28 votes

I worry for my teenage boys – the beauty standards for young men are out of control

29 comments

  1. [4]
    Gaywallet
    (edited )
    Link
    Thank you for this article. It's rare that beauty standards on men are highlighted or explored in any fashion. In a way, it makes sense, as many men do not prioritize these standards or at least...

    Thank you for this article. It's rare that beauty standards on men are highlighted or explored in any fashion. In a way, it makes sense, as many men do not prioritize these standards or at least not to the same extent that women typically do. However, the market of personal hygiene, beauty products and even makeup has been slowly expanding into the male market (with in some cases hilarious examples of man-ifying the products such as CAMO concealer).

    I'd like to quickly chime in with my own experience, very similar to that of @Micycle_the_Bichael. I've had body images for the majority of my life and have modeled my original ideal of a body off what the media was consistently and constantly showing me is ideal. Society showed me what the ideal body was through movies, advertisements (clothing and in particular underwear models), male gym and sport culture, shirtless men in tv shows such as baywatch, and countless other methods of displaying ripped dudes bodies. On the one hand, if you've put in all that work and have a body worth marveling at, fucking go for it bro (same to you ladies and enbies), but on the other hand we need to reconsider how we display these bodies through media in specific as it reinforces the idea that ripped bods are what's attractive.

    I mean, stop and think a second about literally any male movie star. How many of them aren't ripped? Remember how Chris Pratt was a loveable chubby dude from parks and rec and the first movie he ends up in he gets ripped as fuck in like 6-9 months (yet another tangential problem here is steroid use being hidden)? He was wearing clothes pretty much the entire movie, why did he need to get washboard abs?

    From my own perspective I've had a good deal of issues with my own self image not only because my body did not resemble what I saw, but because it also made me desire what I saw. I still struggle heavily today with my physical attraction to some of my partners (male and female; no enbies or others currently) because some of their bodies aren't represented regularly in media or at least aren't in a way that you can see that their bodies don't resemble a Greco-Roman statue. I've had countless talks with many individuals whom I find beautiful who want to do x or y to their body because when they look in the mirror they see little differences between where they are and where they want to be, precisely because what media displays to us as beauty standards is either unattainable by most (thanks, genetics) or at the very least unrealistic and not representative in my mind of true beauty. Beauty comes in the variation we see in the real world and we need to keep striving for better standards in media.

    12 votes
    1. [3]
      wundumguy
      Link Parent
      Re: the camo concealer, I wonder if there's a male version of the "pink tax" at play there. $30 for a tube seems like a lot to me but I don't know how much concealer usually costs

      Re: the camo concealer, I wonder if there's a male version of the "pink tax" at play there. $30 for a tube seems like a lot to me but I don't know how much concealer usually costs

      3 votes
      1. Micycle_the_Bichael
        Link Parent
        I’m going to say there looks to be a camo tax (or at least a “guys have no concept of how much this should cost just upcharge it” tax). $30 isn’t cheap but it isn’t unheard of since it is...

        I’m going to say there looks to be a camo tax (or at least a “guys have no concept of how much this should cost just upcharge it” tax). $30 isn’t cheap but it isn’t unheard of since it is allegedly vegan and cruelty free but I’m not sure of the quality so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

        5 votes
      2. Gaywallet
        Link Parent
        Really depends on the quality of the product. A lot of the male targeted beauty products are from saavy companies which realize they can relabel the same tube they are selling to women to instead...

        Really depends on the quality of the product. A lot of the male targeted beauty products are from saavy companies which realize they can relabel the same tube they are selling to women to instead target men with camo/black/red and violence/strength/sports themes. $30 isn't unreasonable for a concealer, but it would not surprise me if there's a camo tax added to whatever the equivalent female targeted concealer is. Often times this is concealed (ayy) behind a separate company providing the products targeted at men so it's difficult to know for sure.

        3 votes
  2. [13]
    gergir
    Link
    But normal, non-airhead girls, who are the majority from my perspective, don't give a hoot about those magazine mannequins. Just be clean, wash and brush your hair, wear adult, non-garish clothes,...
    • Exemplary

    But normal, non-airhead girls, who are the majority from my perspective, don't give a hoot about those magazine mannequins. Just be clean, wash and brush your hair, wear adult, non-garish clothes, talk intelligibly about interesting things, don't preen or brag. That's an attractive man.

    7 votes
    1. [2]
      Micycle_the_Bichael
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      I strongly disagree with this for 2 main reasons: It doesn't matter if people don't agree with what the media is portraying as beauty standards. Boys are still going to consume media and feel bad...
      • Exemplary

      I strongly disagree with this for 2 main reasons:

      1. It doesn't matter if people don't agree with what the media is portraying as beauty standards. Boys are still going to consume media and feel bad that they don't look like the person on screen and feel pressured to change. It is still going to be damaging to peoples self worth and self esteem and saying "well just don't pay attention to that" really just sounds like wanting to pretend a problem doesn't exist when it does. We have already seen with multiple marginalized groups (especially women and black people in the US and Asian people both in the US and their home countries) how important media's portrayal of body image is to defining how individuals feel about themselves. We shouldn't just not worry about it because its boys now. Just look at how men view the "ideal male body" to be a body builder whereas women are closer to what is colloquially called "dad bod" and how many men hate their body because it doesn't look like what they are told the ideal male body (big muscles everywhere) is. To add a bit of personal experience to this: I have BUTTLOADS of body image issues. I was a college athlete and so pretty in shape, mostly very toned muscle not much mass. Despite my partner and (before we were dating) many other people trying to convince me that I was attractive, I had and still have so much anxiety about my body. I work out 6 days a week trying to put on more and more muscle mass because I have this deeply ingrained image of what "attractive" looks like and see the difference between myself and that image and want to die. And that's even with me having constant reinforcement that I am attractive and knowing that the media portrayal isn't what most people attracted to men define as ideal. I've got all the information in the world to be confident and comfortable, yet here I am thinking about how to tweak my workout routine because I think my pecs and forearms make me look like a freak.

      2. Addressing the issue while it isn't what society defines as attractive is getting ahead of the curve. Again, we know media shapes public perception and is a major driving force in what society defines as attractive/fashionable/normal. If it is pushing unhealthy standards, we should address it now while most people agree rather than once society has accepted that as the norm.

      TL;DR: We should care about this because (1) It is going to affect boys self-worth regardless of if the people they want to fuck agree or not and (2) Media portrayal directly impacts societal views/norms and unhealthy images should be addressed before they become normalized.

      Edit: I said women a lot in my comment because I am a straight male, but that is a very hetero-focused view of society. Changing wording to better represent "people sexually attracted to men" rather than just women.

      30 votes
      1. patience_limited
        (edited )
        Link Parent
        There's a fair amount of research to show that at the fundamental level of genetically programmed sexual behavior, health is most attractive. Forget giant hypertrophied muscles, or fashionably...

        There's a fair amount of research to show that at the fundamental level of genetically programmed sexual behavior, health is most attractive. Forget giant hypertrophied muscles, or fashionably bony slenderness.

        What really entrains attraction is the combination of symmetry, clear skin, smoothly graceful movement, straight teeth, uniform hair, adequate body fat reserves, and quick intelligence. Bonus if you can show competitive strength, speed or cleverness, but the vast majority of people in developed nations are physically attractive at first glance without major interventions needed.

        [And I've had my own problems in this realm; it's one thing to have the intellectual tools to fight the bullshit, but another to have internalized them emotionally.]

        10 votes
    2. [3]
      Death
      Link Parent
      I don't know if this comment was made to address the thesis of the article, or to the people in this thread but.... Saying "don't worry, most people will think you're attractive enough" to...

      I don't know if this comment was made to address the thesis of the article, or to the people in this thread but....
      Saying "don't worry, most people will think you're attractive enough" to somebody who suffers from body image issues is like telling a depressive person to look on the bright side of life. You're not wrong but you're either not getting, or refusing to see, what is actually going on.

      Body image issues, like any mental issue, aren't incorrect conclusions people have been logically argued into, therefore they can't also be logically argued out of it.

      19 votes
      1. [2]
        patience_limited
        Link Parent
        Just an aside from someone who's undergone a fair amount of CBT for dysmorphia; it's not a matter of arguing people out of the cognitive distortion. But it can help to have your attention drawn to...

        Just an aside from someone who's undergone a fair amount of CBT for dysmorphia; it's not a matter of arguing people out of the cognitive distortion. But it can help to have your attention drawn to evidence that supports alternative explanations. Not "I'm ugly and therefore worthless", but "These five people have told you that you're attractive. What's keeping you from believing that? And even if no one's told you you're attractive (that you can recall), what's your evidence that ugly people are worthless?"

        4 votes
        1. Death
          Link Parent
          This has been my experience with CBT as well but from that experience and having talked about it I still feel like there's an important distinction: CBT isn't about learning to think more...

          This has been my experience with CBT as well but from that experience and having talked about it I still feel like there's an important distinction: CBT isn't about learning to think more rationally. It's about realizing how your brain operates and rationalizes away destructive patterns of thought, and learning to shut these down or reroute them as needed. How you go about that doesn't need to be strictly speaking logical or rational, it just needs to be acceptable to you.

          For me one of the core phrases became "what's the use in me thinking like this?", that helped me gain a lot of grip on depressive spirals in a way that seems really simple but took me quite a while to fully internalize.

          2 votes
    3. [2]
      NaraVara
      Link Parent
      You should reconsider how you talk about people. Women who care about fashion or appearances aren't airheads by definition and quite a few of them are likely smarter than you. I know quite a few...

      But normal, non-airhead girls, who are the majority from my perspective, don't give a hoot about those magazine mannequins.

      You should reconsider how you talk about people. Women who care about fashion or appearances aren't airheads by definition and quite a few of them are likely smarter than you. I know quite a few very attractive, professional women who go through extra trouble to dress down and look a little bit frumpy in certain professional contexts because of attitudes like this.

      13 votes
      1. Gaywallet
        Link Parent
        To add to this one of the smartest women I know is also one of the most drop dead gorgeous women I've ever met and she has been heavily discriminated against in the workplace because of this. The...

        To add to this one of the smartest women I know is also one of the most drop dead gorgeous women I've ever met and she has been heavily discriminated against in the workplace because of this. The following are a few examples of ideas, concepts, or direct wording of what she's been told:

        • You're too pretty to be that smart
        • You're too distracting in meetings
        • You're just here to be pretty, not to provide input
        • If you want to move up in your career, you need <redacted> to get to know you better. You should meet up with them over drinks or dinner after work.
        • (in response to a colleague who hadn't seen her in some time stopping by to say hello and ask about her when leaving a meeting) you haven't seen me either in just as long but you're not stopping to ask me how I am

        Among countless other reactions and stories. 😩

        11 votes
    4. [4]
      Comment deleted by author
      Link Parent
      1. Gaywallet
        Link Parent
        Yes but how do you separate what society expects them to say or has molded them to say from what their true desires and passions are? It's practically impossible. Also, this is inherently biased...

        If your partner is female ask her who her celebrity crush is and it's likely to be some variation of "Chris Hemsworth, Zack Efron, Nick Jonas, Channing Tatum etc", all very manequin like men.

        Yes but how do you separate what society expects them to say or has molded them to say from what their true desires and passions are? It's practically impossible.

        Also, this is inherently biased by your own experiences and who you've dated and asked this question of. I'd like to see some actual survey data. Better yet, design a study where images of individuals are generated by a computer and then attractiveness is rated. Studies have shown surprising results when this kind of things is done, where statistically average faces are actually rated as more attractive than distinctive ones and faces made to appear more average by good framing and photography are also rated higher. I would suspect similar findings when an entire body is considered but I have yet to find a study which does so.

        9 votes
      2. [2]
        gergir
        (edited )
        Link Parent
        I don't have a partner. I'm female (2 X chrosomomes). So are my 97 co-students, none of whom are older than 17. What I wrote is consensus here; especially among the youngest. We had 2 guests last...

        I don't have a partner. I'm female (2 X chrosomomes). So are my 97 co-students, none of whom are older than 17. What I wrote is consensus here; especially among the youngest.

        We had 2 guests last year for a charity event. Old balding corpulent television actor, young popstar. After their speeches we went to the lawn for cake and questions. There were 2 or 3 15y-olds by the pop fellow, over 70 by the actor, who's also ugly by modern standards. Why? Well, because my comment is true.

        p.s. I don't know the people you listed.

        EDIT - general remark to all who commented: I said girls, not women

        2 votes
        1. Gaywallet
          Link Parent
          I'm confused about what you're trying to say here - are you saying the popstar wasn't clean, washed, hair brushed, etc.? Are you saying that beauty didn't affect how interesting someone is? Are...

          I'm confused about what you're trying to say here - are you saying the popstar wasn't clean, washed, hair brushed, etc.? Are you saying that beauty didn't affect how interesting someone is? Are you saying that women can be intellectually interested in people regardless of how they look?

    5. Micycle_the_Bichael
      Link Parent
      Making a second comment to address a separate point: I would challenge you to look at why you assume women who have subscribed to societies suggestion of male beauty are airheads, because this...

      Making a second comment to address a separate point:

      But normal, non-airhead girls, who are the majority from my perspective, don't give a hoot about those magazine mannequins.

      I would challenge you to look at why you assume women who have subscribed to societies suggestion of male beauty are airheads, because this belief seems to imply that women who are influenced by what the media describes as the ideal body are stupid, which I think is really insulting to women. Also, in what could be irony, I think maybe part of the reason you believe women who subscribe to caring about "magazine mannequins" are airheads is because most major media portrays this and you've actually been conditioned to believe women who like 'magazine mannequins' by media! What a cruel twist that would be.

      At the end of all this, one point I want to stress is that all I am saying is these are things to reflect on and consider. I don't know who you are as a person, what media you consume, how it has affected you, or what your beliefs are. Nor am I saying your thoughts and views are uncommon or make you a bad person. All I am saying is that @Loire, @NaraVara, @Gaywallet, and myself all read a layer of sexism in that portion of your statement and would challenge you to inspect your own biases.

      7 votes
    6. gergir
      Link Parent
      Thanks to the member who gave me that label; very kind of you!

      Thanks to the member who gave me that label; very kind of you!

      1 vote
  3. [2]
    Bullmaestro
    (edited )
    Link
    Surprised to see an article like this coming from the Guardian. Emma's totally correct and it's become a great issue. Male beauty standards have skyrocketed and Western society has become so...

    Surprised to see an article like this coming from the Guardian.

    Emma's totally correct and it's become a great issue. Male beauty standards have skyrocketed and Western society has become so hypergamous that it's breeding a generation of embittered men, many of whom are turning towards the toxic manosphere for guidance when society has shunned them.

    Love Island is a glaring symptom of this societal strive for absolute male perfection. It's a trashy, overhyped British reality TV show where the typical male contestant looks like this. Having a chiseled jawline, rock hard abs, a tall muscular physique, a good looking face and not a single imperfection on your skin is a requirement to even be considered as a male contestant for this show. And there's been very little objection to this.

    Nearly all of the male contestants on that show could legitimately model for fashion magazines. Meanwhile, some of the female contestants look rather average by comparison. It's also interesting that the producers listened to calls for more diversity in the cast by selecting a plus sized female contestant for the 2019 season while not even considering any changes to the male cast.

    It's like to even be considered an eligible bachelor in this day and age, a man has to look like a Chippendale.

    6 votes
    1. patience_limited
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      I don't have any particular interest in Love Island, but from the discussions I've seen, it's interesting that there's a growing amount of "eye candy" targeted for the straight female or gay male...

      I don't have any particular interest in Love Island, but from the discussions I've seen, it's interesting that there's a growing amount of "eye candy" targeted for the straight female or gay male gaze. Clearly, someone's decided those are target markets with money worth pursuing.

      Ultimately, all of these representations of "perfect" men or women exist to sell products - either entertainment featuring fantasy mates, or self-corrections towards these artificial ideals. As this article pointed out, the manufacture of dissatisfaction is the basis of advertising culture.
      The more unreachable and unrealistic the goal might be for a majority of viewers, the better. In the huckster's ideal world, the gap between reality and desire is a bottomless sucking void into which consumers can pour money.

      It doesn't say anything about whether this artificially fostered body worship is healthy. Given that many of the things which prevent us from having healthy bodies in the first place are already the results of manipulated consumption - processed foods, endocrine disrupting pollutants, minimized exercise opportunities because we're stuck in cars and working so hard to afford more crap...

      It seems like maintaining awareness of how sick this capitalized framework is ought to help people fight back against being sold yet more magic nutrition powders and cosmetics and services to fix ourselves. Loving yourself is opposing capitalism at its most toxic extreme.

      8 votes
  4. krg
    Link
    I was quite hefty as a lad (reaching maximum heft in high school, ~5'9" ~250lb and little muscle mass) and was of course exposed to media representing "peak" physical structure same as any other....

    I was quite hefty as a lad (reaching maximum heft in high school, ~5'9" ~250lb and little muscle mass) and was of course exposed to media representing "peak" physical structure same as any other. Not sure how hard that influenced my want to lose weight, but I did. Slowly, but surely. Also worked on getting fit. Honestly can't say that was due to any pressure, though, besides the pressure I put on myself. Not being able to jog even a quarter of a mile in high school to being able to run 5 miles at ~30 years of age leaves me feeling pretty damn good.

    That said, it's definitely a goal of mine to have a defined look (or at least some visible abs) at some point, if only for a couple of months. If only so that in my old age I can back look at pictures of me at the beach or at a family gather with my shirt off for no good reason and think "damn, I was a hunk!" Plus, y'know, the whole "quality of life" thing.

    Anyway, it's strange that this article is framing the issue as a problem of the times when preying on boys' insecurities has been a thing since at least those bulk-up ads in old comic books.

    6 votes
  5. [9]
    culturedleftfoot
    Link
    Not sure how sexist I am being here, but I'm very hesitant to believe this is too much more than a mother getting some insight into the world of boys becoming men... I'd have taken this a lot more...

    Not sure how sexist I am being here, but I'm very hesitant to believe this is too much more than a mother getting some insight into the world of boys becoming men... I'd have taken this a lot more seriously if it were coming from a father. What she points to seems your standard commercialization of insecurities (which is not to be applauded either), but I'm sure the rise of dating apps like Tinder have done significantly more to increase the pressure to compete visually by expanding access to a near-infinite supply of supposedly-available potentials. Still, there is no getting around the fact that beauty simply doesn't hold the same priority for boys as girls, so the impact will necessarily differ.

    3 votes
    1. [6]
      Death
      Link Parent
      I don't really understand what you mean by this? Where's the dividing line between the experiences of the mother and father in this context?

      Not sure how sexist I am being here, but I'm very hesitant to believe this is too much more than a mother getting some insight into the world of boys becoming men... I'd have taken this a lot more seriously if it were coming from a father.

      I don't really understand what you mean by this? Where's the dividing line between the experiences of the mother and father in this context?

      3 votes
      1. [5]
        culturedleftfoot
        Link Parent
        It's perspective, in much the same way a mother will be worried about her boys playing too rough whereas a father will tolerate a few scraped knees and busted lips so that they know how to scrap...

        It's perspective, in much the same way a mother will be worried about her boys playing too rough whereas a father will tolerate a few scraped knees and busted lips so that they know how to scrap if they really need to. Her fears are primarily based on her intimate understanding of how (much) beauty standards impact girls, not an intimate understanding of how (much) it affects boys. It's comparable but only up to a point, and she doesn't seem to acknowledge that.

        3 votes
        1. [4]
          Death
          Link Parent
          I feel like this is kind of a weird analysis of the article, because her personal experience serves as the launching point towards a broader discussion underscored by national health statistics....

          Her fears are primarily based on her intimate understanding of how (much) beauty standards impact girls, not an intimate understanding of how (much) it affects boys. It's comparable but only up to a point, and she doesn't seem to acknowledge that.

          I feel like this is kind of a weird analysis of the article, because her personal experience serves as the launching point towards a broader discussion underscored by national health statistics. Mentioning that her experience and understanding isn't the same as her husband's wouldn't add much to the article other than paying lip service to the general idea that it is a thing.

          4 votes
          1. [3]
            culturedleftfoot
            Link Parent
            Okay, but I'm not saying she is wrong, simply that I remain skeptical, and I said why. As I read it, the article serves as that launching point because she is able to find stats that support her...

            Okay, but I'm not saying she is wrong, simply that I remain skeptical, and I said why.

            As I read it, the article serves as that launching point because she is able to find stats that support her concerns. There may (or may not) be stats that don't, and I'm not sure that she would have parsed them properly or even found them simply because she is approaching the issue with a blind spot that it seems she's not acknowledged. To me, there is so much relevant info that the article does not broach that I'm not sure how much value it has other than the general idea that contemporary exposure to unreal beauty standards is a thing.

            1 vote
            1. [2]
              Gaywallet
              Link Parent
              I'm really confused about what you're trying to say here. First you argue that it's from the female perspective and is perhaps overly concerned about an issue that may not exist, but then you say...

              I'm really confused about what you're trying to say here.

              First you argue that it's from the female perspective and is perhaps overly concerned about an issue that may not exist, but then you say being overly concerned is a blind spot? If she's more sensitive to the issue than she needs to be it's not that she has a blind spot, it's that her specificity and concern are overblown. If she has a blind spot, she's not sensitive enough to the issue.

              I remain skeptical

              It seems to me that you are skeptical because it doesn't affect you and you don't think it affects other males because you are male. Why must other males experience the same world you experience? Why can issues not be raised about things for which you have an arguably healthy response to, but affect others?

              In short: why are you gate-keeping what is considered an 'important issue' to the experience of males or what's problematic to male society? Why does simply the fact that the commenter is female matter at all? Are females entirely incapable of being educated in or informed of the male experience?

              3 votes
              1. culturedleftfoot
                Link Parent
                I'm saying her concern may be overblown; the blind spot I referred to is her not recognizing her own ignorance of the male experience. I think your personal resonance with this issue is reading...

                I'm saying her concern may be overblown; the blind spot I referred to is her not recognizing her own ignorance of the male experience.

                In short: why are you gate-keeping what is considered an 'important issue' to the experience of males or what's problematic to male society? Why does simply the fact that the commenter is female matter at all? Are females entirely incapable of being educated in or informed of the male experience?

                I think your personal resonance with this issue is reading bad faith into my posts. Again, I'm not saying whether or not she's right or wrong. My point is that this article is not convincing to me, someone who knows the issue is more complicated than laid out here... and I happen to know that largely because of my being male. She does not demonstrate any real understanding of the male experience and admits her concern comes primarily from her personal experience as a young girl. If it were a man who wrote the article I'd judge the claim to have a different weight only because I could reasonably assume he'd have engaged with a thousand other factors which are not mentioned here. Any woman writer can demonstrate that explicitly (if they actually have done that thinking) but this one has not, and I don't support handling the issues facing our young boys and girls based on untested assumptions.

                2 votes
    2. [2]
      NaraVara
      Link Parent
      This article is talking about school aged boys who, by and large, are not going to be on Tinder or other dating apps. The issues you see on those apps are downstream of the issues with...

      but I'm sure the rise of dating apps like Tinder have done significantly more to increase the pressure to compete visually by expanding access to a near-infinite supply of supposedly-available potentials.

      This article is talking about school aged boys who, by and large, are not going to be on Tinder or other dating apps. The issues you see on those apps are downstream of the issues with socialization the article highlights here.

      3 votes
      1. culturedleftfoot
        Link Parent
        Online dating and its baggage (selfies, curated profiles, etc) has become such a part of the zeitgeist that I think it's part of said socialization. Teens aren't shielded from it until they hit...

        Online dating and its baggage (selfies, curated profiles, etc) has become such a part of the zeitgeist that I think it's part of said socialization. Teens aren't shielded from it until they hit 18, it's on Facebook, IG, and whatever else the kids are using these days.

        4 votes