The New York Times recently published a long essay about how gay men are into muscles.

They also, apparently, like other men. Stay tuned!

Of course, that summation is intentionally dismissive. There is much more to the 4,309-word disorientation, “Gay Men Have Long Been Obsessed With Their Muscles. Now Everyone Is.” The author, Mark Harris, who’s married to legendary playwright Tony Kushner, explores the modern Western history of gay eroticism and physical attraction, from surreptitious “physique magazines” in the 1950s to Troye Sivan‘s music video for “Rush.”

He writes how gay men, through their desire to appropriate straight masculinity, wound up reclaiming ripped torso and bulging pecks (that’s soooo gay of us, by the way).

“Turning yourself into a simulacrum of a straight man was a survival tactic. But going one step further became a way of taking ownership. Turning your appearance into a calculatedly self-aware physical performance of straight masculinity, with a flourish or two of ironic detailing, gave gay men some autonomy and subverted straight culture by reinventing it as something gay, a look one could wear as a costume that might be visible only to the like-minded.”

Harris points to the rise of Burt Reynolds, a straight man, and his brand of rugged, jocular masculinity, as a turning point.

“The culture — more specifically, the white gay men who then dominated the realms of public tastemaking — had dictated that he was the standard,” he writes. “And if you couldn’t look like him, you’d better try your best to look like Robert Redford or Jan-Michael Vincent, with a blond shag and a ski-slope or surf-beach tan.”

Paraphrasing Roy Cohn’s character from his husband’s iconic 1991 play, Angels in America, Harris says the “body thing was happening” by the late ’70s and early ’80s. Defining gay novels from that era, such as Andrew Holleran’s Dancer of the Dance, highlight how the male physique becomes the ultimate piece of currency in gay nightlife culture.

By 1982, the Adonis-like male ideal hits Times Square, when Calvin Klein unveils its first underwear ad, an overwhelming vertical shot of Brazilian-born pole vaulter and Olympian Tom Hintnau. Shot in location in Santorini, the photo “shows Hintnaus’s tanned body pressed up against the stone backdrops typical of the Greek island, white to match his tighty-whities,” the New Yorker writes.

The picture presents Hintnau as a Greek God, in all of his sculpted beauty. And that’s the part where Harris’ thesis gets a little fuzzy.

The Ancient Greeks and Romans, who existed thousands of years ago, lionized men with chiseled builds. Last time we checked, Zeus and Poseidon aren’t sporting pot bellies! (And neither is Jeremy Allen White, speaking of Calvin Klein…)

That’s all to say… it seems like men, and society at large, have always valued a certain prototype of masculinity. Granted, gay men can take physical fixation and turn it into obsession, and that’s dangerous. Body dysphoria and eating disorders are serious problems in the queer community, with higher rates than the general population.

There is also a gay infatuation with steroids and other performance-enhancing supplements. While studies show steroids are used by 3.3% of the global population, a survey from San Francisco’s Castro District in 2019 from that 21.6% gay and bi gym goers had used steroids before.

These are real issues; however, there are also many gay men who don’t feel, as the author writes, it is inevitable they will find themselves “sweating in a large space with a lot of other gay men and loud music and way too many mirrors, hoping it doesn’t end in embarrassment.”

As one Redditer puts it: “There seems to be a lot of very dated and stereotypical notions in that article. Even the parts where the author brings up their own experience as though it’s some universal when really it’s more like their own baggage to work out.”

Another person observed that Harris’ view of gay culture appears to be one-sided. “I feel like gay men are not a mono culture. Duh,” he writes. “I literally have friends who only like gym rats or young stereotypical twinks. Then I got my bear friends who literally would fall over for a thick barrel bellied leather skinned daddy.”

Yes, gay popular culture is still severely lacking when it comes to the promotion of varying builds. We’re seeing more racial and gender representation, which is long overdue, but the protagonists’ bodies still mostly look like… Joel Kim Booster’s character in Fire Island. (And that’s great, we love Joel Kim Booster! We’re just making a point.)

But on the same token, let us know the next time a gay beach romcom features a protagonist whose body doesn’t resemble Patrick Swayze. We’re waiting!

“This article is just a really long thesis on how the author is unaware of the history of bodybuilding. Sorry, but the straights are just as muscle obsessed as they gay counterparts,” in the words of one Reddit commenter.

It’s hard to argue with his final point.

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