A Critical Fascination With Our Presentations (PART 2)
A Conversation Around Bodies, Bears, Briefs & More
This is Sitting Queerly, a newsletter focused on the late blooming queer experience, the lofty goal of opening up conversations and celebrating those who embrace their full selves.
(Read Part 1 of A Critical Fascination With Our Presentations)
One of the things that surprised me as I began accepting my queerness was the sudden return of all the hangups and anxiety and depression I had about my body. These were things I’d felt when I was a teen and into my 20s but had gradually moved past, or so I thought. Now, suddenly, I really hated seeing myself in a mirror—the love handles, the paunch, the thin arms. Even though I wasn’t looking to hook up with a man at that time, I couldn’t stop thinking about what other guys must think of my body and how terrible it looked.
For this second installment of Sitting Queerly focused on body image and positivity, I recently sat down (virtually) with two good friends and fellow late bloomers, Mark Truscinski and Rich Rumsey. We talked about body image in connection to how we felt about our bodies growing up, how it played into our coming out and identity, our perception of queer culture’s treatment of diverse bodies and so on. Along the way we touched on the awkwardness of communal showers after gym class, the double-edged sword of fetishizing bigger bodies, how welcoming the kink community is of all body types and which underwear brands we think are doing the best job embracing bigger guys.
This is a new format for the newsletter and I hope to do more of these in the future if people find them worthwhile. You can listen to our conversation in full and unedited if you like.
Below is a truncated and edited text version, with an eye toward following the chronology of the conversation and preserving main points while condensing the content, correcting grammar and syntax, removing the “uhs” and “ums” and so on.
Our Bodies As Kids
Ty: All right, so to just launch into this a bit, my first question…How did your perception of your body growing up, and how others perceived it, how did that feed into your identity and how you eventually came to where you are now or how that kept you from coming out earlier in life? How did your own body image fit into everything?
Rich: For me, my body image issues came directly from a family member, in fact my dad specifically. It was one of those situations where when he was in high school he wrestled, so he was always cutting weight. He was five-foot-seven, weighed maybe 130 pounds. I have three inches on him, so in theory should weigh a little bit more but I always heard how he was so much smaller, so much thinner than I was when he was in high school. And this wasn’t a one time thing, this was a recurring theme throughout my high school career…And I think there are some pieces that go together there in the fact that I was always very shy in a locker room. I never liked to be in a locker room with guys in middle school, they forced us to shower and it was just a big open communal shower. I didn’t want to do that because, number one, I was ashamed of my body and, number two, I wasn’t sure if I was going to get excited about seeing the guys around me.
“I never liked to be in a locker room with guys in middle school, they forced us to shower and it was just a big open communal shower. I didn’t want to do that because, number one, I was ashamed of my body and, number two, I wasn’t sure if I was going to get excited about seeing the guys around me.”
Mark: It’s hard because I sort of can look back at it from a sort of revisionist history and really understand it now. If you look at school pictures of me, there is definitely a shift that happens around third, fourth, fifth grade. As a younger child, early elementary school, I was a thin kid. Then about third, fourth, fifth grade I put on a lot of weight. And I can definitely see that as running parallel to puberty and initially not understanding what my sort of desires for other boys at the time were and definitely has been a way for me to hide physically. Instead I had a big personality that everyone liked and they liked me for my personality, I didn’t have to worry what I looked like so I didn’t have to care what I looked like. Obviously no girls were attracted to me because I was too big so it was a way to sort of stay safe in not having to worry about my sexuality because who would want to date the, you know—in high school I was six feet tall, close to 300 lbs. But hey, everyone wanted to be my friend, because I was a big happy jolly guy…
Ty: Yeah, I see my experience mirrored by both of you. Mark, like with you, I would say that, early elementary school, I was the same way. It didn’t really factor into who I was or how I perceived myself and then around fifth or sixth grade for me, I began to pick up the signals that my body did not meet an ideal of what other people would want it to be. I kind of got that from my dad, but I kind of got it from other kids. I was a little chubby, I wasn’t obese but I was a little chubby and I wasn’t very athletic, I didn’t really like playing sports. I liked playing outside and everything, I liked going outside and hiking and things like that. But I didn’t like playing football, I didn’t like playing soccer or anything else like that. I had to be coerced to play little league, that kind of thing. And so I really began to understand, to feel that I should be ashamed at how my body looked and it went from there…I was fortunate, Rich, that we were not forced to shower when we were in gym class. That sucks. There was the one day in high school gym class when I was a freshman that we had a sub and he was an ornery old crusty old dude, and we were doing basketball and he made us play shirts vs. skins and I was on skins and I was really unhappy about that. That was a fun day.
Mark: Yeah, definitely, again, this is looking backward and now understanding it. At the time, I had no idea. But being overweight was a way for me to be unattractive so I wouldn’t attract attention, I wouldn’t attract the female attention I didn’t want and potentially attract male attention which was highly unlikely given where I lived and going to Catholic school and stuff.
Fighting Food
Rich: …I still don’t eat super healthy, don’t eat a super healthy, nutritionist-approved diet by any means, but my nutrition hasn’t always been horrible. But when was I looking at some of those diet plans like the South Beach diet, for instance, or keto or whatever, name your diet plan, I always struggled with not being able to eat something that I wanted to. And I’m like, you’re telling me I can’t eat ice cream, I can’t eat cheese, or I can’t eat pasta and that just doesn’t work for me.
Ty: You can have Halo Top!
Rich: There were alternatives but most of them didn’t taste very good to me. So I was learning more about diet and nutrition and I really jumped on the bandwagon of moderation, everything in moderation. It’s ok to have a little bit of ice cream, it’s ok to have some pasta, but am I going to eat an entire pound in one meal? No, I’m not going to do that. Depriving yourself is I think where the diet plans can definitely fail somebody.
Mark: It’s interesting, talking about food and I’m back to when I initially lost 110 pounds 20 years ago. I did do it the bad way, I’ll say, with the air quotes. I did it via Weight Watchers Online, pure counting calories. How can I find the lowest calorie, lowest fat, lowest point value food that I can eat in high volume? So it was this very odd replacement of calories, to get that calorie deficit to lose weight, without reducing the volume of food I was eating. I could binge eat four sugar free jellos at night because it was like 200 calories but it’s still a large volume of food. That was great for kickstarting it and losing weight. I lost a lot of weight and very quickly, I think it probably only took me six months to lose 110 pounds—
Ty: Whoa.
Mark: —because it was really, really unhealthy. You could see it. I was very—I’m tall, I’m very broad shouldered, very barrel chested and built like an elite swimmer or linebacker and people were like, you’re too skinny, because I had like nothing on me. I had no muscle tone and there was no fat. I was in my 20s…
Finding Our Way To Fitness
Rich: ..My parents started to get into really failing health when I was in my early 30s. That’s when we were having my kids and I really wanted my children to get to know their grandparents. They live in Colorado, we lived in Iowa, so they weren’t around them all the time but there’d be days we’d go to see them or they’d come to see us and we’d say “hey let’s go to the zoo” and my parents were in their early 60s and were like “oh, we can’t walk around a zoo. You can’t expect me to go walking.” I see 80 year olds walking around the zoo, what are you talking about? So for me my inspiration to be more healthy was strictly based on I didn’t want to become my parents…And as far as fitness goes and working with a trainer, I really wanted to work with a trainer just to get to know how to do a lot of the exercises in the first place. I only worked with a trainer for 12 weeks and then after that, “hey, how about I pay you X dollars per month and you just write me a fitness plan?”...And then the other piece for fitness that really helped me was more group interaction. The gym that I go to actually has a group training class. It’s lifting weights, it’s not just step aerobics or something like that. We’re lifting weights, we’re doing cardio exercises, there’s just a small group of us, basically like personal training but in a larger group. There’s like six of us that meet three days a week for that and that group aspect has really been helpful for me. When you don’t show up to the gym, the next day you might get a text message saying “hey, where were you at yesterday?” or I’m friends with a few of them on Facebook so they knew I was in Denver for the bachelor party, just that extra level of community you can find at the gym.
Ty: …I am the exact opposite. I’ve had gym memberships ever since I graduated from college, and in college there was a student rec center and I could work out there. But I have never been comfortable in a gym setting. I always feel like I’m being judged, whether it’s how I look physically or how I’m doing something, even if I’m doing it correctly, it just feels like judgment all the time, it just feels like an alien place to me. I’m happy you were able to find a way to engage in that space and having people who support you in that space, I just never was able to find it myself.
Mark: I was going to the gym when my oldest child was born, as an in-home parent. So the local gym had childcare built in, had an indoor pool, I had other friends who had kids and the kids would go and play and we’d meet at the pool for this day-long thing. It was expensive but given what we were getting for it, it made sense. I was getting free childcare, I was getting a gym, I was getting a pool, it was great. It had really cheap swim lessons for our son. And then once he went to school it didn’t make sense to do that. My wife or my ex-wife or however we want to deal with that was also like “well, I’d like to work out but I can’t because of my schedule.” We live outside New York City so she’s on the train and spends a lot of time commuting. So she was like “let’s buy a Peloton” and we can work out at home and I said sure, let’s do it. So we were fairly early adopters to Peloton, this was when it was just literally spin class only. There was nothing else connected to it. As I’ve grown with them over the last 5-6 years now, as they’ve added things, it definitely is this personal trainer lite. Especially with the strength classes, you are getting a personalized workout because the person is right there, showing you what to do, telling you what to do, building the schedule for you. And you have different personalities of trainers, you can sort of play around, this person is into core, so that’s what it’s gonna be, or this person is really into heavy lifting. What I think in the last year has sort of changed for me…it’s been doing strength training and free weights that have been really transformative and gotten me to the body I’ve always wanted. But in this instance it wasn’t sort of as I’ve come to terms with my own sexuality, it’s been I’m not making this body for anyone else but me…
Ty: …I was really non-committal about it, schedule being what it was, and I was going through a lot of work stress…So I was really inconsistent and then I went on leave from my job last summer and that gave me the opportunity to get myself into a solid routine with it. Beyond not being comfortable in a gym my other struggle was getting the motivation to get myself ready and get out to the car and drive to the gym and still have that same motivation I had when I started. Now I work out in my garage, we have a hand-me-down elliptical a neighbor gave us, a recumbent bike we bought years ago and had barely used. And I bought some cheap free weights from Big 5 and I’ll just be like “I’m going to go outside and work out.” So I could just get it done and not have the opportunity for it to fade away. That’s really helped me a lot…And I am down, I am closer to what I’d like to have as a goal weight but I still feel like there’s a lot of room to improve.
Accepting Our Bodies
Ty: Quick poll: how do you perceive your body now?
Rich: I have gotten to the point now, over the past six to seven years focusing on working out and going to the gym, where I am pleased with what I see in the mirror and it’s a wonderful feeling. When I was in high school, I grew up on a farm, I’d be driving a tractor out in the middle of a field, nobody for miles, I wasn’t even comfortable taking off my shirt in that situation.
Ty: Wow.
Rich: When I’m completely alone and not around people, not having the chance to see people and now I’ve gotten to the point where I’m comfortable with what I see in the mirror, I enjoy going to the pool, my neighbors are probably like “would you put a shirt on?” sometime because in the summer if it’s hot outside I will be without a shirt on because I hate sweating so much. I feel like I’ve gotten to a really good spot, I’m comfortable where I’m at.
Mark: There’s a duality to it. This past summer was the first time I’ve ever mowed my lawn shirtless and sort of feeling comfortable enough to do that. I do feel as though this is the most proud I’ve felt of my body, but at the same time, and I’m sure you both saw my social media post about it, there is remnants of the last 40 years of being overweight, losing weight, gaining weight, that I’m never going to be able to get rid of without surgery. It’s been hard to see that and not feel the shame of it, still being attached to being obese. And I’m trying to be very conscious letting that extra fat and skin that probably will never go away be more like a trophy of success. But it’s very hard to sort of have that excess you can’t get rid of. I can never get that quote unquote perfect body because I have so ruined my body over the last 30, 40 years, there’s just no recovering from it…How I feel about my body myself, when I’m sitting alone with myself, is really good. It’s very positive.
“…there is remnants of the last 40 years of being overweight, losing weight, gaining weight, that I’m never going to be able to get rid of without surgery. It’s been hard to see that and not feel the shame of it, still being attached to being obese. And I’m trying to be very conscious letting that extra fat and skin that probably will never go away be more like a trophy of success.”
Body Positivity Vs. Fetishization
Mark: …In being open and out at varying levels for the past 20 years, it’s interesting to me that there are people I’ve known for a while who aren’t attracted to me anymore because they were attracted to the larger me. And in gay culture, I do very much check that bear box when overweight. Being hairy, being tall, being a bigger guy, where the part of my body that made me feel shame was fetishized by many people. It’s very interesting to see in this sort of new era of my body, to see the different people who are attracted to me that hadn’t been in the past and to see people who I was always attracted to who aren’t the perfect body type, be surprised that I’ll even come to them. And realizing I was that person at one point. Being attracted to the more stereotypically perfect person who’s otherwise repulsed by my looks. But now, that person is attracted to me.
Ty: …That’s kind of the gist of what this whole conversation is supposed to be about, how badly queer culture treats non-ideal body forms. I don’t know if you all picked up on that as well as you’ve gone through life and came out, all the images we see that depict queer life, even PG13 versions of queer life, don’t tend to show guys who are a little bigger, aren’t chiseled, don’t have perfectly growing hair and that kind of thing. How has that played into how you’ve come out or is it something you’ve paid attention to? How has that figured into things for you?
Rich: For me, I think what we see in queer culture in regard to that is a more enhanced version of what we see in everyday life. We see the men’s health magazines, even on the women’s magazines if there’s ever a man on the cover, like of Cosmo or something, they’re all chiseled, they’re all under or around 30, very muscular. We see that in everyday TV and movies where the big guys are the jolly doofuses almost, the Homer Simpsons of the world. As you get into being around more queer men that’s just exacerbated, just a bigger lens on that and it puts more focus on that body image. The other thing I would say, though, coming out later in life, I just figured every gay man wants the chiseled body…as I was meeting these guys and talking to them in the bar or on the apps, they were giving me compliments about the way that I looked and I’d never heard that before from anybody. It felt good and I’d look at these guys and “I’d never expected you to talk to me.” I do think there can, especially in larger cities, be more of that split culture when it comes to gay men, but Mark I’m interested in what you have to say because you do live in a lot bigger location than I do.
Mark: I think you’re absolutely right, there’s this sort of generalized idea in gay/queer culture of the hyper idealized man. Whereas straight men just have to look good shirtless, gay men have to look good shirtless and pantsless. You better have the six pack abs, the chiseled face, the perfect hair and the perfect ass and the perfect bulge. I think what is helpful, though, is that while that still sits way out for all to see, there are definitely a lot more spaces where different body types can be appreciated and be safe. There’s probably 25 gay clubs and bars in New York City and they all are very…there are a few who cater to different types of guys, whether it be bears or there’s a much more theming night. Maybe that is kind of problematic to make people self-select buckets and stuff like that, but it does allow you to get into a space where your body and sexuality can be appreciated together as one. Even when I was bigger, yeah, I would look to go to the bear night at a bar because I knew it was a safer space in terms of, you know, people being into me or people reacting to me. I think apps do that, too.
Ty: Grindr, my God.
Mark: Grindr, Scruff, pick your tribe. It’s like, what are you and where do you fit? In many ways it’s helpful and liberating and wonderful but at the same time it’s very discouraging and limiting because you’re forced into the bucket of how you’re perceived and that doesn’t exactly…for many years, I didn’t like the bear label. I don’t identify like that except in just the way I look. That’s not even necessarily how I carry myself. But, still there. Still, oh, you’re a bear. Or people would be attracted to me in that fetishized way. I’ve had two people I’ve known for a while legitimately said they’re disappointed I lost weight—
Ty: Ugh.
Mark: —that they don’t look at me the same. I’m like, good for you. It is wild. It is wild to see when you fall out of…that’s the funny thing, I’m always going to be with the bear label if I want to but to not be the big bear, that was sort of the downside of it. You no longer fit so I’m no longer attracted to you.
Ty: I’ve struggled a bit with the label thing, too, because I feel like I fit more the bear kind of community, because I have a beard, but I’m bald—bald is apparently good now—and I do have some chest hair and I am kind of hairier, I’m taller, but I otherwise don’t have the rounded belly really well, and so do I really fit in there? But what I’ve found interesting is my own tastes, as I’ve gotten older, I didn’t use to be interested in what would have been considered bear when I was younger, when I was first really struggling with this. But now that I’ve gotten older, that’s very much what I go toward, because I see it as super masc, I think, which is what attracts me to men to begin with. Me being bi, what I’m attracted to in men is masc, when I’m attracted to women, very feminine. I’m not the femboy, tomgirl kind of guy. It is limiting though, and it’s interesting in that it provides some protection and comfort to us, to know that there is a community that would be more likely to support us within being queer, but at the same time you’re pigeon holing yourself at the same time. It’s disappointing.
“Whereas straight men just have to look good shirtless, gay men have to look good shirtless and pantsless.”
The More Open Arms Of Kink
Mark: It is interesting, I will say in terms of sexuality and body image, the one community —straight, bi, gay, across the sexuality spectrum—the one community that is so very purely accepting of any body types is the kink community.
Rich: Yes
Mark: Because it’s not body types, it’s what are you into? What do you like? That’s the sexuality turn on. And so you will see lots of people, wildly varying body types in a kink setting and you’re like, wait, why are those people…they don’t go together. Because it’s not about looks, body type, it’s about, we have another shared interest. The gay leather community is very much like that, and I’ve sort of explored both communities and the kink community is very—they do have their own body issues—but they are far more welcoming to varying body types, very unabashedly.
Ty: I’m still a little baby bi queer so like the kink community is very new to me. I’ve not gotten into it yet or anything.
Mark: Rich and I are not, Rich and I are old pros. [Laughter]
Ty: You all have been out longer than me, you’ve at least been engaged in being out longer than me, is all I’m saying.
Mark: We just dived into the deep end faster than you. [Laughter]
Ty: That’s fine. Sometimes…you know that’s the whole debate, should you inch your way in or just take the plunge right off the bat?
Rich: Yeah, exactly.
Ty: But I have to say, having talked to you and Rich, having heard from you and other guys I know who are in kink in some way, I would agree with you. They are incredibly accepting of everybody. I think that also has to do with kink, outside of like enbies and transgender folk, are among the most prejudiced against within the queer community. Because it’s seen as depraved, unfortunately, there is a misconception that it’s depravity or something like that and it’s not like that at all.
Rich: …I’ve really enjoyed getting to know some of the kinksters around Des Moines. Just going to the bar and having a chat with them. Since we only have two gay bars in town, we don’t have a specific bar for bears or that kind of thing, but we do have the themed nights, like we have gear night once a month. So everybody shows up in their harnesses and everything and in wildly different body types, it’s wonderful to see that. You can walk in there and feel like one of them, even if that’s the only night you go to the bar at all. Just being there and being yourself. Being able to be in a space where you are yourself helps your confidence and for me, self confidence is sexy. No matter what you look like, if you’re confident in who you are and what you have to offer, I think you have a lot to give to the world.
Ty: Part of my reticence about getting into kink is that I never envisioned myself looking good in any kind of kink gear. But just this last month I was in Portland and there is a queer men’s underwear store there that’s pretty well known and they have a gear section and I’m like, hmmm. Interesting.
Mark: …people who are into that are also…their own personal self-acceptance of their body really plays out. You think about, in terms of leather and harnesses and things like that, it’s going to frame your body in a certain way, people who are attracted to that and into it are very self-accepting. That very much reads into it. It’s “look at me, here I am.” There’s no concern, did I frame myself the right way and things like that. I think that’s a big part of it as well.
Rich: Yeah, you do have to have a lot of self-confidence to walk in a bar with assless chaps on. [Laughter]
Mark: Oh yeah, oh yeah. Or to walk into the bar and take half your clothes off.
“Yeah, you do have to have a lot of self-confidence to walk in a bar with assless chaps on.”
More Need To Embrace The “X”
Ty: …where do you think body image is going in queer culture now? I see it improving, I see a lot of improvement of people accepting diverse body types, even outside of the one they identify with or are personally attracted to. But I still see a lot of room to be made for it. I still feel like an unfortunately large contingent of folk in the queer community who see anyone who is not ideal as being gross, which I think is horrible. I hope we can get past that as a culture.
Rich: I guess I would just say, I think that general society has advanced some in this area. We’re starting to see some representation in advertising and things like that. Making clothes that…one of the things that always gets me with some of the bigger clothes for bigger guys, they just don’t look flattering. So I think getting some better representation with that group and putting some focus on it. You can still be a big guy and look great in a suit but we just don’t see that. I think having that representation on TV and social media helps with that quite a bit. And that bleeds directly over to specific segments of the culture like the queer community.
Mark: I think once again we have women of color to thank again for advancing society in terms of acceptance.
Ty: Yep.
Mark: But it definitely has played out, I’ve seen it in just the purest gay culture thing which is men’s underwear, just knowing those sort of traditionally very gay brands are now…as I’m trying to find what my new size is for things, these things are cut a lot bigger than they used to be 10 years ago. And that there are larger sizes. There’s XXL which never existed before because it was like you can’t wear this brand because it’s a gay brand and we can’t have you in it.
Ty: There can be no “X”.
Mark: Right. So there have been those subtle shifts that happened but I don’t think it’s anywhere near perfect. There is a want for gay men to fit an idealized male version from the 1950s in order to be accepted…
Ty: I definitely agree with the brands, I feel like they are getting better. I will say when I went to Portland, it was near impossible to find anything in my size that would fit comfortably. Except for Nasty Pig, I know Nasty Pig has gotten really good about having sizes above, Bear Skn almost exclusively, that’s their whole thing, but like Bike, I wish Bike would be a little big better about it, I really want Skull & Bones to be better about it because I really like some of their motifs they use, but I’m four inches bigger than that. And they consider that an XL. That is not an XL.
My many thanks to Mark and Rich for taking time out of their day to just chat with me about a sometimes embarrassing subject and letting me share it with you all.
In next week’s (much shorter) newsletter…
I wrap up my series on body positivity and body image by sharing images from a photographer who depicts all body types and a publication bringing body acceptance to the forefront.