Fat is feminine: A qualitative study of how weight stigma is constructed among sexual minority men who use Grindr

Abstract

Why is weight stigma so potent among sexual minority men? We propose that sexual minority men may be more vulnerable to weight stigma because of factors not captured by existing measures – for instance, men’s perception of fatness as less masculine and/or more feminine. To investigate, we qualitatively examined how 17 sexual minority men (Mage = 28.52, SDage = 1.63, range: 18–49) described fatness in their discussions of body ideals and appearance pressures. We generated two themes: (i) Masculinity is a currency that fat men have less of and (ii) Fatness is stigmatized or fetishized. Participants described appearing masculine (i.e., lean, muscular) as particularly valuable within the gay community – opposingly, fatness was framed as unmasculine and undesirable. Fat men’s treatment was understood as rarely divorced from their body size, either being stigmatized or fetishized because of their weight. Finally, being unattracted to fat men was constructed as a personal preference that ought not be criticised. These findings suggest the value of masculinity within the gay community may exacerbate weight stigma experiences and internalization among sexual minority men. Future research should account for the anticipated effects of fatness on men’s masculinity and clarify whether sexual preferences and fetishization should be subsumed in weight stigma definitions.