Are You Body Confident?


A couple of months ago, our Surrogate, Lisa, was part of a Channel Mum campaign to embrace, be proud of and celebrate post-baby bodies. I was watching it to support Lisa and because I wholeheartedly support the notion that a woman can and should be able to be proud of her body after giving birth. Not only is it great for her, but it could have a positive impact on their children too, teaching them that is ok to be confident in their own body, no matter its shape or size. Lisa and the whole #mamafigure campaign got me thinking about my own body and how I feel. I will be honest here and say it has taken a lot of thought as to whether I was going to write about this but Lisa and all her fellow Channel Mum ladies have inspired and encouraged me. I feel it is time.

Obviously, I will never know what it is to have a post-baby body, that goes without saying. However, the campaign got me thinking about body confidence for all genders. Do I have body confidence? Am I comfortable in my own skin? It has also made me take a long hard look at my past and what I can only describe as a love-hate relationship with my body. You may ask why, but as a gay man looking to be a father, I want to be able to have that level of self-acceptance and confidence in my body and to be able to pass that confidence to my child. I feel it is a very important lesson to pass on to our children, especially in a world filled with influences about what is considered the 'perfect' body.

To use the word 'struggled' when talking about my own body issues may be overstating it slightly, or at least that is what I thought, so I didn't think I had ever truly struggled with my own body confidence. That said, there were certainly issues there which, looking back on, were very much part of an internalised struggle, with my own body and also my sexuality.

For many years, I was bullied for apparently looking and sounding gay. I was also picked on because I was quite a skinny kid but not unlike many of the lads in my class. I have no idea why, but I linked my being skinny to the bullying and the notion that I was gay. I felt I didn’t look ‘manly’ enough. This was difficult for me because, at that age, I genuinely didn’t think I was gay. I wasn’t attracted to guys or anything like that so I couldn’t understand why people kept saying it. I want to be clear here, even then I knew there was nothing wrong with being gay. I simply didn’t believe that I was. Sure, I was into music and drama but so were other guys. I couldn’t for the life of me work out why the bullies thought I looked gay. I guess that me being so adamant that I wasn’t gay actually gave the bullies even more power because they knew full well it bothered me. It made me angry, upset and frustrated all at the same time. I dated girls and tried so hard to prove that they were wrong. It was exhausting.

My attempts to prove the bullies wrong deepened when I looked at what was considered the ideal man on television. I remember wanting to be like one the ‘hard men’ you see on TV. Handsome, muscular and to a degree, aggressive. No one ever messed with them. I started to think that if maybe I looked a little more like them I wouldn’t be bullied anymore. I began to really hate how skinny I was but I couldn’t seem to do anything about it. I always had an incredibly ‘healthy’ appetite as the saying goes. I ate a lot and it made no difference. I didn’t ever put on any weight.

This desire to prove I wasn’t gay and therefore stop the bullying carried on throughout school until my last year perhaps. At the same, I did start to notice guys and I began to feel differently. For a time, I thought that perhaps I was gay but I put the blame on the fact I was skinny and was called gay so often it was like I was fulfilling what the bullies thought and so sadly, I continued to fight against it.

It wasn’t until I was in college that I really started accepting and properly exploring my sexuality. I finally started to come out to myself. I think the pivotal moment really happened by chance when I was walking to the shops at lunchtime with a couple of my course friends. One of those friends, Keeley, out of the blue just turned and said to me, ‘so Mark, I have to ask, are you Gay?’. Without even thinking about it I replied almost instantly, ‘Yes, yes I’m gay’. I remember saying the word and feeling two conflicting emotions. Part of me wished I could wish those words back into my mouth and the other part of me felt relief. It was such a huge relief that I could feel myself starting to cry. We talked about it and I admitted that it was the first time I had ever said it out loud.

After finally coming out, both to myself and to those around me (and believe me when I say it wasn’t everyone, it took years and years for me to finally be out and proud at all times as it were) I thought that perhaps the hatred I had for my skinniness and the way I was linking it to sexuality would dissipate. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Back then I was a lot more naïve about the types of gay people out there. I had started to read LGBT magazines, mainly Attitude. The first issue I ever bought (and hid in my bedroom because I hadn’t told my parents yet) was one of their annual naked issues. There were pages and pages of absolutely naked guys (with their modesty covered of course) and I remember noticing how gym fit they all were. It was filled with Actors, Singers, Sports Stars and the like – I distinctly remember enjoying the pages of a Rugby Team and all of them were muscular and toned.

For years, I inexplicably thought my skinniness was why everyone thought I was gay. Clearly, this was not the case and actually, it seemed that most gay people were also toned and buff. This further fuelled my desire to be a muscular Adonis type. For many years, I ignored it. I did not want, or I couldn’t afford a gym membership and to a degree, I despaired that I would never be able to build up enough to look anything like what I saw in magazines and so on.

Over the years I have had some stints in the gym, still trying to achieve that ideal, still trying to transform my body but each time with the same result. My biggest problem is my own impatience. I was working out daily and putting in the effort, drinking the protein shakes and so on but I wasn’t seeing any gains so after a few months I would stop going. The cycle repeated itself a lot. I always start out so determined to do it but I start to lose interest when I don’t see any results.

In the last two years, I have actually started to put a little bit of weight on. Mainly because I now have a desk job so I am not on my feet all day every day. I was actually really pleased to be putting a little bit on, certainly on my waist however that would seem to be the only place it goes. One of the biggest areas I have always wanted to change is my skinny arms and my non-existent chest. Any weight that I do manage to put on never seems to go there.

If I am honest, I am still not totally there with accepting my own body for what it is. I still, almost all of the time, refuse to be completely topless in public. I have always hated being topless because I don’t want people to see my skinny chest, even now that I have put on a little weight. I quite often feel ashamed of my body and its lack of ‘manliness’. I did once try to do a photo shoot on a beach with my shirt undone and I don’t think I have ever felt more uncomfortable. However, I am aware that body confidence has become a hot topic in more recent years with more and more people encouraging the idea that we all have different bodies for all different reasons and we should accept that.

One thing that struck me with the Channel Mum campaign is that it rightly focuses on those with mummy figures and it should, given their target audience. Generally speaking, I think women do bear the brunt of what the media deems a perfect female body but this issue is not exclusive to women. It is an issue for men too and an issue that does deserve to have attention. I would say that to an extent, the pressure for men is actually getting bigger. More and more famous men also have incredibly built bodies so it is only natural that it will lead to men feeling they need to live up to those images. One example would be the Marvel movies. Of course, they are superheroes and so they would have immaculate bodies built for saving the world. I get it I really do, but on a subconscious level, it also suggests that if you want to save the world, you need to be built like Chris Evans (the Captain America one, not the ginger one!). I know that for me, that would be ideal. It isn’t the body of the guy I want to date, it’s the body I want for myself. I know full well I can have that body if I am prepared to do the almost herculean amount of work required to get there and maintain it. I have to be realistic though. I don’t think I am capable of that level of dedication and exercise. Watching the #mamafigure video I realised that my real issue here is not that I lack the dedication to the gym. It is that I have a deeper-rooted issue with my own body, perceiving it to be inadequate or less than what a man’s body should be. This is in part due to the bullying I experienced and also wishing I could live up to the images I see in the world around me. I have to learn, just like many other men and women out there that my body is my body and as long as I am looking after it and living a reasonably healthy lifestyle, my body will do just fine. Especially now, as I am preparing to be a father, I want to be confident in my own skin and I want to be able to inspire my children to be confident in their own skin too.

In recent years, Attitude has run a feature in the magazine called ‘Real Bodies’ which features everyday men who are not celebrities, talking about their own bodies and their own issues or desires but ultimately standing proudly in the body they have with all the readers to see. I thoroughly enjoy that feature and hope they continue to present it each month. It is a beacon for anyone who has ever felt less than ideal or perfect in their own skin. There certainly needs to be more of that in the world.

From that and my own thoughts about my body, I feel inspired by the #mamafigure campaign. I too will try to accept my body for what it is. With that in mind and with the support of my husband (yes, you can have a partner and still have body issues!) and the support of my friends around me, I will be doing my small part for body confidence and acceptance through the #disney365 project which I have been doing on Instagram. I am hoping that, just like the wonderful mums in the video, I can get over the unhappiness I feel for my body but also show others that having a different body type, or one that doesn’t match the film stars at least, is ok. Periodically, I will share a body confidence related image on Instagram to show that you do not need to look like a superhero or a sports star to be a man. There are so many images of those ‘perfect’ bodies out there so I will be sharing images of my own body to reinforce the notion of body confidence and that you do not need to live up to the expectations that you see around you. It would exceptionally great if it inspired some other guys to join in. I will definitely be digging further into the issues around body confidence for us gay guys in future articles so if you have any thoughts, please let me know in the comments below.

The French have an expression, Bien dans sa peau, which literally translates as; well in their skin or ‘he fits his skin’ i.e. to be comfortable with themselves (comfortable in their own skin). Ultimately, my aim is also to be able to embrace, be proud of and celebrate my body.

The first image will live on my Instagram later on this evening. If you want to follow and add your support (I need support mainly because I am bricking it), you can do so HERE

Finally, I just want to say that I think the Channel Mum ladies are incredible and even though I am not a woman, their messages are still inspiring. So, as it says in the video below, please pass on the video to another fellow mum so that everyone can just start feeling better about themselves.




CONVERSATION

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