#Progress, Feeling Your Ribs, and Holes in Your Souls

Executive Director of PhillyGayCalendar

When I was younger, any time I could get an excuse to sit out of gym class was a holiday for me, primarily because I did not have a single athletic bone in my body, and I knew it. Boy, did I EVER! I was a chubby kid who knew he was fat. Once in third grade, a substitute teacher, a young redheaded mousey woman with bad acne scaring, told the class, “If you can’t feel your ribs, you’ve got a problem.” I remember rubbing my belly, unable to feel my ribs, and feeling like a total unattractive dork.

Fast-forward over twenty years later: I can feel my ribs. I hate to say it, but that image and that teacher’s voice will never leave my head, ever, although now I sort of smirk about how horrible a thing it was to say to a bunch of impressionable children.

However, for a great many of the gay men that I know, it is like that teacher’s advice is on a constant loop in their heads: if you don’t look a certain way, you’ve got a problem. If you can’t get a six-pack, you’ve got a problem. If you don’t have pecks the size of grapefruits, you’ve got a problem.

If you’ve read my work in the past (see my website), you know that the notion of gay male body euphoria is a popular topic that I’ve tackled. Maybe it’s coming off of the summer months, but as of late, I seem to feel like the notion of an unattainable physical physique has overflown into insanity.

It doesn’t help that I’ve recently joined Instagram, where many young gay men (or, who I am I kidding… gay men of all ages) seem to enjoy hashtagging half-naked “selfies” of them for the world to see. Now, don’t get me wrong: take the pictures if you want. But there’s a certain hash tag that often times accompanies these scantily-clad pictures that causes a sense of alarm and, well, depression, for me: #progress.

#Progress, used in the context of a half-naked picture of a guy flexing or standing in front of a mirror, usually means that they are working towards a certain weight-loss goal, or muscle-sculpted physique.

While having healthy living habits and being fit are admirable and, well, wholesome, the type of “goal” that many of these individuals are working towards simply isn’t obtainable, or, the individual is going through physical and mental anguish to get there. In short, they aren’t happy with themselves as they are.

The irony, of course, is that many of these guys already have bodies that others would kill for—what “progress” are they trying to make? I’d dare say it has nothing to do with the physical, but rather a deep emotional subconscious self-esteem deficiency. Let’s face it: being gay already leaves a scar that we try to overcompensate for. Having a body euphoria delusion (because we might as well call it what it is) is one possible reaction to the need to overcompensate. Essentially, we, as gay men, are telling each other “If you can’t feel your ribs, you’ve got a problem” almost every day. As much as I’d like to think this isn’t the case, it is.

Best put by author Danielle LaPorte in her amazing book The Fire Starter Sessions, “We have the procedures of achievement upside down. We set our sights on the babe, the boat, the bucks. We get them. Sometimes. They make us happy. Sometimes. We set a goal, we reach it, we feel great. Unless, of course, we feel empty or flustered or anxious that what we’re doing isn’t working to fill the hole in our soul.” The notion of #progress is nothing more than filling that hole that LaPorte describes. Is the six-pack what a dude REALLY wants? For me, real #progress is feeling satisfied with myself, damn the odds and the outside chatter.

And feeling my ribs isn’t such a bad thing, either.

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