229: Men have body image issues, too. | Dear Men

Jason Lange: I'm jealous of the guys who can just take off their shirt anywhere and never even think about it. Just never even think about it. I've always been a guy, when I take it off, I think about it, ooh, how am I looking today? How's that? How's that going to be? And doing that work has been profound. And you know, I've done that work in men's groups. I've gotten naked in front of other men. That's a big part of some lineages of men's work now is learn to just like, here's my body, here's what I love about it. Here's what I don't love about it. And as you go through and suddenly you see the guy with the six pack abs and he's still naming shit he doesn't love about his body. There's actually something really liber about that.

Melanie Curtin: Hey, welcome back to another episode with my lovely business partner, Jason Lange. Thank you so much for being here. I am excited about this episode. This has been a long time coming and this has been a topic that is up in our community pretty regularly and something that we see a lot in our men. Today we're talking about body image and men and shame and opportunity. And yeah, we're trying out a little bit of a new format. We've done this once, but we're going to get some voices of our clients on here to bring a little bit more, more perspective. So we're going to, we're going to do some discussion and then you're going to hear from our men. So, yeah, we have some questions prepared and I think that before we sort of jump into those, I'm just curious, you know, in terms of, of your perception of body, men and body image, Jason, have you seen any shifts over like the last couple of decades, that kind of thing? You know, what have you noticed just as a man walking around being a man in the world?

Jason Lange: Yeah, I think, I mean, just at a cultural level, obviously the onslaught of social media and the Instagram ification of everything has impacted us all. And there's been a lot of research, particularly on women and young, young girls and body image. And like, it's, it's dark stuff, it's, it's bad. But I think it's impacting us men too. And that's part of what kind of inspired this conversation here in that you can't really get into men's work without coming across this at some point. Because if nothing else, being in a room full of other men can often Trigger a lot of these things, oh, my body looks like this, their body looks like that. Isn't that how all women want men's bodies to look? What if mine doesn't look like that? That's all stuff that I see impacting men and has absolutely impacted me as well.

Melanie Curtin: Yeah, I did a little bit of research before this and one of the statistics that jumped out at me was that male body image dissatisfaction has tripled in the last 25 years from 15% of the population to 45%. 45% is almost half. And there's a. I know this isn't the be all, end all of everything, but I have noticed watching films, watching movies, TV movies from a couple of decades ago to now that there's a drastic difference between the way that male bodies are portrayed. And one simple example is James Bond. I watched an old James Bond film with what's his name, the Scottish guy?

Jason Lange: Sean Connery.

Melanie Curtin: Sean Connery. And he was a normal looking dude and there was by a pool and he had his shirt off and he didn't have six pack abs. He had a normal body, a normal male body. And then I watched Russell Crowe in, I don't know, one of the more recent ones and he's jacked. And I think that's kind of indicative of the drastic shift in our culture that has happened for both, both sexes, I would argue. And non binary folks included in there. Everybody's got body shame, it feels like. So there's a lot of. There is a difference. I think that's what I, I have noticed is even in my lifetime and I'm not that old, it does feel like there's a difference. To your point, there's a lot more visibility. That was something that came out in the research that I was reading as well. This is a quote from one of the studies. It said men are progressively becoming more visible in popular culture, especially through exceedingly lean and muscular depictions. Concurrently, severe body image related disorders such as anorexia nervosa among men are on the rise. And I think anorexia is a good example of. I know some of our men have struggled with anorexia and or bulimia. And as of now, as of 2022, psychologists estimate that 1 in 10 people with anorexia identify as men. There's a lot. Or boys. Boys or men. Body people. And I think that would surprise a lot of folks that it feels like when we're talking about body image we're usually talking about girls and women. But that's part of why we're doing this episode because it feels like it's a major part of the male experience and one that we sort of overlook sometimes. So. Yeah. So let's, let's start with middle school, where so many of our traumas begin. I'm just kidding. They begin much earlier than that. But one of our first questions is, you know, were you ever teased or bullied about your weight or appearance? So we're including more than just weight in this whole conversation, but that seems to be. It's a, it's just a big deal in our culture. It feels like weight is just a big fucking deal in our culture. So it's pretty obvious. One, Were you, were you, Jason, ever teased or bullied about your weight or appearance? And how did that impact you?

Jason Lange: Yeah, so I wasn't. I just, for whatever reason, got lucky in the antibodies of how my particular thing shows up. That bullying was never really a thing for me. I think in some ways, I was too invisible to even be bullied. Uh, and I, I got tall fast. So I was, I was six foot by the end, I think, junior high. And that, that kind of gave me a little bit of a buffer because people just didn't, you know, come near me in some sense. But I, I will say that's when I can first remember becoming aware of it, because that tends to be a pretty big, you know, I have no idea what the status is these days, but developmentally, that was a big deal. Like, junior high was the first time we had gym class where you had to change for gym class. And that's like, hey, I'm gonna take off part of my clothes in front of other boys. Like, it was not something that had been part of. And I remember being concerned about my belly as far back as then. So whatever age that is, I, I, I can't always remember, but, like, you know, seventh grade, by then, it was, it was online that, like, oh, I have this thing other guys don't, and I want to have that thing, but I don't. I don't have that flat stomach.

Melanie Curtin: Yeah, it's interesting. I actually remember a moment in sixth grade. I think it was sixth grade. Yeah, sixth grade, where I sort of suddenly became aware of my appearance in a much more, I don't know, direct fashion. And you know how at the end of the day in some classrooms, you would flip the chairs over and put them on the desks to, like, help clean up the classroom? I have this vivid memory of wearing legging and some shirt, and I don't know. I don't know, it's like the 90s. I was wearing some outfit and I remember having a moment of self consciousness or self awareness around my appearance in some way. And I don't think it was related to body image, but it was related to appearance. And I remember vividly putting a chair away and thinking, I will never go back to the way that it was. This is a binary switch now. Now I'm aware of this and I will never go back to the way that it was. Which is true, I never did and adults don't. But I think that's an interesting moment of when do we become aware of our appearance and what do we think about our appearance. And I do think that there's such a deluge of social media now to younger and younger kids that I think this is only something that's going to grow. Whereas before it was just the people in your tribe or the people in your village or the people in your extended family, that's who you were seeing. You weren't really seeing copious portrayals of other people for a really long time in human history. That's very new. So I think a lot of these are. We are being compared to idealized images way more of the time than we used to be. So we will, I think we'll hear a lot more about that first one of being bullied or teased and how that affected people later. But the next one, next question is in what ways has your weight prevented you from going for what you want? We're just going to add weight or appearance.

Jason Lange: Yeah. So that one for me it's direct correlation to experiences of shame and self and how that tends to impact how I show up in the world in that, you know, there was like a yo yo for me. I've been up and wait. I've been down and wait. It's gone back and forth at different times. I can definitely look back at my life and where I was in a place where I was feeling more grounded and happy about my body. I was taking more action. So those were the times I was really putting myself out there with women, taking chances, taking just being more seen and being more exposed and when I wasn't. For me that was part of what kind of fed into the like not even putting myself out there and the like just grief and depression that would come with that which then would feed my porn addiction, which would keep me at home, which would like just. It would all cycle into the same kind of thing. In that there was just like a lot less literally being out in the world. For me, when I. When I was in my bigger phases and it was just painful. Like, it'd be painful to connect to my body, painful to see pictures of myself still. I can look back at photos and be like, oh, man, I just. I can't look like. It's really hard to take that in. And in general, when I'm not in a happy place with my body, I'm more reserved. Like, I literally, I just don't take. Physically, I may take up more space, but, like, I don't take up as much space. I make myself smaller, don't try to be seen, don't put myself out there into new engagements. So there was, you know, a good stretch in, I would say, my mid-20s, that. That really kind of prevented me from even trying with women because I just. And it's not that I don't think I could even have found a woman who would have liked me. It was like, I didn't like myself so much in that state. I just couldn't. I couldn't get out there. So it was just like being stuck in a very frustrating experience for anyone who's ever been there. Because it's not something you can change right away, right? So that's like, the unique thing about that is like, you know, sometimes, okay, this is going to change. I'm going to fire up and it's like. And it's going to take months. Even if I start right now and do it all perfectly, it doesn't happen right away. And sometimes the weight of that would then kind of crush me even more and just cycle me back down into that collapse.

Melanie Curtin: You know, this isn't the same thing, but it reminds me of credit card debt. There's a way that credit card debt has, in my adult life, not now anymore, but felt debilitating and felt like a weight and felt like it can get better, but it's going to take a long time. And sometimes the path isn't clear. And it's not the same thing. But I feel that quality of, oh, God, for this to get better, it's going to take time. It's going to take effort. It feels daunting. It feels daunting. It can feel insurmountable, depending. I did want to also just include this in the conversation, which is, I think most of us in the world are managing our anxiety in one way or another. Most of us in the world spend a pretty significant amount of our time managing our anxiety. And some folks use food, some folks use television, some folks use drugs, some folks use, you know, Fill in the blank. Gambling, whatever it is. And, but there's a, there's a quality of, you know, weight or appearance that is, it's visible, right? You can see it. So when you walk into a store or you're out in the world, there's this visibility. Whereas you can't visibly see the gambling addict, you can't visibly see the porn addict or someone that's using porn to regulate, for example. It's not visible. So I think there's an extra. And there's, and there's shame that goes along with that. We live in a fat shaming culture. We live in a culture that shames people for their bodies if they're not perfect. That's the truth. That's where we live. And so I, I have a lot of compassion for that experience because it feels like unfair in some way that this happens to be visible. Right. Versus other things, other difficulties or challenges. When I was working with survivors of sexual abuse on a regular basis, I was reading a lot of studies and there were multiple studies that showed that a number of folks with that background, a number of survivors of sexual abuse become overweight and they keep weight on unconsciously or subconsciously because they feel it keeps them safer. And that is a whole other level because they might consciously be dieting, trying to lose weight, exercising, doing whatever they can, but they need to get the deeper help because if there's a deep part of them that's like this is protecting us, this is important, then they're not going to lose that weight. Just curious, how much do you think that. That in your case, for example, that the weight was. I mean, what was it for you? Do you feel like it was. It was obviously not something that you intended, but do you feel like it was something that in some way was a part of you was protecting yourself from putting yourself out there? What do you think about that?

Jason Lange: Absolutely. I think all of the above in that there is a protective mechanism in it that prevents me from having to get reject. Had to. Would prevent me from getting rejected or having to put myself out there. It's like a way to just kind of stay stuck. And I, I've had a similar experience to, to debt in general, and I think they are very correlated. And the times I was the heaviest in my life were the times where I had the most debt. Like, because there's that like freeze thing in that, you know, for me it was definitely a way to like self regulate, just so clear, like to self regulate the. The fear of not knowing what to do or how to move my life forward or how to get unstuck. And like, you know, there's like a. Anxiety for me. There had been an anxiety in that for me. So, like, food was often just a way to totally shut it down, just like, literally, you know, collapse the. The system and take it out. So I definitely think, and I. I do. I still think there's ways that my body holds certain weight as. As a defense. And some of it's just genetic, you know, some. It's literally just the way I'm built. And I, I think that's different with all, all people. But that, that. That relationship is really, really important about the inside and the outside piece and the even, like, why we're doing it. You know, why do we then want to lose weight or. Because it can become another way yourself up of now, I get right the other side, where sometimes people get is super strict. I can only eat this at these times. And if I that up, I'm a bad person. And which then kind of feeds the same shame, just in a different way. But yeah, it had a lot to do with me about feeling frozen, feeling stuck, and just like buffering myself against not knowing, like, how to act or how to be or how to move forward in the world.

Melanie Curtin: I think that's really poignant what you just what you just said, because. And I think reflecting on this conversation, if you are a man listening to this and you resonate with a lot of what Jason said, I would encourage you to listen to the episode we did on childhood neglect, children of childhood neglect. And you might think that everything was fine, but I would still encourage you to listen to that episode because I. That part that you said, Jason, about not knowing how to move my life forward, not knowing how to get unstuck, not knowing how to do things. I think there's a correlation. There's a link there between general drive, ability to move forward. Got it. I don't know. Get up and go is the phrase coming to me. But just that that feeling of momentum and knowing how to kickstart things in your life, if you weren't provided that by your parents, if it wasn't part of what you learned and if you weren't kind of attuned to. It's really hard to do it by yourself later in life. It's not impossible. And part of the reason we keep harping on things like men's groups and getting into community is because it's a lot easier to do that with other people and to get mentorship and to get to get some guidance and to be part of a team, of a crew, of a group that feels where you feel held because that's sort of what's missing a lot of the time in neglect is there's not someone tracking you, asking you how you are, seeing how school was really attuning to you, what's going on with your friend group, you know, how are you doing? How are you feeling? Let's talk about feelings. Like there's no guidance. And that can leave someone feeling a little bit stranded, a little bit at sea, a little sort of like, oh, I don't really know how to go anywhere. And it's a lot easier when you, when you are in that state of not knowing and drifting. It's, it doesn't feel good, it feels bad. And when you feel bad, you reach for things that feel better. And sometimes that's food. So I think there's a, there's a, there can be a link there. So if you're listening and this resonates, I'll also drop that episode in the show notes, but I think that might be a good one to listen to.

Jason Lange: Yeah. And I can think I've maybe shared this before, but a very particular time in my life, maybe almost a decade ago of having been in LA a couple years, was, did not really have much work, was literally totally broke. Not sure I was going to pay rent like the next week and kind of in that frozen panicky state. And I remember I spent I think three and a half days, like a Wednesday to Friday watching the entirety of the American Office on Netflix and basically just getting $5 Little Caesar pizzas from up the street and just tanking, like literally just tanking my body till it was so exhausted in, in, in such a carb crash for like days that I just like shut down. Even though that was like the most important time I needed to be out there like hustling, figuring out like, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? But instead of doing that, that was where like I retreated into this. And that was often what pushed a lot of my food issues. And then when I was in my roughest and then that would impact my appearance with which would then, you know, suck out all the energy for like it just. Yeah, it just like becomes a whole self defeating cycle.

Melanie Curtin: Yeah. And I'm curious, you know, I'm sure those listening would also be curious. How did you get out of that, what happened? Because it feels like you're, it feels like you're at a much more stable place in General. In your life and your appearance and all of that. How did you get there?

Jason Lange: Yeah, I. You know, looking back now, that was the wor. The most recent time that was the worst for me was, unsurprisingly, when there was a gap in my men's groups. So it was in between. It was kind of just after moving here from Colorado, where I'd lived and been in. Deep in a group in my first couple of years here, I didn't. I just didn't prioritize that or create one. So getting back into that definitely helped. And then just, I don't know, just feeling my body enough that I was like, okay, this isn't how I want to live. Like, in a weird way, it's getting more present to what is. And then that starts to, like, move the action of, like, I just don't feel good.

Melanie Curtin: Yeah.

Jason Lange: It's not even about how I look. It's just like, I do not feel vital, energized, alive, able to move through the world and do the things I want. So bringing that back online, then getting support and finding a gym and finding accountabilities. Now I'm in an exercise group now with men, where we just. We're just sharing what we're doing. And there's like a momentum to that. You know, where other people do it and you're tracking things and it's kind of fun. Has all helped that. But that the. Yeah. Plugging back into a men's group helped.

Melanie Curtin: Yeah.

Jason Lange: Because if nothing else, it just makes me more present. And when you. When I was more present to my body, that's when like, ah, this is. I, Like, I can't live like this anymore. I do not want to live like this anymore. And that sensation itself was something I would often numb out with porn or food.

Melanie Curtin: Yeah, there's something. Point. I keep using the word poignant, but there's something that you said that really touched me, which is, you know, I wasn't prioritizing that. I wasn't prioritizing men's groups. I wasn't prioritizing connection and specifically men's groups. And I think that there is such a cost to loneliness. I think loneliness is pervasive and also subtle in our culture. It's, like, all over the place. But also many of us are just tolerating it. But it has a huge cost. It has a huge cost. And that feel. The feeling of feeling alone is kind of debilitating. Right. It's really, really hard, actually, which is proven by behavioral science over and over, to engage in habit change, without accountability or some kind of connection. We are relational beings. We were meant to live together. We were meant to live in close proximity with many people, not just our nuclear family, but, you know, with people around. And because we don't, there's a lot of loneliness. And that feeling of just being more connected, I have a feeling was part of why you were able to drop into your body right when you feel connected, you feel like there are other people who know you and kind of have your back. There's a way your system can kind of settle into your body more when you feel alone. There's just this desperate quality. It's hard for me to put into words, but it just. You don't feel the same. And there's a way you're kind of in survival mode, even if you're. Even if your basic needs are met and you're not actually in survival mode. I think loneliness is just a huge factor in everything that we're talking about. And it feels significant that when you got into a men's group and you got some more connection and some more people who knew you, who you knew, who you were seeing regularly, where there was some personal growth and development as part of it, that's when you were able to make a shift. Speaking of that, the last question is, if you've gone through a body transformation, for example, losing a bunch of weight or somehow altering your appearance, what was your relationship to your body image like before and what is it now?

Jason Lange: Yeah, like I said, I've kind of. I've been more on the roller coaster. So I've gone down, I've gone up, I've gone down, I've gone up probably in two different occasions of the. The various extremes. And yeah, like I said, as early as junior high, I can remember feeling shame about my body and not liking the shape of my body. And there's still a little bit of that now. Like, I can catch myself with that. But I'm actually, and this is going to sound a little weird, I'm far more in a place now of being kind of unconscious about it. Meaning, like, I don't really think about it nearly as much. It's just like this is just kind of who I am at this point. And so it's gotten a lot more positive and there's a lot. Been a lot of practice opportunity for just being more gentle with myself and where now for me, it's. It's way less about like, how much I actually weigh or anything, but it's like how connected to my body do I feel in how even though I just said this in a different way, like it's become one of the ultimate. It's becoming one of the ultimate grounds for me around just like consciousness. And am I eating now because I'm hungry or am I eating now for another reason? That's it. And oftentimes it's another reason. Like literally oftentimes still it's another reason. But I feel much more relaxed in my body, I would say is. Is something that's been big for me. You know, I, I have, I have instances of stuff coming up dealing with being, you know, getting older now and things shifting in my body and how I relate to my body differently. But it's, it's pretty positive now. I, I would say I'm much more, you know, in a lot of. That's like having gone a little bit up and down. It's like. And I still got a hot woman. So I know it's kind of shallow thing to say it, but it's, it's something we work with a lot of men on. And it's like, oh, that really is. It's important in as much it impacts. It was important as in as much as it impacted my relationship to myself, I should say. And this is something I work with a lot of our guys on now that it's like it was my relationship to my body and how I felt in it. The fact that I wasn't okay with that, that's what made it really unattractive to others in some sense. And now that I'm more relaxed in it, my, my partner really doesn't care as long as I'm feeling good and energized in my body. That's what matters to her.

Melanie Curtin: Yeah, I was going to say, I think this is a good point to just drop in some, some truths about my experience of men and male bodies. And I really just keep coming back to. It's all about the consciousness that's in the body. It's all about the consciousness that's in the male body. I can't tell you the number of men that I've related with who had technically sexy body, but I could feel that they were not emotionally developed. They just weren't developed. Like, I, I've met men in their 30s that are basically teenagers. They just, they're not emotionally developed. They're not that attuned. They aren't able to talk about how they're feeling. They're not, they're definitely not going to be able to do repair. So maybe I'LL hook up with them, right? You know, before I was in a relationship, maybe I would hook up with them, but I never really looked at them as relationship potential because they just weren't there yet. And there's a lot of sort of like. Like this is just another example. I don't give a fuck whether a guy has hair on his head. I don't care about baldness at all. I can't even tell you how much I don't care about it. It doesn't matter to me. The man in the body matters to me. His level of consciousness and development and awareness is what is actually sexy and attractive and pulls my attention and where I want to go. And I think that's one of the. A huge disappointment in our culture is that the presentation of male bodies makes it seem like it's all about the physical form and it's really not. And I think that's such a disservice because it's like men are focused on the wrong things. They're focused on appearance, things that maybe matter a little bit to some women, but deep down don't matter to most women. And I can tell you, as a sex researcher, I'm looking at it. It's not what women are talking about. And another thing, I don't give a shit about body hair. I don't care if you have hair on your chest, I don't care if you have hair on your back. I don't care. I mean, manscaping is fine, but really, like, natural hair is great. And you're actually more likely to transmit sti if you shave. So. And that's true for women or men, for example, right? We're supposed to have pubic hair. It's part of our natural bodies. And, you know, I mean, make your own choices. Your body is your body, your body, your choice. I'm just saying that the things that I think that a lot of men are concerned about or worried about aren't actually that big a deal to developed women. So if you want a developed feminine woman who's in her body and in her pleasure and doing her work, it's pretty likely she's not going to care about those outward appearance things. Versus can you really show up? When I'm feeling feelings? Can you really be here with me? Are you able to breathe deeply? Have you done your work? Because if you haven't done your grief work, you're not going to be able to handle mine. And can you do repair? Do you know what repair is? Are you able to really be with Me. And when you have sex with me, are you with me or are you in a porn video? That matters to me way more than whether you have six pack abs. I just wanted to share a little bit about that perspective because I just keep coming back to that of. Yeah, it's really about the consciousness in the body. And what I've repeatedly seen is that the men who are right with themselves, who have done the work and are doing the work, they get women, man, they get women. It doesn't matter what kind of body shape or what kind of, you know, I mean, of course it matters to an extent. Yes, that's, that's absolutely true. But, but there's a threshold point and beyond that, it's like that is what is drawing women in. I mean there's just a sense of, of power. Of power, of inner power. And I'm not talking about big muscles, I'm talking about grounded masculine presence, which is like catnip.

Melanie Curtin: I would echo that. And that feels like a good place to transition to our. The voices of our men. Sam. Da da da da da da da da da da da da da.