Perhaps it’s because Burger King wasn’t a thing back then, but in Michelangelo’s historical depictions of man, everybody looked as if it would have a very fire bod. In his sculptures and illustrations, a bloke’s pectoral muscles, topped with tweakable nipples, protrude out over a wash-rack torso; their knife-sharp V-lines pointing down towards to their bits.
It’s a picture that has, for therefore long, dominated Western culture’s perception of archetypal masculinity and male beauty: the final word, almost unattainable look. And yet some 500 years on, we’re still obsessing over it. Now though, it manifests less within the art world – where frailer frames usually tend to be fetishised – and more on our TV screens every summer, as we tune in to look at the ripped permatan guys of Love Island on ITV2.
Recent statistics show that one in seven Brits – that’s 10 million people – pay for a gym membership, and the private training industry within the UK alone is value somewhere in the region of £630 million. The final consensus is that the overwhelming majority of the ladies inside those numbers are heading to the gym to remain in shape and improve their mental health, overwhelmingly through holistic sorts of exercise like yoga. The overwhelming majority of men, however, have a way more regimented approach: one designed to make them larger, or more ‘hench’, as some gym bunnies may put it.
There’s a basic biological craving for all men to be dominant creatures, but their desire to beef up and express their strength nowadays is a byproduct of their culture greater than anything. That’s something JR – a straight man who goes to the gym 4 times per week training with weights – will attest to. “Nowadays, identical to with women, men are discriminated upon based on their figure – especially with all the lads on social media looking jacked,” he tells Dazed Beauty. “That puts lots of pressure on guys to look a certain way, especially in the event that they wish to get the girl.”
“Where does this pressure to beef up actually spread its roots? Is it men’s perception that ladies wish to sleep with conventionally attractive men that’s doing the damage?”
That raises an interesting query: where does this pressure to beef up actually spread its roots? Is it men’s perception that ladies wish to sleep with conventionally attractive men? Is it fuelled by social media and ITVBe beefcakes? It’s internalised within the locker room, as lads size themselves up against one another to be the ‘larger’ person? Realistically, it’s a mixture of these items and more that’s leading men on their journey to beef up. Life, to straight men who don’t have flawless bodies yet, seems higher from that perspective: you expect girls to return easier; friends to respect you more, and the love heart-eye emojis to start out rolling in in response to your IG stories.
The thought of straight men getting larger to get sex is something that seeps into, and practically dominates gay culture too. As a more fluid, typically ‘queer’ culture takes hold, that carnal obsession with bodies and perfection is something gay men might begin to dismiss in lieu of celebrating body positivity movements. But in point of fact, that notion of being a gay man who’s widely embraced no matter his shape and weight is pretty farcical.
Devis is a gay, 25-year-old personal trainer from London who sees through the bullshit. “Gay culture is indebted to idolising the classic, [archetypal] man,” he says pointedly. It’s true. The way in which gay men are divided into subcategories (hairy, ‘daddy’ types considered bears; slender, hairless young lads labelled ‘twinks’) is a major example of how body image dominates the way in which gay men see one another, and that labelling also comes with a generalised hierarchy. While some people can have “types”, the cis homosexual men who can navigate gay culture bearing the smallest amount of stigma, based on the oppressive homophobia fuelled by people’s disdain of flagrant queerness, are those who’ve the flexibility to assimilate into traditionally straight or masculine culture: these guys are the ‘jocks’. The jocks are, for many, the form of men all of us find inarguably attractive: chiseled jawlines, filling out tight fitting t-shirts with bulging muscles, potentially “passing” as straight out in public. It could be something to do with our innate desire to be flagrantly sexual beings, thus attracting a wider amount of individuals, but the thought of being built out of necessity, as a defence mechanism, is pretty damning too.
But that pressure inevitably stems from inside the community, where images of topless lads with rock hard bodies – “the Mykonos gays”, Devis calls them – still pull in essentially the most traffic and attraction on Instagram and dating apps. “The gay community are super judgemental,” he claims. And as for the apps, where there’s a liberated approach to nudity and topless pics? “They fuel the hearth.”
It’s a fireplace that’s spreading far faster and with more collateral damage than most expect. To be clear: beefing up is not at all a nasty thing. It’s only when that desire to accomplish that, exacerbated by the proliferation of images of men with rock hard bodies within the media and on social media, and societal expectations pertaining to male body image, leads men down extreme and dangerous paths. Like when men feel they don’t have any other option than to go under the knife. Consequently, procedures like pectoral implants are on the rise, with some surgeries, in keeping with statistics acquired by MensHealth.com, seeing over a 400% surge in queries over the past five years within the US alone.
Plastic surgeon Paul Wigoda MD is predicated in Fort Lauderdale, Florida: the house of shirtless, perma-tanned men by the pool. “Every 12 months, the variety of [pectoral implant] procedures in my practice has increased,” he claims, a byproduct of men realising that “there’s less stigma attached to having them.” Essentially the most common client for Paul’s pec implant surgery tends to be “men who aren’t particularly muscular – even in the event that they exercise – and who’re embarrassed about it.”
The procedure begins with an incision underneath each armpit, through which a silicone implant is placed beneath the pectoral muscle to raise it. Two hours later, patients are sewn back up and most are ready to depart by the tip of the day. It could be over and done with relatively quickly, but prices vary: anywhere from £5,000 to £7,000 appears to be the going minimal price. For individuals who are striving to get larger and may’t afford the expensive procedures, the bounds of biology can push you towards shady practices.
In an NHS survey conducted in 2017, it was estimated that just about 1 million people within the UK, 94% of that are men, use steroids or other IPEDs (Image and Performance Enhancing Drugs) to propel their muscle growth to dangerous levels. Most of that demographic were between the ages of 20 and 24, and over half were doing so for aesthetic reasons. There’s a wider health risk that few of those really consider, including risks of cardiac issues later down the road. What’s more, many reuse syringes and share multi-dose vials with friends, increasing the danger of infection and blood-borne viruses.
Dan Hancock is a private trainer who cites shows like Geordie Shore because the primary catalyst for men wanting to beef up. “They might see these guys on TV getting girls and thought that’s what they desired to appear like too,” he tells Dazed Beauty, “and so bodybuilding and getting as big as possible began to develop into increasingly common in guys aged between 18 and 30.” That, in turn, lead many men down the steroids route. It goes beyond being merely present in young bodybuilders nowadays; it’s commonplace and has catalysed an epidemic fuelled by naivety. “Lots of these young guys would take them and never actually know an entire lot about them,” Dan says. “Sometimes, they’d be taking three or 4 different ones directly. I spoke to a boy within the gym once who was injecting testosterone (a traditional male growth hormone), tren (short for Trenbolone, a potent steroid), and taking DBOL (dianabol, a steroid in pill form). Mainly, with that combination, you keep water and ‘look’ the part but without actually an enormous amount of muscle growth. [That guy] was also taking Anavar which shreds you, principally doing the precise opposite of DBOL. It was totally pointless, and it’ll fuck your liver and kidneys. My advice can be to steer clear: the health implications outweigh looking good for just a few years.” But it surely’s not only steroids which can be leading people down dangerous paths to look higher. The chemical DNP, designed to stop energy from being stored as fat, has develop into commonplace amongst dieters and bodybuilders. Within the UK alone, five people died from the complications it causes between January and June last 12 months.
It’s an infallible truth that men, despite what they argue, are products of society in terms of their body image. Be it baldness, dick size or the physique they fight to achieve, the lengths many are expected to go to are veering into dangerous territory. Sure, the healthy lives that private trainers like Dan and Devis help people lead are perfectly normal and totally encouraged, however the source of the issue that pushes people over the sting – from healthy to self-obsessed and hooked on steroids – continues to be something we’re struggling to handle.
Perhaps we want a body positivity movement for men that shows the form of healthy bodies a lot of us have in a recent light, as an alternative of the rippled six packs we obsess over? Or possibly, we want to reconsider the form of blokes who develop into idolised and gain weird sorts of agency in 2019. Is the laddish behaviour of beefcakes like Gaz from Geordie Shore the perfect narrative that men can strive to match when our lives don’t revolve around ‘pulling lasses’ in Zante nightclubs due to our A* bodies on a regular basis? The fantasy of perfection is reaping violent results, and as much as men are seldom hard done by, the pressure they placed on themselves to appear like Michelangelo’s David will literally be the death of us.
