Ep 5. Body Dysmorphia

Body Dysmorphia is a disorder more common in gay ns queer men than in straight men. We look at the numbers and address what may be causing this and how we might be able to alleviate dysmorphic feelings. 

Transcript

BODY DYSmorphia

Hello Bros and hos and theys and thems- This is Gay Bro Shit- A podcast for 

And You can call me Brosephine Bonaparte- because I too love a short King..although Napolean wasn't that short and he was never a King- because history is complex and people always want to simplify it to the point of abstraction

A week ago I released the first four episodes - and did zero marketing so I'm delighted to see y'all are already listening and especially the 25% of my audience in Japan- did not expect that- but I would love to go there someday. 

Today we will be talking about body dysmorphic disorder and a few related concepts and for me this was an important foundational topic for this show because it lays the groundwork for a lot of body image issues we experience.

It was also something I was very slow to get to because it was going to be a research-intensive project and I had a bunch of assumptions I was operating on going in and As I did research I realized I was definitely not as knowledgeable as I thought - so I got to learn a lot. 

And this is a massive topic that could fuel several PhD dissertations

So first we have to start by getting very technical and giving some definitions

So let’s open up the DSM (that's the literal guidebook for mental health professionals to issue a diagnosis. And it's a 4 part definition. 

A. Preoccupation with one or more perceived defects or flaws in physical appearance that are not observable or appear slight to others.

B. At some point during the course of the disorder, the individual has performed repetitive behaviors (e.g., mirror checking, excessive grooming, skin picking, reassurance seeking) or mental acts (e.g., comparing his or her appearance with that of others) in response to the appearance concerns.

So in common usage, these first two points are really what most people mean when they say Body Dysmorphia. But this only describes the feelings and behaviors experienced. And I think this is what most people experience who say they have it or think they have it-

But in order to rise to the level of a ‘disorder’ we need to go a bit further. 

C. The preoccupation causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational or other areas of functioning.

D. The appearance preoccupation is not better explained by concerns with body fat or weight in an individual whose symptoms meet diagnostic criteria for an eating disorder.

So most people who say or think they have Body Dysmorphia probably don't experience this as a disorder- meaning they probably don't experience clinically significant distress or impairment. 

Most people who experience feelings or behaviors of Body Dysmorphia can still go to work, leave the house, and experience a social life or date or have sex- whereas people with a disorder cannot do these things because they are so preoccupied with their appearance. 

We don't know exactly how many people have the disorder because it tends to be underdiagnosed- but its probably between 1 and 2.5% of the population. 

And about one-third of the people with the disorder experience the delusional subtype where they’re seeing things that literally don't exist.  And in the remainder, the object of their fixation may be real- but they’re over valuing the importance of it. 

The disorder itself is classed in with obsessive compulsive disorder because the behaviors are similar. 

So when we talk about Body Dysmorphia as a cultural phenomenon we generally are just talking about the thoughts and behaviors we have that are caused by the way we view our physical selves that cause us some amount of distress and preoccupation- and for the rest of this episode were mostly talking about this version of the body dysmorphia that is not technically a disorder but just a subset of low self-image or self-esteem

There is also a related issue called Body Image Disturbance which is not a disorder in and of itself but is typically a symptom of somone with an eating disorder. Features of that include:

• altered body size estimation and altered perception of the body and its shapes;[26][4]
• mental images of one's body appearing distorted or overweight;[1]
• frequently third-person mental view of one's body;[27]
• negative body-related thoughts;[28]
• frequent body-checking behaviors;[29]
• frequent comparisons between one's own body and the bodies of others;[30]
• emotions of anxiety, shame, and contempt for one's body.

To me, this sounds a lot like what most people mean when they say Body Dysmorphia, even though were not talking about eating disorders specifically, but we are going to loop this into the discussion

Alright so let's go over the various forms Body Dysmorphia commonly takes

• Preoccupation with specific features. For example your nose, or your stomach, or your cankles, etc.  Specifically with gay men dick size might be a specific concern. 

• Preoccupation with body fat and/or weight where we see ourselves or certain features as being less attractive to others. This is what is more commonly experienced by women- but It can also be experienced by cis gay men and is certainly experienced by a lot of trans and non-binary people as well. 

• Muscle Dysmorphia or ‘Bigorexia’- which is when you think you’re muscles are insufficiently large or underdeveloped. And this is probably what most of the people listening will have experienced because it's much more common in men, particularly cis gay men. 

So I found a study out of New Zealand and Australia and I’m just going to read this section from it. 

It has been observed that men who have sex with men (MSM) have a unique relationship with the development of muscle dysmorphia symptoms. MSM are at increased risk for experiencing internalized heterosexism, which can lead to dissatisfaction with one's body and the internalizing of standards for attractiveness.[29] Men who conform to conventional ideals of masculinity often report increased stress from not meeting the imposed standard of a masculine and muscular body.[30] In a sample of 2,733 MSM who reported body dissatisfaction, only one in every 10 reported feeling no dissatisfaction with their muscularity. 

Dissatisfaction with muscularity had a stronger relationship with quality of life impairment when compared to dissatisfaction with body fat, height, and penis size.[31]

Those who identify as a sexual minority are at increased risk for victimization due to their identity. Having been a victim of homophobic bullying is associated with more symptoms of muscle dysmorphia. A possible cause for this relationship can be the increased feelings of paranoid ideation that a MSM individual can experience following homophobic bullying.[32]

https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fmen0000149

So this study was done in a different country and its possibly that if it had been done in North America the results would be a bit different- but culturally Australia and New Zealand are pretty close to the US and Canada so I think it's a good proxy. 

So 90% of the men reported feeling dissatisfied with their muscle size. That is nearly everyone. . .

I also found a survey by the Trevor Project- where 87% of queer youth reported not being satisfied with their bodies. So almost 90% of queer children

Then I found some data from the OCD & Related Disorders Program at Massachusetts General Hospital, there is a 32% prevalence rate of body dissatisfaction among gay men, compared to 24% for heterosexual men. So basically one third higher. 

They also reported that body dissatisfaction was 35% for lesbians, and 38 for heterosexual women.  So queer women actually seem less likely to experience dysmorphia. 

Furthermore, while gay men comprise an estimated 2-4% of the US population, however, they represent 12.5% of all men diagnosed with BDD.  And so we're more likely to have the disorder, but I think maybe because gay men are more likely to seek treatment for a variety of reasons including generally having higher incomes and better access to health care so we might just be more likely to get diagnosed.

So of course when we talk about a problem we feel compelled to talk about what’s causing it. 

Just like with most mental health issues, it's multifactorial. There’s going to be genetic causes, personality traits, and environmental factors that would make someone more likely to develop these issues.

But the one thing that absolutely contributes to is is childhood trauma. A 2021 survey of people with BDD found that 78.7% reported a history of childhood maltreatment: 

emotional neglect (68.0%), emotional abuse (56.0%), physical abuse (34.7%), physical neglect (33.3%), and sexual abuse (28.0%). 

Forty percent of subjects reported severe maltreatment.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1633716/

So when we go back to the other study specifically looking at gay men- we can see how experiencing bullying or violence in childhood or adolescence can absolutely lead to body dysmophia

I think psychologically- a lot of people, particularly men who have been in a situation where they have been threatened or experienced violence would then want to prevent it from happening again by looking as big and intimidating as possible. 

And also as a reaction to the shame we might experience for being insufficiently masculine, or for being too feminine or just not adhering to societal norms. 

For Myself- I was never specifically bullied for being gay as a kid- but that is definitely a component of how I look now because being big and muscular affords me a lot of security. I look like I can defend myself and because of that people very rarely fuck with me. 

I was having a conversation with a black friend who, even though is a man, was basically telling me there is almost nowhere they feel safe- whereas as a muscular white men, I can maybe count on one hand the number of times I’ve felt physically unsafe somewhere in this country. I was able to take a solo road trip around a lot of the rural south and Midwest without ever once feeling like someone was going to attack me. Whereas I had a trans friend who really wanted to go with me and didn't feel safe going to a lot of the states I visited and so they stayed home in Portland. 

And so I imagine that feeling of safety that comes from looking big and muscular is magnified for p.o.c men and trans men who have to work even harder to overcome that ingrained feeling of being in danger that comes with being a member of a disadvantaged population. And you add in people who have multiple disadvantaged identities and you can really see how this explodes. 

And of course, nobody should need to look a certain way to feel safe existing in the world but that is the reality we live in, so we can't really criticize people for buying into that when it is a very valid position. 

But beyond projecting an image for safety theres another reason we experience dysmoprhic feelings and thats what i’m calling the Aesthetics of desire. Which is a lot of people- particularly queer people and gay men- want to look like what they are attracted to sexually. And when theres a disconnect between what we look like and what we’re attracted to be that can be really distressing. 

Growing up- I’m old enough we didnt have social media until I was in college- so we didnt have influencers but we did have a lot of traditional media and the magazine rack was like the library of Alexandria for what was going on in the world. 

One of the ah-hah moments i had when I was going through puberty was seeing the male bodies in muscle and fitness magazines and really being attracted to them in ways I didnt fully understand. I had been interested in girls up to this point and was still getting crushes on them well into high school- but asthetically I was attracted to the male body- and particularly the muscular male body. 

The 90’s was also the era of glorifying shirtless men with abs- both film and tv- like Baywatch was (and I think still is) the most watched tv show in the world. And we saw this kind of man in action moves, in romcoms, on daytime tv and then on prestige cable. Brad pitt’s torso in fight club is still held up as sort of the epitome of masculine beauty. 

We also had advertising for brands like Calvin Klein and Abercrombie and Fitch that really put the athletic, male, lean, mosty white body front and center. And I bought into this so hard and desperately wanted to have this kind of physique only to be utterly devastated when I couldnt obtain it because its just not what my genetics dictate. 

What is advertising if not a way of manufacturing desire? This extends to our sexuality and our bodies. 

Then in 2000’s we get social media. While alot of platforms are more text dominate like facebook and twitter- we get platforms that are more completely about image like tumblr and instagram 

Tumblr- for those who dont remember- Is a blogging site where anyone can cultivate a feed and repost other peoples content or generate their own- and up until they banned porn in 2018 it was the place to go for porn and nudity. 

I’m not going to talk too much about this platform other than to say 

1. I miss it
2. I think the imagery that was popular on the site, particularly directed at queer men was still predominately focused on white, lean and muscular bodies
3. BUT, it was a great place to find communities of people who were focused on other asthetics values- like you could find chubby chasers and feeders and gainers, and a wide variety of diversity in bodies and ethnic backgrounds and racial backgrounds. And i do think it helped to build up some of these sub-communities and make people feel less alone in their desires. I personally found it really empowering to see how many people were into stocky men like myself. Im sure alot of other people found it empowering to see people who looked like themselves being shared and held up as an object of desire. 

Instagram- great for the conventional asthetic

In 2010 we got perhaps the most harmful app of all- Instagram. 

And the wild thing about this app, is that the company itself knows its harmful: 

The wall street journal ran a story where they reported on an internal presentation that the company gave that found that when 32% of teenage girls “felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse.”

They also found that Instagram research showed that, among teenage users who reported suicidal thoughts, 13% of British users and 6% of American users traced those feelings to their use of Instagram. 

So the app is literally killing people.

Notice I said girls specifically, but a separate study found that Men and women experience instagram caused distress at the same rate- so we can extrapolate and say a third of all people of all genders experience feeling bad about their bodies specifically becuase of instagram. 

https://time.com/6098771/instagram-body-image-teen-girls/

Another study looked at a sample of more that 3000 random instagram posts that focused on male fitness. They found these posts using a selection of hashtags related to lifting and fitness. 

62% of the post featured men with low body fat and only 6% showed people with high body fat

41% of the post showed men with high muscularity, while 17% featured men with low muscularity

Oddly enough 71% of the post feature fully cvlothed men- and only 27% showed men who were either shirtless or naked. 

And of course 55% of the men where white. 

So the most predominant male body in fitness related content is white men with low body fat and high muscularity. Perhaps completely unsurprising

Also unsurprisingly they found that the post that featured men with low body fat and high muscularity received significantly more engagement and likes regardless of wether the person was clothed or not. 

https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/cyber.2019.0368

Dating Apps

In the gay male community we also have to talk about the rise and dominance of dating apps.

According to our bible- wikipedia.org- the first gay centered dating website was GayDar which launched in 1999. It was the most popular website for the first 5 or 6 years of online dating

The next big website that came along was Manjunt.net. And what manhunt that that made it different is that it focused almost exclusively on sexual compatability. This site was launched in 2001 and by 2006 it had become the most popular gay website in the world period. Both Manhunt and Gaydar introduced the feature of having a private album where people could upload and share x-rated pics. And I dont know if Gaydar had this feature, but on Manhunt you could list your dick size-positions,etc. and This is where the custom of adding an inch for the internet begins- or two inches for some people. Or I dont know- like 4centimeters if youre anywhere else in the world. Always confusing if you were traveling or just looking at people in other cities and would see like 22cm and have no idea how big that was- 

Then in 2009 We get the first mobile phone app with a GPS location feature. And that was of course GRINDR. 

I dont need to cover this app in great detail because were all familiar with it probably- But apparently it has about 11 million active users worldwide. And I think the most striking thing about the app is the grid of photos you see when you login that instantly conveys a message about the dominant asthetic values in whatever area of the world you’re looking at it. It also introduced an element of gamification. Meaning using the app feels like you're playing a game..

And then we got a series of successive apps that replicated the user experience of grindr with slight tweaks and focusing on ever more niche aspects of the gay dating pool. But in all these variations the centrality of bodily asthetics was always present. Because the photo grid of users was always the main feature 

And users quickly realized that the more skin they showed in ther profile pics the more messages and attention they would receive. So a feedback loop was created wherein now we have a culture of gay men working out specifically to look good for their profile photos. 

According to a 2021 survey- 10.1% of all same sex or queer couples met via an app- and this really surprised me because I thought it would be higher but I guess the key word here is ‘couple’ because the primary purpose of most gay dating apps is not dating but casual sex-

But more surprisingly 19.6% of couples reported meeting at a bar or restaurant which was more popular than any other single response. Because the narrative is that the apps killed gay bars- and that may be somewhat true- but not when it comes to a place to meet potential partners. 

However if you combine all the online platforms, apps, website, social media, etc. you get a total of 65% of all couples meeting online in some form or other. So its very much the dominant way people meet. 

https://datingarmory.com/how-straight-and-gay-couples-meet-statistics-lgbt/

Porn 

Of course we also have to talk about our porn consumption. Depending on who you ask 

 96-99% of gay men watch porn, compared to 72-76% for straight men.

So almost every gay men watches porn. 

In a 2017 study published in the Archives of Sexual Behviour. They surveyed a little over 1000 gay and bisexual men and the the average porn viewership was 3 hours per week.

They also found Greater consumption of porn was directly related to increased negative body attitudes and symptoms of both depression and anxiety.

Unfortunately this study was behind a paywall so I could see the exact numbers but there was apparently a significant link. 

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-017-1045-y

And to be clear I’m not demonizing porn becuase I think it has a bunch of benefits- I’m just throwing it onto the pile of things that influence how we feel about our bodies. 

Another study released in 2023 found that men who viewed more porn were more likley to develop eating disorders- and again this was behind a paywall so I couldnt see exactly what numbers they found. 

Maybe if this show ever makes money then I’ll start buying all these articles. 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1740144523000402

And, late breaking news Pornhub just released their year review for 2023 and We can take a look at the top search and category terms to see what aesthetics are popular

In terms of search terms- the number one term was Twink, followed by anime, pinoy, asian and hentai….so definitely a theme there….notably bear or chubby or any other body type was on the list

In terms of most popular categories- as in the ones pronhub has already designated. Number one was Straight guys- followed by Black and Twink in third place. Way down at the very bottom was ‘bear’. I cross references the categories on the porn hub website- and  categories that did not make the most popular list were chubby, jock and muscular- and that was surprising because Bear was more popular than muscular or jock even. 

So from this we can glean that the thin body still dominates in the asthethics of porn. 

And the elephant in the room- or the elephant trunk in the room is how porn might give us warped perceptions of dick size. Because most male porn stars have dicks that are at least above average. So if we're exposed to a lot of dicks via porn it's easy for us to assume that that's the norm- and that therefore our dick might be small. 

But of course, the angle we look at our dicks  from, from above is very different than the angles we see dicks filmed at so that warps our perceptions. And a lot of porn stars are shorter because, an above average dick looks huge on a person who's not very big or tall. 

Now there's not much we can do about the size of our dicks because it's just something we don't have a choice in- just like our height, eye color, or skin color, etc. 

So when we combine all this, our social media usage, our access to porn, our dating apps, our traditional media- it makes complete sense why dysmorphic feelings are becoming more common and more people are developing the disorder outright.

It used to be that you had to seek these images out. You had to look at the magazines, you had to go watch the film, and buying porn was kind of a hastle and it was really expensive. They were charging like $50 for a new release dvd in the early 20’s.

But now you dont need to exert any effort or spend any money to be confronted by images of people who look asthetically aspirational. If you get on instagram or tik tok its only a matter of time before the apps start showing you this content even if you didnt ask to see it. If you go looking for porn the default is to show you lean, muscular, or thin bodies, and you have to deliberately seek out other body types. 

If you go on a gay app like grindr to actually find someone to date- your barraged with  a sea of torsos, and it just doesn't feel good…Because instantly you start comparing yourself to what you see- and that comparison is rarely favorable. 

And for those of us who can comfortably post shirtless profile pics- we can all tell you there is a wild difference between both the quantity and quality of responses we get compared to when we post pictures with our shirts on- so I get it- believe me.

Although- I should say the photos that have done the best for me personally are action shots of me playing rugby- and fully clothed. I had a photo like that on my Grindr profile when I moved to London for grad school- and at one point I had almost 700 unread messages on the app. I couldn't even attempt to read or respond to all of them. But after a month I stopped getting many new messages because I guess my meat was no longer fresh. 

…..

One really interesting point here is that we often think that people who experience Body Dysmorphia will seek out plastic surgery- and this is true- however, most plastic surgeons will not operate on anyone they suspect of having body dysmophic disorder and at least in the US they are expressly forbidden from this. In other countries, this might not be the case and we certainly see a lot of people traveling to get work done that people won’t do in the US because they're not allowed to. So in the US we are not allowed to inject silicone into the body but in other countries like Mexico, you are.

It is also significantly cheaper to get work done in most other countries so this is where we see the rise of medical tourism where people travel to get this work done elsewhere or get it done clandestinely and of course, this presents a lot of safety risks. There's any number of horror stories of somebody pretending to be a nurse and injecting construction grade silicone they got down at the hardware store directly into people.

Silicone implants are always inside of a protective shell, So when you inject silicone into the body what happens is it begins to migrate.First it can travel around the area it was injected into and you end up getting hard little lumps as scar tissue builds around it.  It then starts entering your blood stream and travels throughout the body. It can end up in your lungs were it literally blocks your ability to absorb oxygen- or it can end up clotting your blood vessels. That blood clot can then travel around your body and block blood flow to your heart or to your brain- which can be fatal. And maybe thats a risk you’re willing to take if your unhappiness with your body is causing you constant anguish. 

One of the most vulnerable populations when it comes to unsafe surgery or cosmetic procedures is trans women who find themselves

A. Financially constrained because the employment discrimination they experience- 

B. really bogged down by the US Medical system where insurance is extremely reluctant to cover any sort of gender-affirming cosmetic work. 

C. Seeking an aesthetic that is probably going to fall outside of the bounds of the US systems ethics constraints. So if you want injections to get big hips and ass you can't get that done here- If you want breast implants above a certain size- you can’t get that done here- etc. 

So when we talk about making gender affirming care accesible and affordable we need to include cosmetic procedures because the consequence of not including this leads to trans women literally dying from procedures they have done in other countries or without proper medical expertise. 

Talking about Silicone injections- there is a small community of men, mostly gay men who are into injecfting silicone into their genitals as both an asthetic choice and as a fetish. So you inject into your balls, or into your dick itself. 

And the thing about this it wont make your dick longer, it will just make it fatter- but in a way thats not really useful. Because silicone has a mushy texture, its gelatinous, its doesnt get firm. So dudes will get hard but the enhanced portion of their dick is still very maliable. Good luck getting that into a butthole. 

5 years ago there was a fairly famous case of a 28 year old gay man living in Seattle who died from an embolism as a result of getting injections into his balls. This story had alot of dark twists and most people I know who knew this person blamed his partner at the time for forcing him into the fetish and to his death- and there was alot of abuse allegations but if you want to go down that rabbit hole just google ‘Noodles and Beef testicles’ and read the top few articles. It has nothing to do with soup- so ignore those links..

Advice- 

Alright so thats enough about the problem and where it comes from, lets move on and talk about some things that you can to help you to work through whatever body dysmophia you might experience

Of course if you think you have Body dysmoprhia disorder- meaning your negative self image is so strong you have significant distress or its preventing you from interacting with other people-  than you really need to seek out professional help. 

Finding a therapist or councelor can be really difficult- I think basically everyone can benefit from therapy and there just arent enough licensed therapists for that.

And it can be a pain to navigate insurance and co-pays so I realize that there are valid obstacles to getting help but you need to prioritize your mental and physical health.

And if you dont have insurance- there are usually sliding scale providers who will charge you out of pocket based on your income levels- I know here in portland theres one clinic that has a bunch of locations and some of their providers are charging $40 or less out of pocket for session. 

So if youre in the united states here’s two website you canuse to go about finding a therapist. 

The first one is to go on the psychology today website and use their therapist finder tool. Yuo can filter by insurance and wehter or not people are actively taking on new clients and a bunch of other filters, and the trick is to contact between 10 and 15 providers. Which is admittedly tedious but it works because thats how I found my current therapist

The other website that seems good is ZocDoc- which allows you to use the same filters- location, insurance, in-person or virtual, etc. And what I really like about this site is that it gives you the availability calendar for each provider so you can see if they have times that work for you. And you can also book your appointment on the app so you never have to pick up the phone like I know most of you refuse to do for any reason. 

So go get a therapist- 

Of course therapy isnt a cure, its a comittment to do work and be challenged and you need to participate actively to benefit from it. 

And do actual sessions, weekly, hour long. Don't sign up for a service where you text your therapist, no matter how many ads you see on YouTube. 

For those of you who dont experience Body Dysmoprhia as a disorder but still struggle with these thoughts and feelings here’s some other techniques that might help you:

I mentioned in the last episode the concept of thought work and I’m going to cover that again because its applicable to this as well

With thought work, what you do is identify the negative thoughts you are having and then work to replace them with neutral or positive thoughts. And this works because your thoughts control your feelings and control your actions. 

I’ll say that again- your thoughts control your feeling and your actions. 

So if you can work to change the thoughts you can change your feelings. 

Because thoughts are a choice

A lot of them happen automatically, and many of them are unwanted or unpleasant - and this is always going to happen no matter how much work you do on yourself. 

So with thought work we dont necessarily seek to stop the thoughts from happening but we stop to acknowledge them, and in acknowledging them we can see them objectively for that they are- just thoughts. Thoughts arent the truth, thoughts arent reality- theyre just a bunch of neurons firing inside your meat carcass

So you can chose to have better thoughts that make you feel better. It sounds wild but its true.

If you find yourself having a negative thought- ask yourselves these questions about whatever thought you’re having

• Do I like the way thinking makes me feel? 
• If I were to act on this thought would make me feel better?

And when the answer is no, you dont like the way it makes you feel- you then chose to release the thought because its not serving you. 

And you look for another thought you can have instead that would make you feel better. 

This sounds very woo-woo and very ‘the secret’ or toxic positively or whatever- but this is an effective technique.

I used to listen to this podcast called Unfuck your brain- and thats where I learned this and I havent listened to the show in quite a while but if you look up that show and scroll back to some early episodes- i’ll give you episode 83, episode 73, episide 38-

Who knows- maybe this host has gone problematic now, but give those a listen 

In a similar vein- we can also work to recognize when we're being sold to. A lot of the things that make us feel bad about ourselves are trying to market something to us by making us feel like we have a problem. And in most cases we recognize an ad when we see one- but not always

Particularly on the Internet it can be hard to differentiate between someone you respect recommending something because they genuinely like it and someone recommending something because they're paid to or because they get a kick back. In the US any social media content that's sponsored has to be disclosed- either by being labeled a paid partnership or using #ad, or some other clear language, but not everybody follows this rule. And I have no idea what the laws are in other countries but I imagine they're probably looser in most cases so influencers in other countries may not be required to disclose anything.

And I don't have a problem with people making money off their work, but I do have a problem with people who shill things by implying that a product will make you look more like them. 

Another thing that might help you is Exposure- if you can, go to the nude beach, go to the bathhouse, the sauna- go to places where you can see regular human bodies in all their diversity. And maybe you wont want to get naked or participate at first, but just being around other naked people and slowly dipping your toes into the watercan really help. 

Or if you’re not ready to go somewhere cruisy like the nude beach or the bathhouse- just going to a beach or waterpark or a public pool can help for the same reasons. 

This summer I went to a waterpark in the midwest and being shirtless and waiting in lines with all the other people in their swimwear- was really reaffimring for me- because of the thousand of people there I saw very few people who looked anything close to a fitness influencer or a porn star. Maybe like one dude all day. So seeing my torso next to all these different other examples of male torsos was nice because I felt like I looked pretty good in comparison…

Which, obviously comparing yourselves to others is a predominately negative- but its ok to boost the old ego once in a while by comparing yourself favorably. 

Now im not saying going to the beach at lets say the fire island pines, or south beach, or the pool party on the gay cruise, or places that are notoriously image obsessed will make you feel better- because in that case they might not, so knowing that you can either avoid those places or just chose to not give a fuck. 

You can also employ what I’m calling ‘anchoring’  which is using a tool like the FFMI I talked about last week you can use to figure out what the truth is of how you measure up. So if you think you’re not very muscular but you have an FFMI of 23 or above, youre statistically very muscular. 

Finally we can choose to modify our behavior if we find it's not servicing us. 

When I'm really focused on my fitness I find myself wanting to look at my body in the mirror many times a day. Basically any time I see a mirror. But that's just going to amplify my negative thoughts about the areas I'm not yet happy with. So instead I limit myself to just maybe 30 seconds of shirtless flexing in the morning and few brief glances here and there. And this is a practice..you're going to catch yourself doing that thing again and have to recognize the behavior and then point it out you yourself like ‘hey, your standing shirtless in front of the mirror again and we said we weren't going to do this so let's walk away and maybe put a shirt on’

Or like ‘hey you're just scrolling through porn again because you're bored, maybe exit out of here and go take a walk instead’

Another thing that helped me was just unfollowing most of the people I thirst followed back when I joined. So if you see a post from someone that you follow that you don't know personally, and it brings up feelings in you or drives you to compare yourself- just hit the unfollow button. And if they're an IRL friend who you don't want to hurt by unfollowing them you can just mute them instead.  

Seriously try and replace all the hot people you follow with like cute animals and pictures of nature or whatever else you're into- like theme parks and roller coasters in my case- and you'll be much happier when you are on social media. 

Alright that's it for this week. 

Be sure to leave us a review if you liked this or share the show if you think it might be of interest to other people. I just went live with this show last week and I'm just deeply un-interested in doing a bunch of marketing right now so it helps me out if you can get the word out. 

And go lift something heavy, or lift something light and fluffy like your cat

Bye bros.