Gay Body Self-Hatred Explained

Floating around the gay interwebs this morning is a tongue-in-cheek breakdown, complete with visual aids, of why gays hate their bodies -- or at least according to Orlando Soria, an interior designer and founder of the Hommemakers, a fey-leaning blog that talks about interior design, food and, apparently, gay body image.

Soria, a self-described "former fat kid," claims that all of his friends are "hot skinny people," possibly the result of living in a city, his Ivy League Backround, or possibly being "a terrible, superficial person." He posts a picture of himself looking quite healthy and claims that in the WeHo crowd, he's the "fattest" one, even though he's not fat.

Clearly the blog isn't meant to be entirely serious, or at least the hyperbole of his explanations would suggest so. Item number five says that gays are more successful than "other people," which makes them more competitive:

"Let's face it, Gay people are better at life than straight people. They eat better, wear better clothes, and go on more glamourous vacations. I don't really know why, it's just a fact of life. But with this great privilege comes a great burden. Not only do we have to make tons of money to pay for all these stupid clothes and vacations, we also have to work out for hours on only 80 calories a day to prevent ourselves from being socially ostracized."

Not only is this funny, it sounds much like a line from the first half of I Love You Philip Morris, quoth Jim Carrey: "I'm gonna let you in on a little secret: Being gay is expensive!"

His reasoning extends to media, gay idolization of bartenders and personal trainers, but in the end the biggest culpret is "fear" and then "all of our friends look like Ken dolls," which mine don't (unless there is a Ken the Bear doll, in which case, yes).

Facebook comments alone show divided reaction to this post: "This is pretty much the stupidest thing I've ever read in my life," wrote one commenter while posting the link.

"Ummmm this sorta does a pretty good job at helping everyone who isn't gay somewhat understand... It may not be perfect, but it will help put a lot of things into a smidge of perspective! Ha," wrote Jeremy Kost, a well-known photographer pitching in his own centimes.

While it's hard to imagine that this article was posted with total earnestness, Soria goes great lengths to write a sweeping generalization of the entire population of gay men--all of whom we know don't live just in WeHo, have skinny bodie,s or hot friends -- there's something eerily regressive about the whole thing. We certainly possess much more body hair than the photos in the blog posting suggests. Still, it's gotten people talking, so we'll ask our own question. Is gay body self-image especially bad in this country, or is it that male body image is particularly bad--but gay guys are the only folks who say it? Discuss.