The body and beauty ideals of gay men

Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve let myself be pressured by such ideals of beauty and by the expectations I placed on myself and my body, and I’ve repeatedly struggled with the yo-yo effect whilst trying to lose weight. As a result, it was anything but easy to build up my self-esteem.

It wasn’t until I was over 30 that I felt grown-up and confident enough to free myself from this pressure and these stereotypical beauty standards. Yet beauty has nothing to do with standards or conforming to them. That’s what I hope to convey through my book.

I’ve, so to speak, contributed to this myself, as I’ve worked a lot in the fashion scene as a photographer. When I look through these pictures, they’re almost exclusively of well-toned, athletic people. People with a body type like mine, or the variety of body types I see at the swimming pool or in the sauna, don’t feature in them.

I wanted to counter the body image that social media – or the media in general – presents to us, which has recently become even more pronounced for men in particular due to the Ozempic craze and „Looksmaxxing“, and say: “Hey, you’re good enough. You don’t need to obsessively pursue this mania for self-optimisation.”.

Of course, you can try to look after your health and, if necessary, lose weight. But just because your body doesn’t conform to a particular ideal, that doesn’t mean you have any more or less reason to accept yourself.

At first, it was actually a bit difficult to convince people. I hadn’t originally planned to photograph exclusively gay men with masculine physiques. But as it turned out, gay men were much more open to the idea and willing to be photographed naked and looking sexy by a man.

My priority was for people to feel comfortable and seen – and not to feel as though they were being put on display. I found my first models amongst my circle of friends, then I started reaching out to suitable men on dating apps.

Over time, the whole thing took on a life of its own. During the four years I spent working on it, I also went on trips from time to time – to the Bear Festival in Sitges, for example – so that I could represent as wide a range of people as possible in my book, including, for instance, people of colour.

For many of them, this was the very first time they’d ever had their photograph taken in this way, and it was a huge test of their courage. Some of them were actually surprised by the pictures, which had a liberating quality to them: ‘Yes, I’m allowed to feel attractive, and I’m worthy of being photographed.’.

This sense of naturalness was very important to me. I didn’t want photos that catered to a particular fetish and would therefore only reach a very small audience. Rather, I wanted to create simple, beautiful portraits in which the men are simply a little heavier – and in this way bring images into society that have been far too few and far between until now.

I am convinced that, in the long term, a more diverse body image can become the norm if we expose society – and our community too – to images of larger bodies. In doing so, we will not only contribute to greater diversity, but also help such men gain greater visibility and, as a result, greater self-confidence.

The response has been overwhelming in some cases, particularly, of course, from those who took part. For some, it was a real liberating experience. But the feedback has been very positive from others too. It is somewhat paradoxical that you first have to break out of the mould to achieve this.

As I, too, live in a bubble, I didn’t really notice much of it. However, I did come across the odd comment under articles about the book in which overweight people were equated with an „unhealthy lifestyle“: it couldn’t possibly be that healthy, they said.

For people who know nothing but work and the gym, that’s an obvious judgement. How they choose to live their lives is entirely up to them. But they cannot impose their own view on others or say: „You’re living an unhealthy lifestyle and are therefore a worse person.“ After all, what lifestyle is actually one hundred per cent healthy?