited the same reaction: every person who knew him would say, “Isn’t he handsome?” Despite the fact he was also a smart, cultured man and a very ambitious agent, people commented on his perfect all-American face and hair — as well as his Olympian proportions.

An actress friend who performed in one of my plays in England is one of the most stunning beings I’ve ever set eyes on; she has honey-blonde hair, slightly vulpine features, a sparkling smile, dark-green eyes and a killer body. Over drinks one night I asked her about the best and worst things about being so beautiful. She said, “Everyone wants to fuck you,” making it clear that her statement covered both questions.

I have another friend who is a particularly cantankerous type when dealing with inept sales and service staff. During a particularly drawn-out saga concerning the construction of a custom cabinet for his home — the kind of experience that is filled with mistakes, misunderstandings and endless waiting periods — I overheard one of his phone calls with the cabinetmaker. When he ended the call I expressed my shock at his uncharacteristically reasonable tone. He looked slightly abashed and said, “You wouldn’t believe how fucking hot this guy is.”

Some suggest gay society is more obsessed with physical beauty than straight society, but I suspect, proportionately, it’s not much different. True beauty — the kind that blinds people to your other attributes, the kind that makes anyone you meet want to partake of sexual congress, the kind that cuts you a lot of slack and even compels people to give you things — is widely varied in appearance and relatively rare. Of course, there are highly attractive people made so as much by their personality and spirit as what they look like, but I’m talking about pure physical beauty here. The kind that creates movie stars and fashion models, the physical form that demands nothing more of itself than itself in order to be adored.

Not all people of great beauty become famous, because we each know a few of them carrying on with their everyday lives. But we also know, because we see evidence of it at every turn, that their beauty gives them an automatic advantage in most situations. Almost everyone, in some way or another, demurs to greater beauty even as we sometimes resent it.

Read the rest after the jump…

BODY IMAGE / Andrew Huber studied 144 gay men across Canada
Niko Bell / Vancouver / Wednesday, June 26, 2013

New research on gay men and body image suggests that gay men may be less self-conscious than they once were.

Vancouver clinical counsellor Andrew Huber studied 144 gay men across Canada and found that immersion in gay culture had no measurable effect on the men’s preoccupation with their own appearance, how they felt about their looks, or how they rated parts of their bodies. The only significant result, in fact, was a slight link between gay culture and self-consciousness about weight. That stands at odds with decade-old research suggesting gay men are much more self-conscious and appearance-focused than their straight counterparts.

“What surprised me is how little the immersion in gay culture correlated to any of the scales,” says Huber, who conducted the study as his master’s thesis at the Adler School of Professional Psychology. “The more immersed you would be, I thought, the more time you would spend on your appearance, wanting to fit in.”

Huber asked his subjects to fill out an online questionnaire about their immersion in gay culture and feelings about their own bodies. Huber expected to find a strong correlation between socializing with other gay men and body anxiety. Research told him that gay men — like most people — engage in “upward social comparison,” weighing themselves against the most attractive members of society. Among gay men, where lean, muscular bodies are celebrated, Huber expected to find more pressure to be attractive, more anxiety about looks, and more focus on physical appearance.

He thinks the unexpected results may suggest a shift in gay culture and a community that is more supportive about body image.

“Given my findings, people may not be getting their sense of self-worth from the gay community,” he says. “I think that now, in 2013, there can be very different standards of attractiveness. Look at the bear community, where someone might look very different from someone who’s part of the twink community, or the jock style.”

Huber’s study also looked at the way self-esteem interacts with body image among gay men. Not surprisingly, good body image was linked to high self-esteem, and body anxiety to low self-esteem. Contrary to Huber’s predictions, however, self-esteem did nothing to change the slight relationship between involvement in the gay community and concern about body weight. In other words, gay men feel slightly more self-conscious about their weight the more they are surrounded by gay men — whether they have low self-esteem or not.

“That was a surprise as well,” Huber says. “To me that shows the complexity of [the gay community].”

He thinks self-esteem and body image do not interact because gay men are becoming more supportive of each other.

He also credits the shift in mainstream culture over the last decade, in which gay men appear more in media and are accepted more by mainstream culture. As a result, they worry less about appearances, he suggests.

“We’re starting to see that being gay is more than just being a hairdresser or going to the gym all the time,” Huber says. “It’s branching out to being a normal person.”

While Huber is confident in the accuracy of his research, he says it is only a small part of the puzzle. His study did not ask participants about their actual weight, nor about muscularity, a body concern for many gay men. He says there is a lot more work to be done.

“The main conclusion of my study is that the gay community is complex,” he says. “More complex than we may have originally thought, especially with the shifting times. The cultural standard of attractiveness within the gay community may not be what it once was.”

Where The Bears Are – Season 2: Episode 5 LEATHER BEARS from Where the Bears Are on Vimeo.

The Bears infiltrate the Faultline, a popular Silver Lake leather bar to track down Elliot Butler’s campaign aide Mo Kapoor (Ray Singh), who they are convinced is connected to his murder. Meanwhile, Reggie blows off a potential suitor (Mark Rowe), Wood tries to hide the fact he’s fooling around with both Detective Winters and Detective Martinez, and Todd (Ian Parks) intervenes when Nelson and Reggie are threatened by a couple of burly thugs named Bert and Ernie. Nelson: Ben Zook. Reggie: Rick Copp. Wood: Joe Dietl. Detective Winters: Chad Sanders. Detective Martinez: George Unda. Bert: Michael Johnson. Ernie: Dana Agens. Bartender: Brad Kalvo.

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