~ The appearance potent ~

'Gay men consistently present greater body dissatisfaction and related health
consequences in comparison to straight men. For example, a meta-analysis of 20 studies
comparing these two groups found that gay men reliably report greater levels of body
dissatisfaction' (Morrison, Morrison, & Sager, 2004; Smith, Hawkeswood, Bodell, & Joiner,
2011).


'The fifth study, conducted by Lanzieri and Cook (2013), is the first to compare gay
and straight male targeted media. This study assessed the degree of body fat and muscularity of male images in widely read US gay and straight men’s magazines. The researchers found that images of men in the gay men’s magazines had lower levels of body fat compared to straight men’s magazines, but did not differ in levels of muscularity. Given body fat and muscularity are both important components of the cultural male appearance ideal' (Tiggemann et al., 2007),

'these results offer partial support to the proposition that gay men’s subculture (at least as displayed in these magazines) is more appearance potent than its straight counterpart.'