Original subtitles

(Director) And, mark it!

(Director) So when you think about body image amongst cisgendered men

who are attracted to men,

what are kind of the initial thoughts that come to your head?

When I think of a cisgendered gay man

(LAUGHS)

Blonde hair, blue eyes, a six pack

every advertisement you see on TV

or every time they depict

a gay male person, it’s always

a beautiful looking person externally.

I think the standards that we um,

place upon ourselves are unrealistic.

I find that our body image

is very competitive in the gay community.

I feel like we’re all just trying to out compete each other

just to get the attention that we want and validation.

Gay men generally are so concerned

about how they look

and how their body looks within their own community

and it tends to overtake

the potential of who they could be.

And sometimes when you don’t fit into the idea

of what they expect you to look like,

they automatically don’t look at you

or you become the wallflower.

We come from a generation that’s trying to move forward

but at the same time we’re also stuck in our ways of

what ideally we think someone should look like?

Somehow our community grab into that image

and then replicate it

as how everyone should look like.

(Director) Do gay men ever discriminate or exclude other gay men

based on their physical appearance?

Is this a thing that happens?

Um...

To some degree I think gay men are really terrible

about in the way that they um

discriminate, um

and discriminate around

body type.

Do you want the honest answer

or do you want the PC answer?

because the honest answer is yes.

(LAUGHS)

Ah yes they do.

Ah quite often actually,

it’s a very common thing.

I think that’s something that actually we as a community need to face into.

To be as diverse as we like to think we are,

we need to get rid of the discrimination.

(Glen) My name is Glen Hosking

and I’m an Associate Professor of Psychology

(Director) Mark it!

(Glen) at La Trobe University

and also a clinical psychologist.

I work a lot within the gay community

and have done for the last twenty years.

Um, I’m also a member of the gay community

and actively have done lots of things

from advocacy to everything else

(LAUGHS)

in the gay community.

(Glen) Body image really refers to the understanding

or concept that we bring to our own bodies

and so people can have a healthy body image

where they have a generally healthy

and helpful view of themselves

and a view of their body,

or they can of course have an unhealthy body image

where their view of themselves

and their body is really unhealthy

and unhelpful

and that can pose a whole lot of risks

for their overall wellbeing.

(Glen) So when we think about age and body image

what’s generally noticed within this space

is that as someone ages,

their sense of body image tends to deteriorate

and so they tend to,

in a particular period of time

struggle with how their bodies might be changing

as a result of ageing.

Ageing almost seems to be a sin.

Um, we’re told we need liposuction,

we’re told we need skin care,

we’re told we need Botox,

we need procedures to look young.

Mentally,

I still can see myself as being a twenty five or thirty year old.

I don’t see myself,

think of myself as ageing

until I look in the mirror.

(Glen) So in relation to body image and race,

people can make real comments about

how someone’s race determines how they look

and so that might be determined by

the colour of their skin

or other physical characteristics

that are very much connected to their race.

So in Australia I’ll be,

I am “Asian”

and that has an impact

on the way I see myself

by the nature of my skin colour

and also the way I see my body.

If the message and the image

that are being portrayed to us

are constantly promoting whiteness,

of course we are going to be influenced by that.

(Glen) When we’re talking about femininity and masculinity

amongst gay men,

one of the things that we really know is that there is

a real focus on masculinity.

So we’ve got the chest,

we have the shoulders,

we have the arms.

So, for most of us that is a sign of masculinity.

(Miss Jay) People have an idea of feminine men

you know being skinny

and limp wrist

and you know long hair with pretty eyelashes

or with makeup on and stuff like that,

or the muscle men being masculine.

These masculine men were kind of idolized

and so we’ve kind of adopted that.

In the recent years,

the masculine men are the ones

that sound the most feminine

when they open their mouth and talk

with the ‘yaas queen’

or the clacking their fingers

or their clacking their fans.

We are trying to be as masculine as we can

but a lot of us aren’t masculine.

Unfortunately though we tend to

put people into little boxes

depending on what they look like,

and then subsequently treat them like that.

(Glen) One of the things we know about the gay community

is that there is

much more than other communities a grater focus

on a party scene and a party lifestyle.

So when men in the gay community

see that party lifestyle,

it’s a real contrast from perhaps where they have been,

where they've perhaps

not connected with their sexuality,

where they've perhaps

not felt accepted by a community

and that getting into that kind of environment

can be a really important part

for someone in terms of connecting with their sexuality

and connecting with their community.

(Aaron) I remember the first time I walked into a gay bar

I didn’t know what was going on,

I was a teenager.

I think I was just a wallflower

watching everything that was going on.

(Stewart) It was very scary.

I was a very shy guy.

I didn’t really know how to be open.

I just was in my shell for a very long time.

Coming to Australia there are more,

there’s more diverse group of people out here,

so you’re not just white or you’re not just Asian.

There is a big mix of us.

And then you go, ‘Where do I really fit in?’

I was very fortunate to be taken under the wing

of a choreographer at the Market Hotel

and he actually invited me to a drag show

and I saw my first drag show

and then I looked at all these men around me.

I thought, ‘Oh my god I’m home’.

I’m home, I could breathe.

(Budi) To be around people that feels the same way

where we don’t judge each...

or we do judge each other

(LAUGHS) but…

Being in the gay community

can be a lot of fun.

It can be really eye opening,

educational.

It's where some people

find their chosen family.

It wasn’t so much a gay male that took me...

that kind of welcomed me

into the gay world, it was actually a drag queen!

I walked in and she goes...

‘Oh, you look uncomfortable’

and I said, ‘Oh I’m new’.

Introduced me to her friends,

introduced me to other people,

introduced me as me being new

and ever since then that kind of

has sat and resonated.

(Aaron) So it’s awesome. Like the things that we get to do.

I mean,

we party well.

One thing we do know how to do well

is throw a party.

It was more of a confirmation that yes,

I am gay.

Right, I thought about it,

I rejected it but now I’m part of the community,

I know that’s who I am.

I think that answered your question.

I can’t remember what your question was! (LAUGHS) (Director) Perfect. No no that’s perfect.

(Director) Excellent. We’ll move on to the next part.

(Director) Do you think it’s possible to be

a gay man in the gay community

and not be affected by body image

in some sort of way?

(Miss Jay) Do I think it’s possible to be a gay man

in the gay community

and not be affected

by body image?

Nup. Don’t think so.

(Miss Jay) Being in the gay world, watching the gay men go by,

you realize that

how your body looks is very important.

And so then I realized very quickly people were

looking for very specific traits.

If you have a good body,

people automatically turn to you

because as soon as you have that good body,

your confidence level is boosted,

your shirt comes off in a nightclub

or your shirt is off at a beach party

so that means people are now going to

admire you for what you look like.

Generally when you’re out there in gay land, (CHUCKLES)

body image seems to be such a big part of

how we operate now.

It seems to be a competition now as to who looks the hottest,

who looks the fittest, who looks the best,

who’s got the less body fat.

Blah blah blah blah blah.

As opposed to let’s all get together and have a great time

and embrace how someone looks.

Groups of gay men are much more likely

to be in environments

where their appearance

and how they look is very centred

to that environment.

Gay men are much more likely to

take their tops off at parties,

to take their tops off in nightclubs,

to post photos on social media

without their tops on.

(Budi) We are a subscriber of

the gay culture

and if the gay culture only

embrace a certain type of the body,

then our psyche will start to believe

that’s what I have to aspire to,

that’s what I have to look like

in order to feel a sense of belonging.

What this can often do

is really create this ideal

which can create

a real bias and a real focus

on how someone looks

because they feel that that’s going to

determine their level of social interaction,

their worth within the community.

(Budi) And we crave that sense of belonging

because we have been told since we were a child,

that the simple fact we are attracted to the same sex

means that we are an outsider.

(Director) So, what is the ideal body?

So in a general sense

we’re going to be very general here,

what would you say

the body type that gay men aspire to

or are most attracted to,

what are the physical characteristics…

(Stefan) Sure. (Director) of the ideal body?

(Stefan) If we’re talking about the ideal body.

Number one, a good head of hair.

Beautifully cut hair.

Number two, chiselled jaw.

A handsome face.

You’ve got to be six foot two.

If we’re working our way down.

Broad shoulders, big chest.

Pecs.

And tall.

Nice arms.

Strong arms, a six pack.

Six packs. Eight packs if you can get it.

A chiselled body with the V line going in

so it leaves a little bit of thirst,

you know?

Good glamour muscles.

It’s all in proportion,

they probably all have eight percent body fat.

Strong legs, great butt and a great package essentially.

A big arse.

Hairless.

With a perfect smile.

Tanned skin, usually Caucasian.

Is the image that we’re bombarded with.

That’s what most gay males gravitate towards.

And for some reason we have put that all together

and think that that’s the key to success.

Even though you may not be physically attracted

to that particular body,

it is an automatic response

that person is hot

because that person fits

with the ideal body in that subculture.

(Budi) If you are muscular.

Masculine.

If you are white.

And in their twenties and thirties.

Then it will be easier for you

to gain acceptance and entry into the scene

than if you are anything other than those things.

(Stefan) It’s an image that has been projected in our minds

for decades.

This isn’t a new thing

and it’s always illustrated as um

strength, virility,

um being attractive, being appealing,

being sexy, being strong.

Masculine without being aggressive.

Because of the value that’s often placed on

presenting as particularly masculine

in the gay community,

often what we do see is people working very hard

to present themselves

that doesn’t present in a feminine kind of way.

Often we see this historically

from an early age.

Young children might be told not to act in a feminine way

by the community, by their parents,

which presents a huge range of issues

for younger people.

But we do often then find that

amongst adult gay men

that there is a focus

because the value that’s placed on being masculine,

on presenting oneself in that particular way.

(Stewart) It’s like I don’t know just a flare to everyone.

It’s just like 'Oh look, they’re standing out'.

It's peacocking. They’re showing off their tail

and we’re all gagging for it. (LAUGHS)

You have a group of gay boys sitting down

and having a chat about something

and as soon as a “hot” boy walks past,

their entire conversation for the next hour

will be that hot boy

and what he was wearing

and did you see how big his bulge was

or how big his arse was.

People point it out because

they notice these things you know.

(Glen) So a big part about having this ideal body shape and body size

is that it can

create status, it can create attention,

and it can create belonging

and so all of these things

are appealing to people within the gay community.

Those standards are extremely unrealistic.

They’re unattainable

and it’s the chasing of those unattainable standards

that’s actually really dangerous

because you get a lot of guys trying to live up to

or to attain the unattainable and it’s unfair

that...

people feel that they need to attain that.

Research does indicate

that groups of gay men

are typically higher

in terms of their standard of body image

and so gay men will typically

exercise more,

typically pay more attention to their diet

and also typically have a greater proportion of eating disorders

and other mental health related issues to body image.

(Stewart) When I was younger, when I was like eighteen if I would go out,

I didn’t really feel that attractive.

Like, I was still growing into my body but like,

I didn’t have any muscle

I would feel so self-conscious that I wouldn’t want to take off my top.

I wouldn’t have anyone

really making eye contact

or looking at me in a way that

makes me feel good.

I felt like no one was talking to me

and mostly because

I would do something and it didn’t really get

received at all.

So I’m like,

‘Am I doing something wrong?'

I did become obese while at university.

I was going through some very emotional times

through an abusive relationship.

My way out of it was to

binge on food and just have comfort food

but that led to a binge purging

bulimia type situation

where I would

gorge myself on food but then I would feel sick.

But it wasn’t really until I really looked at myself one day in the mirror,

knew that my relationship was failing

and knew that I wanted to come back into the community that I’m like,

‘Oh, I can’t look like this,'

'I have to change’.

I had that idea of what people were expecting,

the expectation of body image.

So that’s why I had this huge drive to get there.

So over the course of six months

I worked my arse off every day at the gym

watching what I ate

and I lost thirty-five kilos in six months

and then I got to a point where

I couldn’t lose any more weight.

I was literally just skin and bone

but in my mental state I thought that I had weight to lose,

so it was really

causing harm on myself

and then...

I started to put on muscle.

I was training very hard and being strict on my eating.

I would go to the gym before I went to the actual club,

just to get that extra little bit of pump.

So I was pushing myself

to be able to be this person,

creating this illusion that I looked like this all the time.

(Director) Did you notice in a general sense people

were giving you more attention

because you were getting fitter

and you were, you know, having this type of body?

(Stewart) So over the course of my transformation

I did notice that I was getting a lot more attention

from particular guys.

It made me more confident,

it made me more

okay to be in my own body.

Guys would come up to me and just like you know touch my muscles

and it’s like, ‘Oh you’ve gotten bigger’

or just like, ‘Oh you’re looking good’.

Like, they would start to use that type of language towards me

which I never really had before

and so I’m like,

‘Oh this is new. I like it’.

But because I had that positive reinforcement,

I kept on doing what I was doing because I was like,

Oh I’ve got the attention through this I’m just going to keep doing that.

I could imagine that the people that I talked to now

probably wouldn’t give me the time of day back

when I was obese and fat

because I did not meet their standard.

I do feel like I get body dysmorphia.

I do find that when someone compliments me

on how I look I don’t see it

because I’m just thinking about my problem areas

and I know that they’re not focussing on that

but in my mind I am.

Like I still have an idea of what I look like

and that’s who I used to be five years ago

and that’s just so engrained in my head that I still feel like that person.

For me I just become hyper over something that

I’m not happy with

and then I just focus on it until

until I can change it.

And sometimes I can’t change it

so then I’m just stuck with it

and then it’s just

it just rots my mind.

(Director) Do gay men ever assume

that because you look a certain way

that you have an ego?

Is there a stigma associated with people who

are fit do you think?

So I feel like there is a stigma

and I do feel like I am stereotyped to have an ego.

Some people

generally say I wasn’t expecting you to be so nice

or friendly.

Or have a heart,

or have compassion,

but obviously for other people they just see me as a jock

and they’ve already got a stigma towards a jock

to having an ego.

(Director) Why do you think gay guys kind of

make that association,

that instant association with

fitness and ego?

(Stewart) I feel like gay guys make that association

because there is a lot of egotistical behaviour

with muscle queens

showing off their body

and only being concerned about themselves

but not the people around them.

And it’s quite common

and you will see it wherever you look.

I always see myself as a work in progress.

So, I don’t see

a particular angle that I want to get to.

I just want to keep along this journey.

I’ve seen the growth and development

that I’ve made throughout it

and I just want to continue with that momentum.

I don’t know where I’ll end it at,

but all I know is it makes me feel good

and I like going to the gym

and just keeping fit

because it just makes me feel present.

(Glen) One of the things that we know about

the preoccupation of body image

amongst gay men

is that there is a greater proportion of things like

body dysmorphic disorder and body dissatisfaction.

And so if someone who experiences these conditions

to a level that means it’s a diagnosable condition,

has their social, emotional,

occupational functioning impacted.

So they might struggle to

maintain appropriate relationships.

They might not be able to concentrate at work.

They might stop working as a result.

So all of these things have this significant impact

on someone’s overall day to day functioning.

(Director) So do we see examples of the ideal body

at Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras?

What are your thoughts around body image

and that particular event?

Sydney Gay Mardi Gras and body image.

Um…

On a personal note,

I do struggle with the whole concept

because I see so many guys,

particular those guys in the parades,

working so hard to have the perfect body.

In the same breath

there are also people in the parades

who are just themselves

and happy to show their body.

But I don’t understand

is why everyone has to show everything

and be practically naked to make a statement.

(Glen) So something like Sydney Mardi Gras

is very much a double-edged sword

and so whilst on one sense

it promotes this great sense of inclusion,

it celebrates the broad LGBTIQ+ communities,

it enables people outside of that community

to experience and connect

with that community.

For people in the community

it can provide a number of risk factors.

So some of these might include

a real central focus on how someone looks,

a real central focus on

the sexualised attitude around that

and that this can actually create

some level of anxiety within the community

if they don’t look a particular way.

It can be very…

difficult to look at sometimes

because I mean I remember my first Mardi Gras

and again it came down to that thing of

I couldn’t see me walking up that street.

And it took me a long time to realize that it was a protest

and that actually why we’re here,

Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras,

is actually a really important event.

Unfortunately again that whole body image

thing can come into play

where you have to go into the gym for the first,

for twelve months.

You’ve got a twelve month lead time.

It’s almost like the Olympic cycle.

You’re training for Mardi Gras.

(Stewart) When it comes to like the build up

for a circuit party or Sydney Mardi Gras,

I feel like a lot of people are pushing themselves

to look the best that they can

because they know everyone else is doing it

so they want to just have a

oomph over everyone else.

Everyone’s going to cut as much fat away

so they feel confident in themselves.

Because there’s nothing worse than being at a party

and feeling like the ugly person there.

Because we want to be able to enjoy

the experience that we’re having

and not feel crap about ourselves.

People will ramp up their exercise regime.

They’ll change their eating habits.

They might get Botox

or other forms of cosmetic surgery,

all in an effort to conform

to a particular ideal that’s presented to them.

(Stewart) I know some PTs that offer a discount

on their service just for Mardi Gras

obviously they’re trying to capitalize on the market

and I would say underwear

especially with gay circuit wear,

they would start to actually

promote their product differently,

because they know they have a crowd

and they know they have a market

for the people that are going.

Have a look at advertising

targeting cis gay men.

It won’t take you long

to see that there is a certain type of gay man

that advertisers

would like us to believe

that that’s the representation

of what cis gay men should be like.

(Stewart) They would probably produce a photo of someone

that’s in their underwear,

that’s really fit,

that has the ideal body that we’re all wanting.

And they kind of leave out everyone else.

Every now and then we might get a different colour

in relation to skin.

But the body is still the same.

(Stefan) I really do believe that gay targeted media

generally is always targeted towards the youth.

Honestly, once you hit fifty, you don’t exist,

generally.

People from all communities whether it be the gay community

or the non-gay community,

respond well from advertisements

that have a focus on sex

and in a community where the focus

is more so than others on how you look,

it makes sense that

advertising is going to target that in a particular way.

(Aaron) So you know, pout,

arch your back,

move your leg this way,

create a fantasy

that you are going to live up to

or that you’re going to want,

that you’re going to buy into.

(Stefan) If advertisers if for example

were to show a guy in his mid-50s with a gut,

um in Speedos,

I don’t think they’re going to sell Speedos very well,

you know?

Put a hot guy in his twenties with a six pack,

of course it’s going to sell well.

That works to our disadvantage because we’re basically saying

that people in their 50s without a perfect body,

should not be able to wear something for example,

we’re doing ourselves a major disservice.

Most posters for like gay events actually,

you see...

white bodies

that are beautifully chiselled.

You see things like that and you go,

‘Oh, these are the kind of men that are going to be there’.

I would look at that and be like,

‘I won’t fit in'. I wouldn’t go to a party like that.

(Glen) So the repetitive culture that we see here

where by this is the presented ideal about

how someone should look,

this conditions people that this is how you should look.

And of course that’s false.

Of course gay men can look

a whole range of ways

and be completely different

but there is this message that comes through

that this is how someone should look.

(Stewart) I think when we see these marketing photos,

they have absolutely been edited.

They’ve been photoshopped, they’ve been airbrushed.

They’ve really made the person stand out

and they’ve really made them not who they really are.

I know this because it’s been done on me.

I’ve been airbrushed

for a particular underwear campaign,

posters for clubs and stuff.

Everyone sees that and it’s just an illusion.

It’s not true. (LAUGHS)

Like, me in those photos,

yes, I’ve worked really hard

to get my body to that particular shape,

but it’s only on one day that I have this photoshoot

and I can’t sustain that every single day.

It’s not possible,

but I understand from a marketing perspective

it’s a complete strategy just to get the money.

(Budi) If I am completely absorbed

into believing that to be gay

means that I have to consume certain things,

then of course I’m going to be obsessed with it

because that will be my...

idea of belonging.

But then if you ask different people

they will say well actually no,

we have started questioning and rejecting

that idea

that you have to be a certain way

in order to gain acceptance in the community.

There’s a lot of conversation about the body in society now.

There’s a lot of conversation about body positivity.

We do have people with different perspectives

of what ideal bodies look like.

That is why I think we’ve got different tribes.

Like, the gay community have listed their own

or created categories for themselves,

like we need another category to put ourselves into,

we need another box to put ourselves into,

but we’ve created more.

When we talk about tribes,

we’re really talking about a

collective group of people

who share a similar kind of sense of identity.

And people who are part of this tribe

relate to other people

because they have a shared value system

about themselves.

And a lot of that does,

is done, by our physical appearance.

We’re labelled in those physical appearances.

What are some of the tribes that we have

in the gay community?

The male gay community?

I mean we have our twinks.

You’ve got the twinkies that are,

that are like eighteen year olds

to like twenty two, twenty three

and then once you pass that age group

you go into being a twunk.

A twunk

is essentially the next upgrade in the evolutionary tree

where they still look boyish

but they have a little bit of muscle on them

like they do look like they work out.

You’ve got um, your jocks.

You know those,

the boys that we're talking about.

And then you’ve got the,

of course you’ve got the femmes

who are very

skinny, flamboyant with a limp wrist is what they always call it.

The bears um,

that I identify with

who tend to be

you know a group of people that don’t conform

to the natural body type

or the aesthetic that we have to try and live up to.

You’ve also got a daddy

who’s like a little bit of fatherly like looks to them.

I don’t know.

The daddies.

Apparently I’m a daddy. Yay.

We’ve got the daddies,

we’ve got the silver foxes,

we’ve got the otters,

the twinks, the twunks, the jocks…

the many many more that I don’t know of.

(LAUGHS)

But there’s so many.

There’s way too many to keep up.

I was going to be really cheeky and say

we probably have fish as well

but (LAUGHS)

we can have our seahorses…

Do I put myself in a category?

No, because I don’t actually know what

I would fit into.

A platypus. Is that a thing?

I’ve never belonged to a tribe as such

but I find as I age,

I’m now being put into the tribe of daddy

and I find that actually really offensive.

Um, I’m no one’s daddy.

(LAUGHS)

I don’t want to look after anyone.

I don’t want to have to teach anyone anything. (LAUGHS)

I’m happy to be a mate and a mentor,

but I don’t want to be put into that group.

I would say the tribe that I have been labelled as,

is I am a jock / muscle queen.

Am I happy about that?

No, because I feel like they’re stereotyping me

and I would say I'm more of a geek.

Um, that’s how I see myself.

I’m just goofy. (LAUGHS)

It’s almost like the moment you come out

you have to

put yourself into a into a group

and that’s where you belong

and that’s who you hang out with.

And generally speaking,

those tribes are not communicating

to create a community

a sense of community.

I think it becomes about people trying to find

something that looks like them

and so therefore

I’m going to gravitate to someone that is like-minded

and feel secure in that

because if we’re like-minded

well maybe they’re going to have similar opinions

and then have similar values.

Some people can go into certain venues

and not feeling comfortable in some venues

because maybe their tribe’s not there.

Um, they can’t see themselves there.

(Aaron) When I came out, I was confronted

and it probably

wasn’t good for my own mental health.

The body image was

you know young, slim, muscly, hairless.

It wasn’t anything that I looked like.

I used to have a lot of issues taking my

top off at parties

and um,

I would either require a lot of alcohol,

(LAUGHS)

which was never good, um

to get that Dutch courage,

to sort of try and look like

everyone else on the dance floor.

When I would shave in the morning,

because I did shave back then every day, (LAUGHS)

I stopped looking at myself

and I didn’t realize that I had actually

stopped looking at my body

or my image until

I had actually put on a lot of weight.

And sort of was like,

‘Wow this is not the person I thought I was’

and then sort of going through that process

of well what’s important to me.

So went on a journey of self-discovery

about accepting

the fact that I don’t look like the posters

and I need to find out what’s going to work for me

and you know I need to go out there and

find my tribe

and go out there and find my chosen family.

I first discovered the bear community actually in Sydney.

A group used to run regular events.

It was just a group of guys coming together.

It didn’t seem to have all of the typical things

that you would go into most gay bars.

Like it wasn’t full of twinks,

it wasn’t full of muscle Mary’s,

guys that weren’t sort of

too hung up on

having a six pack

and you know

monitoring their body fat percentage.

It was filled more with people that sort of

looked a little bit more like me.

That’s who I’ve chosen to surround myself

and feel secure

and feel loved within as well,

and I think you know going on that journey

has been...

actually it’s been pretty good so far.

Finding like-minded people

where you feel safe and secure,

where you can express who you are without

being judged.

(Director) Would you say that the bear community helps

to remind us

that the gay community is diverse?

Perhaps we get caught up thinking

a certain way about body image?

I mean the bears are a diverse community.

However, we can still get caught up

in our own divisions

and we need to constantly remind ourselves

that you know

we can have racism within the bear community.

People can exclude because of

how someone looks

or you know are they old enough to be a bear.

It’s up to the individual

and it’s also up to us as leaders

to face into people that are talking like that

and to say actually

in our community we don’t want that.

We’ve still got a long way to go

but you know, what is a bear now?

It’s actually more about a mindset

versus now about physical attributions.

Now we have our drag bears,

now we have you know our non-binary bears

our bear flag is just as diverse.

Being a bear has sort of certainly helped me about my own

body positivity.

It’s helped me be a lot more outgoing.

The things that I’ve learnt is to accept me

and hopefully...

I can

help people to accept themselves as well.

(Director) Hmm, here’s an interesting one.

We’ll see how you go with this one.

So statistically is it true or false that gay men

are more sexually promiscuous than straight men? (CHUCKLES)

(Glen) (LAUGHING)

(Director) So if yes,

why are gay men more sexually active?

(Crew member) Just true or false, thats it.

(Glen and Director) (LAUGHING)

(Director) Yeah

(Glen) Um okay. Ah...

(Glen) It’s well known that gay men

are more sexually promiscuous than straight men.

There are a range of reasons as to why

this might be the case,

or this is the case.

Ah, one of the reasons is that

there’s a great sense of liberation

that comes with gay men being able to

sexually express themselves.

So if someone has gone through a period of their life

where they’ve had to suppress their sexuality

which is the case with most if not all gay men

at some point or to some level,

that being able to express themselves

really openly in a sexualized kind of way,

can actually be quite freeing

and quite liberating for them.

And, sex is an enjoyable act for most people.

Most people find a great deal of satisfaction.

It’s enjoyable for people to engage in sexual activity

and so for people

it’s something that they often strive to do.

(Stewart) I think it’s all about the body when it comes to sex.

Sex is very,

it’s highly rated in our community.

Like, we are kind of animals when regarding it.

(Miss Jay) Like even the other day this guy came in to the nightclub

and all...

I could hear in the toilets was him getting railed.

(LAUGHS)

And I said to myself,

oh he had

masculine voice,

macho sounding,

big muscles, good body,

and all you could hear him was like

a screaming Mary

in the toilet getting railed.

(Glen) So the sense of liberation that comes when people

are being sexual

often means that there’s a greater sense of focus

on obtaining sexual activity

and one of the ways in which someone can

obtain more sexual activity,

is to look a particular way

and have their bodies look a particular way

in order to be sexually attractive,

in order to have more sexual activity.

(Budi) Who are the people who can pick up

very easily?

Same thing.

Same body, same look,

same standard of beauty.

Who are the people in porn, starring in the porn?

It’s... most of them are white,

most of them has a typical body.

They’re quite athletic, they’re quite muscular.

Porn, for a lot of people is our first exposure to

the gay culture.

Right? For a lot of people

even before we’re actually admitting to ourself I’m gay,

or I’m same sex attracted,

we are already accessing porn.

(Glen) Whilst porn within the gay community

does have a level of diversity,

most of the porn

is very much connected around those ideals

of someone that is masculine,

muscular and young

and that does perpetuate this idea that

these are valued commodities

within the gay community.

(Director) Um, all right, Grindr.

(Stefan) Oof.

(Director) So, describe what Grindr is to someone

that has never heard of Grindr?

Grindr is a...

social platform

for gay men to

basically meet

and um...

these days more than ever

basically for a sexual experience

more so than a social or a friendship experience.

(Aaron) Grindr is a

online app.

It will show you a grid of

pictures of where men are at,

generally within the metre.

It can tell you how close they are. (CHUCKLES)

Ah and then the stats that they’ve chosen to put on there.

So, some people might put photographs,

they’ll put their age.

Um, a description of themselves

and potentially what they’re looking for.

(Miss Jay) With online apps,

you’re literally looking at a person’s profile and going

Yep I’m going to screw this tonight.

I’m not interested in what you sound like,

I’m not interested in what you have to say or what you do for work.

I just want your body.

I want to sleep with your body

and I want to dispose of it

as soon as I can possibly do it.

You get on your app and what do you see?

Shirtless men, one after another, after another, after another.

You’re basically shopping.

For any single gay man

or gay man just generally,

that’s what you are subjected to.

That’s what you think you need to be

to look like to be appealing to someone.

(Director) So, I’ve actually got some Grindr profiles…

(Miss Jay) Okay.

(Director) ...that I would like you to read out on camera.

(Miss Jay) Okay.

(Director) All I want you to do is just read them out

in front of camera.

(Stewart) Okay.

(Aaron) Are they live profiles?

(Director) No no just the written word.

Mark it.

Thank you.

I’m scared now. Okay thank you.

You’re very brave of giving your phone with me.

Okay.

'I only speak to people who have a real face pic.

Not into fat guys, not into older guys,

not into femme guys, not into hairy guys.'

Hmm.

'Genuine, fit, ambitious'.

Mmm, good for you.

All right. ‘Into travelling, gym, beach, hiking.

Ideally looking for regular but open to whatever.’

‘Must be athletic, muscular.

Face pic first or no chat.

Can prove I’m real and so should you.’

‘Love to chat and explore sexual kinks.’

Oh, yep, cool.

‘Currently in the process of becoming a twunk

through gym and food. (CHUCKLES)

I would love your help.’

‘Bulk up and get beefy with me.

I do have photos to send.’

Okay.

‘No pics, no stats, no chat.’

Yeah. Fair enough.

‘No pics, no stats, no chat.’

Ooh gross.

‘No pics, no stats, no chat.’

Pff okay. That’s a waste of time.

‘Into masculine and muscular.’

Okay I’m out.

‘Be serious about fitness, genuine and not fake

we're ninety percent compatible.’

How would you know though?

Like, how would you know you’re ninety percent

compatible with the person

just because the person goes to

the gym and is into fitness…

‘Career focussed, honest, Italian.

My routine

eat, gym, eat, work, eat, sleep.’

‘Eat, gym, eat, work, eat, sleep.’

Wow.

‘Follow my fitness journey on Instagram.’

This is how people get followers!

‘Follow my fitness journey on Instagram.’

It goes on.

‘I’m attracted to guys with a gym toned body.

No pic, no chat.’

Sounds like everyone else.

‘I exercise daily and manage my diet to stay healthy

but I don’t obsess over body image.’

That’s a lie.

Because if you exercise daily

and maintain a diet to stay healthy,

that means you technically obsess over what you look like.

Right?

‘However, with that said, I prefer people in shape.’

Yep.

‘If you initiate then swap pics.

Like Caucasians, white, Euro, wog, tradies, gym lad, twink,

Respect the discipline of masculinity.

Please keep it under forty,

slim fit or muscle.’

Respect the discipline of masculinity?

‘I can host. My weakness is Caucasians

but all are welcome.’

‘Please be plus or minus

ten years around my age

and not too large body.

Eventually a relationship

but it is hard to find Mr. Right.’

These are legit. Legit?

(Director) Yep these are real. (Stefan) Wow. Um...

(Director) These are completely real. (Stefan) Oh my god um…

‘Prefer to see a face pic.

Not interested in anyone older.

I’m not Asian. I don’t know why people keep asking me that.’

What’s wrong with being Asian?

But obviously for this person it is such a confronting thing,

I’m being mistaken as an Asian person.

And Asian men in the gay...

community, in the gay culture, in the gay scene,

is still seen as the lower end

of the hierarchy of attraction and desire.

So, obviously for this person,

being mistaken as an Asian is...

an insult.

(SIGHS)

‘Please don’t be old. Just be sexy.’

Because you can’t be both. Okay.

Okay, so I don’t...

I genuinely don’t understand

this age concept that people have

because somebody could be twenty five

and look like they’re fifty seven.

‘Don’t bother if older than thirty seven years old.

Be realistic.’

Okay. Thanks.

‘Muscular, fit, discreet.

Looking for straight acting fit tops under thirty.’

Well good luck with that in Melbourne.

‘Into fit, masculine,

equals straight acting,

good looking guys.

No strings attached.

Anonymous. Clearly I’m not looking for friends either.’

So what’s ‘straight acting’ again?

Every time I see the word ‘straight acting’

I know that I’m not one of those.

‘Fit, masculine, straight acting and good looking guys’

Well, what’s ‘good looking’?

What’s good looking for one person is different to another.

It’s funny. You know what’s funny?

I’m actually remember quite a lot of these.

(Director) Yeah.

(Stefan) Because I do read. (Director) Yep.

(Stefan) (LAUGHING)

(Director) Me too.

(Stefan and Director) (LAUGHING)

‘Racial preference is sexual racism.

I’m not telling you who to love,

but be open to possibilities.

People are people.’

‘The dating pool in our community is limited enough.

Why close yourself.’

‘Love the person not the race. You are enough.’

That’s refreshing. Um.

There’s a lot of pain in that

one profile

that they felt the need

to actually communicate it to others.

(SIGHS)

‘Personal trainer, nutritionist, counselling student.

Question…’

‘What is worse

than discrimination from straight people…’

‘Answer? Discrimination from gay people.’

Very true.

‘Discrimination from gay people.’

Amen.

‘Discrimination from gay people.’

True that. (LAUGHS)

On point.

Couldn’t summarise it better.

‘Discrimination from gay people.’

‘Discrimination from gay people.’

I like that,

as long as you don’t discriminate yourself.

I really do.

(Director) Thank you.

(Miss Jay) Thank you.

Wow.

(Director) So, how does that make you feel?

We’re fucked up.

Seriously fucked up as a community.

(Stefan) How the hell are we ever going to mend as a group, as a people.

How are we ever going to be able to unite as a community?

People writing this,

putting these words on a platform

where pretty much nearly every gay man in the world is on.

That’s so sad.

We’re so fucked up.

Some of it’s disgusting.

It is so...

exclusionary.

Some of them were actually really hard to read

because it is blatant racism,

ageism.

It is... It's...

everything that I think that we should detest in our community

because we go through enough hardship just coming out.

So why are we making it so much harder for ourselves?

People wouldn’t say these things

in life, like to person to person.

You’re not going to be like, ‘No femme queens, no Asians.'

'You need to have this particular body type.’

Like you don’t have...

you’re not saying that.

You’re only saying that online

because you feel like you can be confident to say that.

So it’s giving you this medium,

this platform to be able to speak your mind.

(Director) Do you think that the discrimination is a consequence

of the platform itself, so Grindr itself

or the people who are on the platform?

(Miss Jay) I don’t think it’s so much the app itself.

I think it’s people who are on the app.

Some would say that we’ve seen the worst,

the worst in the gay community is on Grindr

but it’s actually not.

Even out there in the gay scene

we replicate that sentiment

about who we should find attractive.

It’s just a manifestation of what normally happens in real world.

Again, it’s written down

so we can actually see it and read it.

(Glen) So if someone does have this centralized idea that how you look

determines your overall sense of worth

then that can mean that they will

hold that standard to others

and therefore regard someone who looks a particular way

to have a greater sense of worth

and someone who doesn’t look a particular way

to have a lower sense of worth.

It can create an environment where people feel okay discriminating

against other people who don’t look in a particular way.

Together with that what we need to understand

is that many people in the gay community

have experienced their own form of discrimination

in one way or another

and sometimes enacting similar discrimination onto others

can actually help them feel

a little bit better about their own discrimination

because it normalizes their experience.

(Stewart) I’ve been around some groups of guys

and it has made me frustrated how they're

so quickly to just dismiss someone based on

how they look or how they dress

and it’s just concerning because

they don’t actually know the person.

It gets to a point where we become Mean Girls

and essentially say people can’t sit with us.

I’ve overheard guys in clubs

rip people apart for their bodies

particularly those who may have had a bit to drink

and want to get in the party and take their shirt off

and all of a sudden you'll hear a gaggle of queens going,

‘Check her out.'

'I wouldn't be doing that. Look at that.’

Like, it’s disgusting.

(Aaron) I think a lot of people do pass judgment

on that first look.

So not even an impression. It’s that first look,

that gaze across the room,

whether it’s the sniggering comment into a close friend’s ear

and sometimes unfortunately laughing about it.

That sort of that laughing with you or you laughing about them

um, can be really...

tough.

If we’re talking the gay community,

I feel like I’m being discriminated against because of my age.

If we’re talking general community,

I never feel that.

It’s only within, from my own “people” that I feel that,

which always makes me laugh

because I always think to myself,

if you discriminate against me due to my age,

you’re actually discriminating against your future self.

(Stefan) I was a new kid on the block when I came out.

So I was this wog boy from Springvale

who hit the scene,

as a young person who’s just come out who’s reasonably attractive.

All of a sudden the attention’s on them.

It wasn’t even...

a blatant awareness.

It’s when you have a group of people telling you

that you’re attractive or whatever,

you all of a sudden start to believe it and work with it?

So, I was very lucky back then.

It was again a whole different scene.

(Director) How did it feel to kind of get that attention when you were younger?

It’s euphoric, particularly when you come out

and you think you’re the only person in your situation,

particularly when you have this fear

that you will be rejected

by everyone around you,

that life will be challenging, life will be difficult,

that you’ll be persecuted.

Um, particularly when your family disown you.

Um, that was the most horrendous thing.

So to all of a sudden to be put on a pedestal and said,

‘Hey you’re actually fabulous’

that changed my life, yeah.

When I was twenty five, twenty six,

I remember hearing a group of older gay guys

and I remember them saying to me,

‘Once you hit thirty it’s over.'

'No one’s going to want you.'

They were bitter and twisted old queens. (LAUGHS)

And I remember that was so

in my mind and I thought, ‘Shit’.

And true story I was thirty years of age,

I was driving along the freeway.

I was about to go to my thirtieth birthday party.

I pulled to the side of the road and I vomited

because I was fearful of turning thirty.

Thirty sounded so old.

I think as gay men we’re not really taught

to respect the ageing process

because we don’t have many people to look up to.

I think older gay men tend to get away

go away from the gay scene

because they don’t feel desirable or they may feel stupid

or they may feel irrelevant in a way.

I mean I’m finding that myself

that I cringe at going out now

because I feel creepy in a way?

I feel like I don’t belong. I shouldn’t be there.

It’s like I should just leave it to the younger guys.

But if I wanted to go out and socialize,

I would go to a club on my own.

People, my friends just won’t go.

I’ll go into a venue and people stare...

but I am left alone.

I’m not, and even I might smile at someone

and then you have this gaggle of queens laughing

and whatever else

and you feel... I feel isolated,

I feel…

(SIGHS)

I haven’t really had this conversation with other people in my age group

because I would often in my twenties look at people

in their fifties or sixties, in a gay bar on their own,

and you’d think how tragic.

And all of a sudden I’ve become that man.

And I always promised myself I wouldn’t be that man

and I’ve become that man if I do go out alone.

So that’s why I’ve stopped going out alone.

When you’re on Grindr,

I’ve actually had people send me a message saying

‘Fuck off, you dirty old queen!’

I just looked at the profile.

It was soul destroying.

I punish myself.

I absolutely punish myself.

I look at myself in the mirror

and I genuinely see a fat old man.

I’m comparing myself to men in their twenties and thirties.

It’s absurd.

We are obsessed with youth

and guilty as charged

I find myself being

attracted to younger men more so than I would be men my age.

Then again, I don’t have any benchmarks.

I don’t have anyone to look at in my age group

to even see, or follow,

or use it as my benchmark.

I’ll often try to chat to men my age

and they’re after the younger guys.

So...

like it’s really hard to meet someone

who’s even your own age group

who’s interested in meeting you,

because they’re after somebody twenty years younger.

And there goes that horrible circle

and that obsession with youth.

Because of the general focus on younger men,

as being the norm within the gay community,

there is going to be this idea that in order to be worthwhile

in that community you need to be of a particular age.

We do know that gay men

have much more trouble ageing

than straight men or men from other communities.

(Miss Jay) Based on body image, we exclude a lot of people.

I think we forget that

there is more

to people than just having a good body

with no, zero percent body fat

or being a certain height or being a certain colour.

We promote being inclusive but we exclude a lot of people by doing that.

We exclude ourselves sometimes

because we think we’re not good enough to be a part of

this group that we are in,

that group that we belong to.

Um, and as a gay man

sometimes I feel like I do that with myself.

I exclude myself from a lot of things,

a lot of events because I don’t think I belong.

I don’t think I’m good enough to be a part of it

and I think that is what the problem is, you know?

Whilst you know we talk about diversity,

are we truly diverse?

I think we’re getting there.

I think we’re a lot better than where we were

when I first came out

where

as a young gay New Zealander,

you know the colour of my skin

sometimes I felt like I was the fetish

because I was the only person of colour in the room.

You know, being Asian is not a kink.

Being African American is not a kink.

You know, or our body shape is not a kink.

It’s just who we are.

(Budi) When the community talk about equality and equity,

we mostly talk about

legal, systemic, issues

and ensuring that our human rights are not being taken away from us.

And our human rights include

the rights to exist,

the rights to be safe

and the rights to access health, education

and all the stuff that are important and crucial to us

without any discrimination.

When it comes to equality in relation to

the body,

in relation to racial equality,

somehow we are not there yet.

Why is it that a lot of people of colour,

me as an Asian person,

still experiencing discrimination based on our race,

right?

We need to start investigating that.

We need to start looking into the concept of the body

not just on the physicality of whether you are athletic or not,

but also the body as in the skin colour.

Our skin colour is part of our body.

(Budi) I born, grew up in Indonesia.

I came to Australia when I was eighteen

and that’s to study.

I had to make myself comfortable in a new environment.

Everything’s different.

I have to speak English every day,

have to learn a new education system.

I was searching for my identity.

I was searching

some affirmation about being

same-sex attracted and about being gay.

The sexuality bit surprisingly on my first year,

wasn’t such a big issue.

But there was the time before I entered the gay scene,

when I started getting to know the gay scene,

that’s where a lot of that

stories came out.

For a lot of us this scene is the only place that we could be ourself.

That sense of ‘I finally find my community’

clashes with the sense of I’m also being excluded.

Yes you are one of us but…

you’re Asian, so, you’re not really one of us,

but…

you’re not really muscular

so you’re not really one of us

but…

you’re also quite effeminate

so you’re not really one of us…

So that contradictions co-existing.

It doesn’t sit exclusively,

opposite of each other.

It’s actually existing at the same time

and no one can tell me whether that feeling is wrong or right

because that’s how I feel.

I didn’t realize how much that conflicting messages

actually had an impact on my mental health

and my sense of belonging

until I actually had a breakdown

and gone,

‘Where am I supposed... what am I?

Like, where am I supposed to be?

Where is my community?

You know do I...

am I actually belonging anywhere?'

I just felt so lost.

I felt so disconnected.

I felt that no matter what I did,

I could never be one of them.

I hated my ethnicity for a very long time.

I know intellectually it’s something that I can’t change.

Something that I’m actually quite proud of.

But emotionally it’s also something that I struggle with.

Would my life be easier had I been born white?

Will I gain more acceptance had I been white?

How come my white friends can easily navigate themselves

into different groups that exist in the community, in the scene,

while I was struggling with it.

But I just want to be loved.

I just want to be desired.

Why is it that the system keep putting me down

just for the simple fact

that I have brown skin and I am from Asia.

We read through some of the Grindr profiles,

you know... ‘Into Caucasians only'

'Only find white men attractive’.

Some people would say that’s fine because it is just a preference.

If our social norms, if our culture are constantly telling us

that you have to find

white, young, athletic, muscular men

as attractive,

then we will actually believe

that’s attraction.

All of these expectations,

standard of beauty, is being put on us...

to make us feel that that’s our entry

into the wider gay community,

but the white men still dictate

when the gate is to be opened

and when the gate is to be closed.

You can be Asian as long as...

you go to the gym, that you look a certain way,

that you fit with the athletic, muscular standard,

then...

we might find you attractive.

We might let you into our world,

without us actually realizing,

it’s an empty promise.

If the community is not brave enough

to actually address race and racism that persists,

if the community is not courageous enough

to address whiteness,

then we are still a victim of racial inequality that exists

in the gay community.

One of the really important things in this conversation

is the notion of internalized homophobia

and what this means is that people can develop

a really negative view of who they are

based on what they are.

So when someone grows up and they’re struggling with their sexuality,

they can often experience negative reactions from others,

younger people are typically bullied

if they are gay

or if they present in a particularly effeminate way.

And what these often means is that

people grow up with this idea that there’s something inherently wrong

with who they are

and that people can actually dislike the fact that this is who they are

dislike the fact that they’re gay.

And so if someone’s in a community where there is this

body ideal,

will strive to fit within that community

to look a particular way in this instance

in order to counter that negative idea of themselves.

And this might not just manifest in terms of

body image and looking a particular way,

it might manifest in someone wanting to

present themselves as particularly successful,

present themselves as having a particularly kind of status,

openly present their achievements

to the world, to their friends, to social media

in order to counter

this idea that they’re

in some way not good enough.

(Director) Does social media have an impact

on how gay men feel about body image?

What are your thoughts around social media?

(Miss Jay) Does social media have an impact

on how gay men feel about body image and themselves?

Yes. A hundred percent

because you have Instagram influencers,

you have twitter profiles,

you have TikTok kids

who all have these beautiful bodies.

People idolize these profiles that they have never met these people

in their entire life

but they worship them like gods, you know?

One of the huge risk factors within social media

is that people will pose often photos of their bodies,

often photos with their shirts off

and that this can really create this sense of comparison.

And once we start comparing ourselves of

‘I don’t look like this’

or ‘they look like that’,

we start to then go,

‘Ooh do I fit this?’

So that can actually be really hard to face into.

(Stefan) And we’re all somehow being drawn into that vortex.

It’s re... it’s nuts.

Like I look at my explore feature on Instagram

and it’s just like hot men

with muscles and shirtless

and then there’s an occasional cat and a drag queen.

But I like when I’m going through all of that, I’m like,

cat, drag queen. (LAUGHS)

Like I’m picking out the odd things out now.

(Miss Jay) Social media has influenced and moulded

us to how we think as well

because in order to be ‘Instagram famous’

and have two hundred thousand followers,

you need to have that kind of body.

And I think it’s ridiculous how also how many ‘likes’

people get when they rip their shirts off,

that people are craving that attention.

(Glen) It’s a natural human drive

to want to experience validation from others.

Validation often provides a boost to someone’s confidence,

it often provides a sense of stability

to who they are and what they’re doing.

When people are in the gay community

often that sense of validation can be very much connected with

how they look

and what their body is like.

(Miss Jay) I have got friends who will delete and repost the same photo

two or three weeks later on

just so that they can get the achieved number of likes that they want.

And I see it all the time when I post a picture of myself.

I’m like, ‘Oh look, here’s a picture of my cat.'

Oh, no one’s interested in that.

And then I post a picture of my body

it’s just like, my DM is lit up with like a lot of fire emojis.

So I’m like, wow,

I guess you want to see more of my body than my cat.

(Aaron) You know I am guilty of that,

of looking, consuming information

and seeing someone that I personally think is attractive

and then going,

‘Ooh okay well I’m going to like that’.

The more likes we’re giving to people who are selling

selling their ‘body image’ as being positive,

the more they feel compelled to create more content

that is similar or even more risqué

to get even more likes.

I mean it’s a bit of a boost when you get a like,

like that from one person let alone thousands.

So, how do you top that?

(Stewart) A lot of the content that we see,

I call it manufactured.

It’s engineered to look a particular way

because people don’t really want to show the worst of themselves,

they just want to show the best of themselves

so it just creates this culture within social media

that we only can be producing the best of us.

(Aaron) You can take a photo, you can add filters

and a lot of the filters you can now use can be quite advanced.

So you can change your body type,

you can change the way you look

and then post that as a representation of yourself.

(Stewart) But then it can kind of backfire on them

because you have given a false identity to yourself

and when someone doesn’t see the way that you look

and you look differently,

they may think it’s more of an alias.

(Stefan) But they look really hot,

really sexy, really appealing

then you meet them at the gym

and they’re skinny, and their skin’s bad

and they’re short

but had I not met them

in person,

I would’ve been thinking that is,

that person is who I should be

I mean my god look at them, they’re amazing.

(Stewart) And as a young gay adolescent,

you already feel like an outcast to the rest of the world

so when you first come out into the community

you have it in your head that

‘oh this is the person that I want to talk to’

because it’s the only person that you’ve been exposed to.

(Glen) So for people who are younger gay men

there’s a great deal of maturation that’s occurring.

There’s also for people who are gay men

they’re often dealing with their own sexuality,

often trying to navigate their way

and a big part of that is about this strive to find themselves

and what that often means is that people can be more impressionable,

they can be more driven by the environment

that’s kind of around them

because they’re searching for

something that provides them with a greater sense of meaning.

(Director) Do you think it’s important to have drag queens

in the gay community?

I think it’s very important to have drag queens

because from as long as we can remember

drag queens have moulded the earth.

No I’m joking.

(Miss Jay) So my drag name is Miss Jay

and so basically, I’m a forty-two-year-old white woman

whose husband is cheating on her with a secretary

ah but she’s okay

because she’s got all the money in the world,

she has that rich Texas housewife hairstyle,

she’s got all the diamonds, she’s got all the pearls

and she’s got dresses galore and shoes galore.

So I’m in gowns, I’m in pant suits,

I’m in short dresses with coats to match.

That is the kind of drag I embody

and that is the kind of drag that makes me feel

beautiful and empowered, you know?

Like how gay men have that chiselled body to make them powerful,

I do drag to make myself powerful.

Before I did drag, I...

would not have even been in the gay scene to be honest very much.

I wasn’t big enough to be a bear,

I wasn’t hairy enough to be a bear cub or an otter,

I wasn’t skinny enough to be a twink,

I wasn’t muscular skinny to be a twunk,

um or I wasn’t a body builder.

So I had a very odd way of trying to fit myself in

because I was none of those things.

But what made it harder,

which is also going to sound very controversial was,

I was a coloured person

and that was hard already.

Because I would’ve thought

maybe as a coloured person if I had

a six pack, six foot two,

you know, chiselled face, chiselled body,

maybe I would’ve fit in a bit more.

Because I was neither of the two,

I guess I didn’t fit in.

Drag brings out what

I wish I could do as a boy.

Which I can’t because drag at the end of the day

is a mask for me

and I do it so that

I can do what I want to do as a boy but in drag.

I want to help the future generation.

I can’t do that as a boy. Nobody’s going to look at me.

So I’ll do it in drag. Yeah

So it does bring out the best in me.

And sometimes the worst too.

It really just depends.

(CHUCKLES)

When I’m in drag,

these gay boys seek the validation.

So they come up to you, they chat with you,

they expect you to validate them,

they expect you to be kind to them,

they expect you to be nice

and it’s strange because they’ll have a full-blown conversation with you in drag.

And it’s happened on multiple occasions where

if you go out dressed as a boy

and say hello to the same people,

these people would not look at you.

They will not be interested in you because you don't fit

the idea of what their friends should look like.

People are so set in their ways

or they have an idea of what their social surroundings should look like,

what the bodies of peoples around them should look like

that they forget to be nice.

They forget to treat people like humans

because they’re so busy creating that TikTok fantasy

or that Instagram-worthy picture

where all twelve of their friends look exactly the same

and then they wonder why sometimes people,

in the external world,

ostracize them.

I talk about how gay men seek the validation of drag queens

but at the end of the day drag queens seek the same validation

from the gay community.

Like, RuPaul’s Drag Race for example,

is basically a glorified platform

for seeking validation from one person.

So, can you imagine what it’s like being in the gay world?

RuPaul tells them, ‘Oh this is not great, change that’

and they go, ‘Oh no I have to change this'

in order to be approved of, you know?

That is what it is.

(Director) So, what would be the difference between

how you felt before you did drag to how you feel now?

Before I did drag I would not have the voice I have today.

Before I did drag I wouldn’t be confident.

Drag has helped me

mould myself into the person I wanted to be,

or want to become,

which means then I can help the future generation.

I can help the younger gay boys

with moving forward, being comfortable with themselves

coming into the scene.

I found someone

and now I want to be that someone for somebody else.

Yeah.

(Budi) Sadly, part of our human nature

is not only to create a sense of belonging

but that sense of belonging comes at the expense

of excluding others.

It’s part of our human nature.

Humans are horrible, really.

We don’t live harmoniously with each other.

We seem to always be in contradiction

within even our own subcultures.

We seem to sometimes concentrate on what drives us apart

instead of what drives us together.

(Budi) We want to maintain this illusion

that to be gay is to be white, masculine,

muscular, middle class.

That’s just an illusion.

(Stefan) We often fly the flag of diversity and equality

and touting how important that is within our community.

Yet we discriminate so fiercely within our own group.

For some reason we have accepted it for people to be mean to each other

when really they have no right to.

You need to treat a human like a human.

You need to have the empathy towards them

because if you don’t do that,

do we really have any humanity left?

(Budi) The stories that we’d told twenty years ago,

is still the same story that we heard now.

And that makes me think have we not changed?

Have we keep repeating

the same sense of alienation

and for what purpose?

(Miss Jay) I think people have stopped looking out for one another

because they’re so worried about making sure

that they are satisfied.

'I don’t care about you because I’m now looking after myself.'

'I’m making sure that I look good.'

'I’m making sure that I’ve got the best things around me.'

'I’m making sure that I’m the first to be in line.'

It’s all ‘me me me.'

We, us as a collective,

have forgotten how to behave.

The reality in our community

is beauty is still constructed in a certain way.

The reality in our community

is that there is still a very strong standard of beauty.

The reality in our community

is we are yet to have the conversation

about beauty beyond the body.

So people might say

that they’re only attracted to a certain body type

and that there’s nothing wrong with that.

What’s problematic about that

is when people are actively discriminating against other people

for looking a particular way

and that’s what we can avoid.

It is difficult enough for white gay men to gain acceptance

in society and within the community itself.

Imagine if you’re not white.

Imagine if you are femme,

imagine if you are old.

The struggles is even more.

So we need to ask ourself that question

where do we want to take this community?

Do we want to take it back to the way it was?

Or do we want to start listening, embracing

and challenging the status quo

so we can evolve to the next stage?

(Glen) One of the really important things to overcome this

is to diversify our opinion

about what defines someone’s worth.

That someone’s worth is not defined by how they look,

what job they have or any other singular part of who they are.

Rather, someone’s worth is and who someone is,

is a collection of a whole range of things

whether they be positive traits, negative traits,

things they like, things they don’t like.

If you have people that are just like you

they’re not going to keep you in check.

So you need people that can actually question you

if you’re doing the right thing.

(Glen) One of the things that can be really helpful for gay men

particularly younger gay men,

is to really diversify

the contacts that they have within the gay community.

So, to resist the temptation

to only associate with people who are like them

but to rather associate with people who are

from different age groups, different body shapes,

different ethnicities

and to really have a much less homogeneous experience

of the gay community.

(Budi) What do we lose if we don’t integrate?

We are losing the ability to exchange ideas,

to challenge the status quo

and to come together to a middle ground,

to actually make the community grow

and become stronger.

(Aaron) Whilst we have the internet,

apps and other ways of communicating,

I think there’s still a human need to come together physically

and then come together in our tribes

but also then breaking down those walls of those tribes

to rebuild them again and rebuild them fresh and new.

You know it is the work of each step of making us more diverse,

having broader conversations

and making a space where everyone feels welcome.

(Miss Jay) If we over time start changing the perspective

and ideas of what we need to look like

or what we should look like

and focus on what makes us happy,

I think

we can then

go from being excluded to being included a lot easier.

So what this can do and mean

is that we create a much more accepting environment

amongst the community rather than one that could be segregated

or could have these judgments and focus

on how someone looks.

So if people are having a negative sense of their own body image

there are a range of things that they can and probably should do.

One of the real important things is to seek professional help

and there are a range of professionals

that have expertise in this area

and are really able to assist

people to change the outlook that they might have

on themselves and the attitude they might have about their body image.

Together with that, it’s really important

to find what are the sorts of things

that might trigger their sense of body image.

You know, so it might be social media.

Um, so to temper that might be to reduce or restrict

the use of social media

or the kinds of social media that they engage in

or to approach it in a way where you’re able to reflect on it

and appreciate that perhaps this is not the entire reality

or the entire story of what’s going on.

(Stefan) I find myself teetering

between sometimes being obsessive about the way I look

to not giving a flying fuck at all.

And I’m at my happiest when I don’t care.

(Stewart) We are very critical on ourselves

and nothing good is going to come out of that.

You shouldn’t be ashamed of who you are.

You are exceptional,

you are beautiful.

You deserve to be loved.

You deserve to be respected

and you deserve to be happy.

(Miss Jay) Embrace your true self.

When you embrace your true self,

you become confident.

You automatically become who you want to be

and so then the body image does not affect you in any way.

You have to believe that you are beautiful.

You have to believe that you are enough.

You have to believe that you are worthy.

(Aaron) Sexiness is very subjective.

Sexiness comes in all different sizes,

all different shapes, all different colours.

You know, intelligence is sexy.

Sexy doesn’t need to be an Olympic gymnast.

(Miss Jay) People gravitate towards happiness.

Nobody wants to be friends with a mean person.

People want to be friends with a happy go lucky person.

People want to be friends with people who are nice and kind.

(Stefan) I think people would have such an incredible experience

of getting to know people,

getting to hear people’s stories,

hear people’s experiences

if we were able to look at this, and this first,

and then that.

(Miss Jay) Just remember stop seeking that validation from somebody else.

Do what makes you happy.

Be happy.

You’re enough.

And there will be somebody out there

who will love you for the way you are,

not for the way you look like, not for the way you talk,

not for the way you speak

but will just love you genuinely

for what you have to offer for the world.

You are important even if you don’t believe that right now.

(Budi) Should we feel guilty if we are attracted to a certain body type?

No. Because the last thing that we need,

is for people to feel guilty

and again create another layer

of prejudice and discrimination.

‘Oh you are only into stereotypes'

'Oh you are like this, you are like that.’

No, we don’t want that.

What do we want to have

is for people to actually starting this conversation,

conversation about the gay culture.

Who shape it?

Who’s benefiting from it,

who’s being marginalized from it

and how can we move forward.

The strength of the community is our ability to come together.

When we are confronted with an issue

that is integral to our human rights and wellbeing,

we are united.

We are diverse in our views,

we are diverse in our opinions,

we are diverse in our thinking of how we can get there,

but we still work together.

The body is an issue in general society

and the body is an issue in the gay community.

Name it.

Put it at the forefront of people’s thinking

and the next step is let’s do something about it.

So let’s do it.

Let’s change the world.

Let’s do something.

End scene.

(LAUGHS)