Body dysmorphia in men
There are mirrors I won’t look at.
Not because they lie—
but because they don’t.
There’s a silence in reflection that isn’t kind. It’s clinical. Honest in the way a scalpel is honest. And some days, that sharpness cuts too deep.
I’ve spent years in this skin and still can’t quite trust it. That’s what body dysmorphia in men does. It whispers edits into your bones, suggestions into your jawline, soft rewrites to the shape of your waist. You don’t have to be lean, it says—you have to be less. Not softer. Not larger. Not realer. Just… reduced.
And yet, I’m still here. Still learning to be seen.
Elias’s struggle with his reflection—the way he hides, flinches, performs softness instead of believing it—is a quiet thread through His, Theirs, Enough, a mirror that doesn’t shatter but softens, eventually, beneath the hands that learn to hold him whole.
On not being allowed to ache
No one taught me how to speak about shame without sounding vain.
Men—especially queer ones—aren’t raised with a language for self-love that isn’t laced with performance. We are supposed to be confident. Solid. Wantable without needing to be wanted.
So we shrink in ways no one notices. Not always physically. Sometimes it’s in the way we never undress with the lights on. Or the way we make jokes about our “off-season bodies” before someone else can.
Sometimes it’s in the way we crave affirmation, but never ask. We wait. Hope they’ll say something. That they’ll notice what we’ve changed. Or what we’re hiding.
Sometimes, we avoid intimacy altogether.
Because closeness means exposure.
And exposure feels like a dare.
Healing through flesh: body dysmorphia in men
Let’s be clear: this isn’t about vanity. Body dysmorphia in men isn’t narcissism. It’s not pride distorted. It’s pain misplaced. It’s a wound that wears clothes well.
When I first heard someone else describe what I was feeling, it was like being touched for the first time in years. Not physically. But emotionally. Intimately. The word “dysmorphia” didn’t feel like a diagnosis. It felt like a confession spoken aloud.
And slowly, I began to touch my body differently. Not just with soap and shame. But with tenderness. With curiosity. With a lover’s hands—my own, at first. Then others.
It wasn’t linear. I still catch myself turning sideways in photos, deleting angles that make my hips look too wide, or my chest too soft.
But there are moments—holy, quiet moments—when I forget to hate myself.
Moments when my body is not a spectacle.
It is a home.
Reclaiming the mirror
This isn’t a fix.
It’s a choice to begin again.
To see what’s there, not just what I fear might be.
To say: yes, this belly. These thighs. This crooked posture. These uneven shoulders.
To say: yes, this man.
If you’re reading this and it aches—good. Not because I want you to hurt. But because it means something inside you recognises something inside me. And maybe that’s where healing starts. Not in changing the body. But in reclaiming the truth of its worth.
Because your body is not broken.
It’s just waiting for you to believe it.
Read more about how this disorder differs from women here.
– Rowan
