January 28, 2009

Moobs?

Posted in Society at 2:05 pm by Paul Sagar

There is an interesting article over at the BBC today about the increase in the number of men having breast reduction surgery. As well as being provided for men with medical disorders, there seems to be a trend for breast reduction surgery in cases where men are simply overweight or obese. They want their “moobs” (man-boobs) cut down surgically, so that they look less fat.

What interests me is an implication of the article suggesting that surgery is a new form of male-liberation: that men have always wanted moob reductions, but only now do they feel confident enough to talk about it and prepared to take (surgical) measures to deal with it. 

For example, Kerri McPherson, a chartered health psychologist at Glasgow Caledonian University and a so-called “expert on male body image” has this to say:

“I would argue that what the media is really discussing is just representing the growing concerns of everyday men. This concern has always been there but they have not been able to articulate it.”

Adding:

“More and more people are being given a language to talk about concerns about their body”

In reference to the increasing media preoccupation with “moobs” and other perceived male physical imperfection. 

I disagree, strongly. My hunch – and lacking statistical evidence, that’s all I can offer – is that in general most men did not care about having “moobs” until relatively recently. Until, that is, the celebrity-obsessed media and its preoccupation with physicality started telling men that they ought to care about having “moobs”. Rather than men having always been secretly troubled by such an issue and now being liberated by public discourse, it is the public discourse itself – an obsession with a particular conception of how people should look in order to qualify as worthwhile human beings – which generates the trouble and anxiety prompting many men to seek surgery.

In other words, the 44% increase in male breast reduction from 2007 to 2008 is related to the 161 uses of “moobs” and 350 references to “man boobs” in UK newspapers since June 2004 not in the sense that increased attention to the issue has liberated men by revealing surgery as the solution to their woes, but rather that it is the media reporting itself which has created an obsession with male physicality which then translates into increased demand for surgery. 

When you think about it, it’s a sad state of affairs. Perhaps the emphasis on looking fit and slim would be no bad thing, if the message to people went something like this: “you ought to lose weight because it is good for you, you will feel better and live a healthier, longer life – but don’t worry if that’s not for you, it’s far more important that you are an interesting and likable person content with themselves, than that you have rock hard pectoral muscles and a washboard stomach”. 

But that’s not the message. The message is: “being fat is disgusting because fat people fail to conform to one non-negotiable standard of physical beauty which is unattainable by the vast majority of human beings. It is not important if you are doing a highly demanding and important job which leaves no time for exercise (e.g. being Prime Minister), if you have moobs you are an appropriate target for public ridicule and disdain”. And of course, the answer many men have to this message is not “OK then, I’ll hit the gym and stop eating cupcakes”, it’s “Christ, I better have surgery”. Which is hardly surprising given the quick-fix, get-everthing-for-free-with-no-hard-work culture which goes hand in hand with a shallow obsession with bodily physicality over intellect or personality.

There will be many commentators from the feminist movement who will, understandably, have little sympathy for men with moobs or the media attitude towards them. “Welcome to our world” they might justifiably say. After all, women have been putting up with being told that they must conform to one standard of sexual physical attractiveness (in sum: big tits, small waist, lots of make up, vacuous eyes indicative of no cognitive capacity) for a very long time. And the statistics for painful, sensitivity-reducing and potentially dangerous breast-enhancement surgery vastly outstrip those for moob reduction.

But whilst this is true, it is hardly very constructive to say somewhat vindictively “Yeah? Well now it’s getting shit for men too, so at least things are starting to get even.” Instead, men and women should refuse to be bullied by this obsession with physicality, caring more about what people are like as people than as comparisons to photo-shopped ideals. Although, as is so often the case, saying this will be a lot harder than doing it.

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