Artists like David Hockney preserved the essence of physique culture through homoerotic paintings Tom of Finland ramped up the aesthetic exponentially, creating explicit artwork featuring giant-dicked policemen fucking on the streets. This fixation with physique only grew over time.
With no X-rated mags to be found, gay men in search of bare flesh turned to bodybuilding magazines, some of which – most notably Physique Pictorial and Beefcake – became gay media staples in their own right, transforming everyday muscle men into objects of desire. Our desire for muscularity can be traced back to the heyday of ‘physique culture’, which blossomed in the 1950s and 1960s when censors cracked down on gay porn. Ideals may have changed and expanded over the last few decades, but ultimately little has shifted – and research shows that it’s having a real effect on both our mental and our physical health.Ĭrucially, there’s historical context to these standards.
It only takes a scroll through Grindr to see that a select few body types reign supreme when it comes to gay men: from oiled, glistening torsos to slim, hairless bodies, it seems our definitions of ‘beauty’ are fairly rigid within our so called ‘community’.
