Fear and Self-Loathing

Jeremy's Journey Continues

This might be another example of me trying to fit something into the discussion of homophobia and heterosexism that might not be applicable, but I feel up to the challenge. So the link goes to a rather grisly story about Jeremy Gillitzer, a gay man in Minnesota who has been committed (by social workers) to an eating disorders hospital. There is no mention of any overt homophobia he has experienced, but the article got me thinking about the pervasiveness of eating disorders and body image distortions among in the gay (male) community.

Jeremy’s words about his disorder being a form of comfort really resonate with me. I think that maybe an eating disorder could be a way to provide comfort for a gay man’s feelings of self-hatred. Internalized homophobia is one area I haven’t really discussed here, but I don’t think that it just comes in the classic example of the “straight” guy who acts homophobic on the outside to hide his disapproval of his actual orientation. In terms of these serious body image disorders, maybe this internalized homophobia comes from a place of, “I accept that I’m gay, but I hate myself for being gay and not fitting in to the strict physical requirements of the community.” Maybe?

As a culture, I think there is a certain discomfort around seeing men with eating disorders. It goes against much of our notions of proper masculinity to see men obsess about their appearance to the point of losing weight and muscle mass. There’s a specter of sexism, too, hovering around this issue. I guess looking at my own very visceral reaction of horror to seeing the pictures of Jeremy, part of it is that I have an assumption of eating disorders as being a women’s disease. It’s like, a story about a (non-celebrity) woman with an eating disorder wouldn’t faze me because it’s such a gendered affliction. I think that even the cultural omnipresence of the word manorexic illustrates how we don’t take the issue all that seriously. Clearly, it’s a serious issue in the gay male community, so treating it with such a combination of levity and contempt tells me that this issue is not worth discussing, which smacks of heterosexism.

It seems like it would be really difficult to discuss any of these issues without giving due exploration into the role of sexism. Eating disorders among heterosexual women can be viewed in one way as the coercion of women into male-sanctioned perceptions of beauty and worth. I wonder if there are similar aspects at work among gay men. If eating disorders are indeed a way of wresting control from otherwise adverse circumstances, what is it about those circumstances that make them so unmanageable? I think this internalized homophobia has something to do with it, and really, where is there to turn when you hold an ism against yourself?