I grew up in the outer suburbs of Melbourne and I didn’t really know any gay people. This two-dimensional representation that I saw played a huge part in my body image and disordered eating issues, particularly in my late teens and early 20’s. Not only that, but it’s also really dangerous. Particularly when it comes to our body type, size and shape, it is absolutely impossible for us all to be the same. So, if we are all shown just one flat image of “what a gay man looks like” when we’re growing up, we all end up striving to emulate that same image. It’s such a bland two-dimensional depiction that we don’t all fit. We were shown as lean, muscular, with great fashion sense, perfect teeth, quaffed hair and an abundance of knowledge on Judy and Liza. If you look back through pop culture, representation of cisgendered gay men was very one note for a really long time.
Speaking about my own experiences as a cisgendered gay man, these pressures are exhausting to match and have inflated a lot of my struggles with body image and disordered eating. There are so many societal expectations, stereotypes and pressures placed upon us in the LGBTQIA+ community and on our bodies.
