Tackling bisexual erasure: an explorative comparison of bisexual, gay and straight cisgender men's body image

Cahill, L ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7897-0862, Malik, M ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2474-3899, Jones, BA ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8872-5847, Perera, AT-M ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3812-5023 and McDermott, DT ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7005-6446, 2024. Tackling bisexual erasure: an explorative comparison of bisexual, gay and straight cisgender men's body image. Body Image, 51: 101763. ISSN 1740-1445

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Abstract

Previous body image research often grouped both gay and bisexual men into a single category: sexual minoritised men, limiting our understanding of how sexual identity influences body image. However, there is strong reason to believe that bisexual and gay men experience distinct body image concerns. Here, we explored motivations to alter one’s leanness and muscularity, as well as (dis)satisfaction with body fat, muscularity, height and penis size, and functionality appreciation across gay, bisexual, and straight cisgender men. We sampled 378 white participants aged 18 to 85 (nbisexual = 125, ngay = 128, nstraight = 125). We found that bisexual men were significantly less motivated to be lean and showed lower muscularity dissatisfaction relative to gay men but showed comparable levels to straight men. Our findings demonstrate that despite research perceiving the body image of bisexual and gay men as homogenous, they experience differences in their body image concerning leanness and muscularity dissatisfaction. Future body image research should incorporate this understanding by not artificially grouping bisexual and gay cisgender men and instead acknowledging the potential uniqueness in their experiences.

Item Type: Journal article
Publication Title: Body Image
Creators: Cahill, L., Malik, M., Jones, B.A., Perera, A.T.-M. and McDermott, D.T.
Publisher: Elsevier
Date: December 2024
Volume: 51
ISSN: 1740-1445
Identifiers:
Number
Type
10.1016/j.bodyim.2024.101763
DOI
1909163
Other
Rights: © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Divisions: Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by: Laura Ward
Date Added: 02 Jul 2024 09:30
Last Modified: 08 Jul 2024 09:53
Related URLs:
URI: https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/51665

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