Muscle mania molding the ‘ideal’ male body type

From Express Gay News:

New book reveals widespread influence of gay gym culture

By JESSE MONTEAGUDO

In the gay TV series “Queer as Folk” (2000-2005), gay friends Brian, Michael, Emmett, Ted and Ben spent much of their time in their Pittsburgh gay gym, where they worked out, talked about their lives, socialized and (in the case of Brian) cruised.

The gym in “Queer as Folk” encapsulated gay life much more accurately than did the mythical sex-Mecca Babylon. In fact, it could be said that the gym has more influence on urban gay male life than anything else in our culture except the gay rights movement and AIDS.

During the past 20 years, working out and acquiring a muscular body have become major components of many gay men’s lives. Because of the gym, the gay male physical ideal changed from slim, youthful and androgynous to hard, muscular and masculine. Gay gym culture influences the way we look, the way we dress, our aesthetic and erotic sense, our sexual activities and our social calendar. Furthermore, thanks to our role as social trendsetters, the gym has also become a major part of mainstream culture.

The gym’s influence on gay men’s lives is the theme of Erick Alvarez’s new book, “Muscle Boys: Gay Gym Culture.” Alvarez, who now lives in South Florida, brings his many years of experience as a personal trainer to the book.

“I worked with a lot of gay male clients, and I realized that even though gay gym culture was becoming more and more prevalent, it was greatly misunderstood,” Alvarez says. “My goals in writing ‘Muscle Boys’ were to demystify gym culture by presenting it up close and unbiased, and also to begin a dialogue about a topic that is becoming more and more important in modern gay life.”

As research for the book, Alvarez conducted a worldwide, online survey of almost 6,000 gay and bisexual men and interviewed hundreds of them. The result is an in-depth study of gay gym culture that encompasses such gay subgroups as athletes, muscle boys, circuit boys, poz jocks, muscle bears and muscle daddies.

How extensive is the gym in gay male life? “The larger and more urban the community, the more extensive gym membership becomes,” Alvarez says. “In cities like San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles, gym memberships are held by a huge percentage of the gay population.”

In South Florida, Fort Lauderdale falls somewhere in the middle and Miami is in the upper half of the scale of gay gym culture, Alvarez says.  Alvarez does not think that the gay gym would ever replace the gay bar (or the Internet) as gay men’s main social venue. Even men who socialize at the gym also socialize in bars and other gathering spots, he points out.

In “Muscle Boys,” Alvarez outlines the differences between “gay gyms” and “straight gyms,” They include the greater amount of socialization that goes in the gay gyms as well as the greater level of comfort and acceptance that gay gyms provide to their clients. Differences do not extent to the workout itself.  Both straight and gay men seek to develop the same body parts: pecs, abs, lats, shoulders and arms.

In fact, most straight muscle men deliberately resemble gay muscle men, which, Alvarez assures us, is the result of the gay influence.

“Gay gym culture now sets the standard for the ideal male body,” Alvarez says. “For the first time in modern history, straight men are beginning to look up to gay men as the athletic ideal. This is important because it narrows the gap between gay and straight.”

But one difference that remains is the amount of skin exposed at a gay gym compared to the more modest norms at straight gym. Male nudity has been a facet of gay gym culture since Classical Greece. Many modern gyms, however, now have more conservative dress codes, and recent fashions for both swim suits and workout shorts are longer.

"America has always been uncomfortable with nudity,” Alvarez says. “But we’re becoming more relaxed about it, and it’s becoming more acceptable both in the media and on the street.”

In fact, Alvarez views nudity and fashion as intertwined.

“While it’s true that workout shorts are now longer, it is also fashionable for shorts and jeans to drop much lower below the waist than has been acceptable before,” he notes. “When short-shorts were in fashion, they revealed the tights; now longer shorts are in, but often drop so low that they reveal the upper regions of the buttocks and pelvic area, so in this case, nudity is redefined and expressed differently.”

It’s impossible to talk about muscle men and gym culture without touching on the subject of steroids. Alvarez takes a more equivocal view of steroid use than do the mainstream media. In fact, he scoffs at what he views as the mainstream media’s obsession with the steroid “scandal” among professional athletes.

"My views on steroids are shaped by science, not sensationalism,” he says. “My position differs depending on the situation. For health reasons, I support the use of steroids. For cosmetic reasons, I think that it should be a personal but well-informed decision (not unlike cosmetic surgery). When it comes to athletic competitions, I am against their use, except in special situations such as the Gay Games where a lot of HIV-positive athletes on anabolic therapy compete, but then I think the fair thing to do would be to have separate categories or competitions.”

Alvarez says he finds the sports media’s endless reports on steroids “boring.”

“I think the scandal is yet another moral crusade by a hypocritical public and media who demand and expect their athletes to be God-like, then act surprised and disappointed when they find out that they’re only humans,” he says.

The first edition of “Muscle Boys” has done so well that it sold out. For that reason, Alvarez has postponed any readings or signings until a new edition is available. Readers who want to read “Muscle Boys” and meet Alvarez should visit the book’s website at www.gaygymculture.com.

In ‘Muscle Boys: Gay Gym Culture,’ Erick Alvarez argues that the gay fitness craze has influenced not only gay notions about the ‘perfect male body’ but also the standards for the straight world. (Photo courtesy of Erick Alvarez)

Comments

[77888]

I prefer muscle men in 50s.
- natural physique with thin layer of fresh fat over supple muscles.
How our collective notion on 'ideal male body' will evolve in the next 50 years?
It is exciting to anticipate.