Out of the Closet and into the Gym: Gay Men and Body Image in Melbourne, Australia

Psychological and health science research has identified a disparate experience of body image dissatisfaction among gay men (particularly in relation to heterosexual men), and have theorised that this reflects an emphasis placed on physical appearance in gay male settings. However, these studies largely fail to reflect upon the centrality of the body in securing a visible gay identity, or upon discourses of the nature, appearance and expression of gay identity in a historical and social context. Similarly, sociologically informed work has tended to emphasise gay men's paradoxical relationship—dependant upon and desirous of—heterosexual masculinity as the foundation for this emphasis. Drawing on a concept of “reflective embodiment,” interviews with four gay men are conducted to demonstrate how each negotiates an athletic, muscular body ideal with reference to understandings of masculinity, pride, and gay sexuality as a way of complicating these theorizations and injecting a discussion of subjectivity into this issue.