Part 1: Beefcake Dysmorphia

Is the person in the mirror worthy of love? In this episode series I discuss body dysmorphia in the gay community with one of my oldest friends, Ashe! We can trace the modern phenomenon of body dysmorphia down to modern advertising and three groundbreaking revelations about the consumer. If you want to keep the customer clamoring for more, just appeal to their desires, habits, and fears. Women and gay men process advertising and media in similar ways - both groups are statistically more likely to take appeals to appearance and body image personally. Straight men, it seems, are oblivious. While advertising has come a long way in including women of all sizes, gay men are still internalizing a lot of negative media and engaging in a lot of unhealthy behaviors. This multi-part series covers a lot of ground. We get personal about our own body image issues and explore how gay male body image has changed throughout the 20th-21st centuries.