Barring that part of my life where I was rail-thin for about a few minutes, I was basically a round little kid who grew up to be a slightly less round teenager who grew up to be an even slightly less round young adult who has now become someone who, on a dating app, might identify as “height-weight proportionate” in a best-case scenario.

I am envious of my straight male friends. They are seemingly given more leeway to be doughy, to be imperfect, to look like humans. They are, after all, participants of the same culture that pairs Kevin James and Leah Remini in King of Queens–and then replicates that formula of hilarious chunky oaf-with-beautiful wife comedy ad nauseam.

Conversely, gay male culture is at a dangerous tipping point where Ken dolls are dictating the norms. They are doing so aggressively. They are rationing affection, love, and respect on body types. Pride parades the world over have become less about body acceptance and more about showmanship.

“You must be this beautiful to be respected.”

I was on Grindr a while ago and a not-terribly-ugly shirtless man without a head pinged me. “Sup?” he enquired.

“Oh not much,” I said. “Watching TV, mellowing out.”

“Looking?”

(I was actually watching 30 Rock reruns.)

“Eh, maybe. For the right guy.”

“Well are you a top or a bottom?”

(Sometimes I think our culture’s obsession with binaries will be our greatest downfall, because a hook-up is a hook-up and aren’t we all just looking for a little affection?)

“Depends.”

“I’m a top.”

(At this point, Liz Lemon had just made a streak of LOL-worthy outbursts and I forgot about this conversation–and came back to it six-to-eight minutes later.)

There were two messages sent in rapid succession, reading, “Hello?” and “Are you there?”

“Sorry, I got distracted. So, what’s up?”

“What’s your stats?”

“I’m not a bear, not yet an otter.”

“Sorry, not into fat guys.”

I shrugged it off. I’ve gotten very good at shrugging. Shrugging is a much more preferable response than getting the idea into my head that body shape should preclude me from sex and romance. What an alien concept! This concept is just as alien as the idea that all gay men need to kill themselves to look like Ken dolls in order to be respected.

Yes, exercise is probably a good idea in life. But so are having a sense of humor, learning about the world, and being a compassionate person.

Our sex-á-la-carte gay culture finds it all too easy to skip compassion.

Maybe It’s All In Your Head

I think back to the throng of Ken dolls on that sunny July day. It’s not fair to recount that story without admitting bias, without admitting to some degree of projection. A throng of Ken dolls can be among the nicest humans in the world and still be socially inept.

I think of context.

It was unsettling, I believe, to these Ken dolls, that one of their own would introduce someone alien to them so casually, with no back story–and it was unsettling to them that I should step into their conversations ready to banter and make small talk. Better people are able to connect fluidly with strangers–but I was out of my element here. It was a context where familiarity trumped foreignness. A ripped body would’ve probably increased my familiarity and my desirability, but the quality of banter would’ve still left me nothing more than an oddity on the sidelines, sipping on a piña colada, counting down the hours until we’d be seeing Pedro Almodóvar’s I’m So Excited!.

Or, this. Perhaps it had nothing to do with how they perceived my body–but everything to do with the energy I was emitting about how I perceived my own body. I’d be lying if I didn’t say my aura was probably a little warped that day. Unfortunately, I’m just as complicit in the same media culture that would sooner have you believe there is something wrong with Prince Fielder posing nude for ESPN. (There isn’t.) It’s a culture that taught me that somehow I’m probably not entitled to the same respect as a Ken doll–a stigmatizing way of thinking that I only began breaking free from in my late ‘20s.

Or, this. That, at the end of the day, greater souls would simply recognize conversation wherever it was coming from and reciprocate accordingly.

Or, this. If there was a way to get into the heads of the Ken dolls that I dissect here, there would be a different perception–and one where the lack of respect isn’t deliberate; it is the by-product of social conditioning.

Walking On Egg-Shells

One time, I was baking cupcakes and in trying to pick the eggs out of the carton, I dropped one on the kitchen floor. There was a sharp splat that cut through the air–and by my toes was the shattered egg shell, yolk oozing out and pooling. This is how hard I tend to fall for the right person.

Hook-ups are easy. With hook-ups, the sting of any rejection doesn’t really hurt. You awkwardly explore each other’s bodies and if the chemistry fizzles out, you sneak out in the middle of the night, and never see each other again.

By contrast, the prospect of fooling around with someone that you’ve fallen eggs-on-the-kitchen floor hard for is terrifying. It’s more terrifying than a hook-up. You don’t get the luxury of creeping out in the middle of the night. Any awkwardness, any incompatibility, any unmet expectations–these all become a parade of elephants in the room. More than that, this is where you lay all of it out on the line.

Suddenly, hitting the gym four-to-six times a week and giving up white rice no longer seem enough.

After all, it’s not just a drunken tryst. It’s not even like a day out at the beach with Ken dolls. Fooling around with someone you care about means you show up with all of your scars, flaws, and flab. You hope for acceptance and celebration; you hope for compassion. You hope for consistency.

You hope to all your gods that he’s not an asshole.