Musclegays sure love their tempeh and broccoli

You will find but a single literary treatment of one of the more salutary and life-affirming male habits, and it’s buried in the otherwise harrowing Last Exit to Brooklyn. Selby does not just a brilliant job but the only job imparting a young sailor’s delight at just being in the presence of, having fun with, a pretty young woman. You can feel the smiles. Things end badly for the poor guy, who was just thrilled merely to be around her.

There was half a step toward a second literary treatment, but I can’t find it now after lots of trying. This is not the Ebert quote I remember:

Liz is tall [and] striking, carries herself with placid self-confidence, and wears dresses that display her magnificent bosom – not as an advertisement, but more in a spirit of generosity toward the world.

What I remember is Ebert talking about how a director decided an actress’s bosom was a beauty to behold, and we decided to agree. As ever, print the legend.

I spent a year looking at Instagram photos of dachshunds; typography (Flickr still reigns supreme there, and “in my heart”); Citroëns, 911s, 2X0Zs, inter alia; and gingers and musclegays. I’ve got nothing to tell you about photos of dachshunds or Datsuns. And, after sitting on the whole thing for months, I’m putting aside my 30-item outline on what I learned after +liking all those pictures.

Instead I will say this is a scenario where, pace John Lydon, I really do get the feeling I’ve been cheated.

I’m not “huggy”; I’m also not “a smiler.” But if you walk by me and I seem to be offering you half a bemused smile, it’s because I’m the sailor here and I think you’re just delightful. It’s really great to see you! If you can’t process my smile, that’s fine. I can process your beauty. I just did.

To be just thrilled and delighted at having somebody beautiful to behold, just being around him, is a cornerstone of male sexuality. You don’t hear about it much. I could be the first to describe it.

And what those umpteen shirtless Instagram musclefag narcissists are doing is poisoning the well. They’re that pretty girl who left that sailor for dead. With an accomplice, but she could have handled it solo. Here the accomplices are musclegays’ boyfriends and, worse, husbands.

Shirtless Instagram muscleboys are the unhealthiest gays save for serial murderers and cannibals. Instead of being just self-aware enough to know they’re beautiful then let us decide to agree, they use as little clothing as possible to communicate – I say again – the poisoned well of their psyche.

The Velvet Rage speaks of gay shame, but we now have a snowballing arms race of gay narcissism. Boys who had body shame growing up reversed polarity – and then some – as “adults.” This is what right-wing-asshole homophobes should be assailing us for, not that there are many of those left. (Queer, trans*, and LGBT+ are the ones who now hate gays and especially lesbians.)

1. They aren’t even that “hot.” I’ve learned over my centuries online (actually 28 years) that gays will emote Pavlovically at basically any shirtless male. In fact no, the typical Internet gay does not understand it’s an uphill battle to photograph the male body well and will +like any bo(d)y without a shirt. It’s as cheap a reflex as tittering at a comedian swearing onstage.

2. They still can’t do anything with those muscles. I follow a pretty amazing yoga practitioner/acrobat (and a regular dad who is trying to rediscover the gymnastics of his youth). Aaand that’s about it for gays who can do something with their physiques. (The dad isn’t even a gay. So n = 1 here.)

   I don’t see any dancers or blue-collar workers (just one – and two gay firemen) or, for that matter, evidence that these musclegays can squat or deadlift. That last point is ironic because they are probably doing that at the gym, but not for strength. The only men photographed doing the hardest strength exercise (overhead press or shoulder press or just the press) are breeders.

   There are a few gay strongmen (Texas Bœuf) and one or two powerlifters (Dom Toovey; Deadlift Bear). That would be about it. These are musclegays one can respect.

3. Of course they’re all on steroids – or testosterone, growth hormone(s), or something else that would get them banned from the Olympics. One lonely musclegay/go‑go dancer whom I quite like is upfront about taking steroids. He’s a unique synthetic creation and it works for him.

   The rest of these queens (see below) aren’t fooling anybody. There are definable endocrine limits to how big one can get by just eating well and upping one’s protein intake. Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum (no relation) is a great specimen whom I believe is “natural.” (That means I believe him when he says he is.) And, like so many strong men, he looks better clothed.

   Anybody bigger than that lives better through chemistry.

4. Why be that big if you’re still just one of the girls? “See Tarzan, hear Jane” was never more manifest than with these fellas, who, to a “man,” worship divas and RuPaul; have gay voices (unless masked by regional accents); and, frankly, dress immodestly. I am guessing they walk gay, which is a real thing according to published research papers I have read and everybody’s lived experience.

5. Musclegays prove gay “marriage” really is a sham. I relentlessly point out to husbands of musclegays that:

   • they invite not just threesomes into their bedrooms but N‑somes, where N is the sum of their follow(er) counts

   • having (in one case) a 251-pound colossus for a husband should be more than enough for one lifetime, and there is no call whatsoever to publish photos for slavering gays to “like”; you scored hugely in every respect and you should keep him to yourself

   • their marriage vows are null and void

   A cautionary tale here is a soi-disant lawyer with the hard-to-parse name of Brandt Roessler (running for office in 2020?) and his husband Aaron Burdett.

   • Brandt is the 251-pounder I just mentioned. He didn’t get to that weight via tempeh and broccoli, I surmise. This bigorexia sufferer still thinks he’s not big enough – one of his “Instagram stories” was cutlined “Feeling pretty big tonight (which is unusual).” (UPDATE: A single day later, Brandt listed his weight at 252 and wrote “Hit a little bit of a rough patch, but I’m determined to get back on track to MASSIVE! ”)

   • He barely fits in a suit, and looked good once (count it: once), and that was because his massive limbs were halfway in motion.

   • When did the threesomes start? (Honeymoon?)

   • When do the divorce papers get filed? Does little Aaron stand a chance against an outsized lawyer who’s swimming in surely-always-endogenous testosterone?

   • Is any of this healthy?

   Bottoms don’t have the instinct to protect and guard. But that doesn’t excuse the colossus, who should.

6. Size differentials mirror heterosexualists’. For the Kinsey 5 or above (I’m a 7), the size differential of big strapping lads and their petite girlfriends is always noticeable. And understandable.

   With musclegays, you can see a long-buried evolutionary impulse breaking to the surface –

   

   – and misfiring.

7. A sub-subsubspecies that thinks it is even better than the musclebears: Slim musclegays with abs. When depicted in group photos where everybody’s shirtless and nobody has subcutaneous bodyfat, what I always ask them is this: “The minute one of your ‘friends’ suffers an illness or simply doesn’t have abs anymore, will he still be your ‘friend’ and will you still let yourself get photographed with him?”

8. You really can’t tell them apart. Especially not jet-black-haired gay Spaniards. There are myriad baffling subphyla, like “musclenursies,” a couple of whom look pretty good, actually.

9. Any male who looks good in a Speedo really is special. For a few sub-subgroups, looking good in that canonical swimwear is halfway the norm (Australian surf lifesavers; “Brazilian hunks of Instagram”), but for everybody else it borders on impossible. (Cf. Mark Simpson’s “phalliban.”) If you make it work, you look amazing.

   Exactly the right fella (adameow) is Speedo-equipped in this picture:

   

   You really do need an Apollo’s belt, which goes by a more vulgaire name among gays. But watch out for that first step below “amazing”; it’s a lulu.

10. There’s no humour! Having learned nothing from Nik Dimopoulos’ Trough series, musclegays can’t put together a fun photo to save their lives.

    • Half the time the “interesting” photos are those where something went technically wrong (below, R.).

      

      (Raider/Bucaram)

    • For shits and giggles, this is a great Speedo picture.

      

      (Ginger Thom)

Perhaps now you see why gay males think straight males are nicer to look at. Basically, they are.

And, boy, did I ever not publish the incriminating photographs I saved along the way.