It’s tough being a gay dude in the world today. We are presented with so many desirable body types that are available to us with a click of a button. Gone are the days of us reading fitness magazines or cruising the underwear section to get a glimpse of sexy men in various states of undress. The internet, especially Instagram, gives that to us 24/7/365. Men showing their near-naked goods in a variety of poses are flung at us as we continue to scroll down every social media platform.
This type of visibility can lead to many of us feeling jealous, envious, and insecure. It’s hysterical that Facebook and Instagram were initially designed for college kids to keep up with each other and to see your friends posting selfies with weird filters. Now it’s an all out double tapping, single fapping war to draw in the most amount of likes with the littlest amount of clothes on. No shade there, but it’s amazing how the social media spectrums have developed to this point and what it does to us mentally in the positive, negative, and neutral state as a result.
It’s good to remain neutral amid viewing a sea of hot guys online. The perspective one should have is that they are trying to further their lives with their body parts… not yours.
Comparing and contrasting your body to theirs doesn’t make sense. Even if you know the guy personally and they are trying to make you jealous of them, don’t take the bait. Men who constantly swerve in other people’s lanes of life are the most insecure ones out there as they feel the need to knock you down a couple of pegs to bring you to their level.
When I see a hot guy online, whether I know them or not, I find the attraction in them without making me feel like I need to be them. There can be a sexual desire there, but that’s a different story.
I believe that you should focus on making you what YOU want to feel and look like. I feel like if gay men did this then the world of body-shaming would be at a minimum. Sadly that isn’t the case, as it runs rampant on and off social media, but articles like the one I’m writing wouldn’t need to be done if we just stopped being jerks to one another about our physical appearance.
Bottom line: respect yourself, and be respectful of others in the process. Ignorance never does a body good.
This is the opinion of one contributing writer and may not be that of Instinct Magazine or other contributing writers.