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The Body Shaming That Haunts Young Boys
The locker room talk we’re not discussing is how young men critique each other
The locker room at my gym is an anthropological world of wonders. Inside, you’ll find every type of body imaginable on display in its full glory. There are older sagging bodies, young and toned ones, and everything in between.
In the adult world, men’s bodies go largely unremarked upon, age and maturity having given most of us a certain comfort level with the skin we inhabit and an understanding of the boundaries of personal space. But in high school and college locker rooms, there’s no flaw or irregularity that can’t be exaggerated into a joke or a put-down. The weak bodies are called out, the less-developed muscles are laughed at, and for the most part, boys and young men all go along with it. It’s just how things are. It was the case when I was young, and based on my interviews with several young men, it’s no less true now.
Colin Ashby, 24, from Texas, remembers his earliest experiences with body shaming, around age 15, when a growth spurt made him look even skinnier than he already was. “People called me an ‘anorexic giraffe’ and constantly told me I looked weird, odd, and ‘just not right’” while changing in the locker room for the swim or cross-country teams, he says.
