“Whenever we left the gym, he would feel like shit about it. “He took more steroids and he definitely got bigger and stronger, but he never felt good about it,” Waltman says. It’s also where he gained his internet fandom for growing huge, or “a monster,” as Waltman put it. It’s this community where Dovak found most solace in his size. It’s a site for all the guys who spent their childhoods stuffing pillows under their shirts or staring a little too long at big-bellied men in the supermarket.” (Grommr does not advocate for silicon injectors, which is a small portion of the gainer subculture, and the site’s online community has been adamantly against silicone enhancements.) The site coins itself as a place, “for guys of a similar mindset - that bigger is, most often, better. Gay men are also more prone to eating disorders and other body dysmorphia conditions that result in poor self image.īut until the gainer community became more popular with the introduction of a niche hook up app dedicated to them, “Grommr,” larger gay men had few places to find satisfaction or admirers of their bigger appearance. But the community isn’t only based around fetish - the gainer community is well known to encourage body positivity, which is sorely needed among LGBTQ communities.Ĭompared to straight men, gay men are more prone to focus heavily on their weight and appearance. The community lives online, mostly, with Tumblr blogs dedicated to idolizing bigger guts and monstrous testicles. Though the trend has appeared to decline recently - at least among trans women in New York, according to Radix - as quality care for trans-identifying people continues to grow, it’s now become more visible among the body modifying subculture of gainers. “You’re desperate to change your body, people will go through great lengths. “When people come in and say silicone, they don’t really know what they mean because it could be anything,” says Asa Radix, senior director of research and education for Callen-Lorde in New York City, an LGBTQ-focused health center, adding that some of his patients even had quick cement or peanut butter injected in them. It makes health experts reticent to even call the mixture “silicone,” at all. In one Florida woman’s case, tire sealant and cement were both injected into her face. But over the past five years, there have been a number of news reports exposing “pumping parties,” where groups of trans women pool their money to get injected with silicone, and the practice has now become more underground and more risky.Īnd much of that has to do with what’s being put in the mixture, which many times is unknown by those who receive the injections. “I’m not saying that the sexual aspect in gay culture is wrong (I mean we are a community based on our sexuality) but I sometimes feel that we as a community focus too much on sex (talking about topping or bottoming etc) when I don’t think the romantic aspects of how we feel about men are talked about enough.70 Greatest Music Documentaries of All TimeĮvery Super Bowl Halftime Show, Ranked From Worst to BestĪmong trans women, silicone injections are a well known way to achieve the ultimate body: curvy butt, thick thighs or larger breasts. The original poster, Gale2323, who later shared that he’s in his teens, responded to the thread: I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who has this problem!” I like sex just as much as any other guy but I’d like to have a normal relationship too. I guess that the gay community has been all about sex since a real relationship was so stigmatized.
Gay men are so much more than their sexual proclivities, but society (and particular subsets of gay culture) tend to only focus on the sexual.“ “I think what Gale may be getting at is that there is the perception that homosexuals are largely defined by whom they have sex with, rather than who they are. Others think the issue is one of perception on the part of society: But I’m well aware that there needs to be a great balance between romanticism and sexuality.” And understandably, now we’re hypersexual because of the lost time and the mental subjugation by this heteronormative society. We never had that teenage phase of dating or the first kiss.
We weren’t allowed to think or to feel or to act in accordance of our natural desire. “Gay culture has been so underdeveloped in the case of sexuality. One Redditor blamed the sexual nature of gay men on having missed out in our teens.