When Oliver* and his wife opened their 20-year marriage in 2017, a few things had changed since he was last on the dating scene.
"I am older, I am a bit tubby around the edges. I can look back at my old pictures and think, 'Oh my God! I used to be so pretty!'" the 44-year-old from Melbourne says.
Like other men his age, Oliver says he's dealing with body changes familiar to his cohort: growing soft in the middle.
But despite a few heartbreaks, he feels more self-assured in dating now than he did two decades ago.
"When I used to look like that, I wasn't any good at [dating] anyway and I am much more confident in myself now."
Although Oliver's learned to live comfortably with his insecurities, body image issues continue to trouble many men who try to attain idealised, Adonis-like physiques in search of self-worth.
It can also affect men's sexual experience in negative ways and create vicious cycles of insecurities.
The 'ideal' body shape for men
For Dominic*, a graphic designer in his 50s, regularly training at the gym doesn't always make him feel better about his body.
He says he hates compliments about his appearance; they remind him that people are in fact judging him. These insecurities affect his sexual experience.
"I've always been frightened of [sex]," he says. "I don't have a lot of experience, so I second, third, fourth guess myself."
The burden of body dissatisfaction is still born mostly by women, but a growing trend among men warrants attention.
A study of 3,000 Australian adults showed eating disorder behaviours — including purging and extreme dieting — increased more rapidly among men than women between 1998 and 2008.
According to another large-scale study from Sydney University, men are more likely to experience mental health problems stemming from body dissatisfaction.
This can lead to the use of steroids, according to clinical psychologist Gemma Sharp heads the body image research group at Monash University.
"Just like with women, there's an appearance ideal for men as well … the broad shoulders, muscular physique, no 'man boobs', larger penis," Dr Sharp says.
Body image and sex
Expectations around sustaining sexual performance can make sex a source of stress rather than pleasure.
As it is, sex is a vulnerable space; we perform naked with our flaws on full display.
A baseline of insecurity can set us up for emotional pain, making it harder to enjoy future sexual encounters.
For Oliver, the lack of closure from being ghosted by dates reinforced his self-doubts.
"When you don't have any other information to go on, it's just like, 'Well, must be my physique'," he says.
According to Dr Andrea Waling, a research fellow at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society at La Trobe University, there also exists a "normalised view of sex that it's all about the penetration … and it's about being able to last hours and hours and hours, which is just not the reality".
In fact, the median duration of penetrative sex is approximately 5 minutes, and it can range anywhere between 33 seconds and 44 minutes. There are also alternatives to penetration like outercourse.
More reassuringly, porn-size penises account for only 5 per cent of the population.
According to Dr Sharp, pressures of expectation can result in safety behaviours. Safety behaviours are habits that might help someone reduce anxiety without dealing with the underlying cause of the distress.
In intimate relationships, this can include having sex in the dark, having sex with clothes on, engaging in sexual positions such that one partner can't see the other, and avoiding sex and social encounters altogether.
However, sexual safety behaviours often fail to render sex bearable. This can lead to 'spectatoring': the self-conscious monitoring of one's sexual performance.
For Anton, a 47-year-old man of Serbian origin, concerns about his height and hairiness created deep insecurities in his youth and made him question whether other boys would ever pay attention to him.
It became hard for him to approach potential partners, especially within his gay community in Melbourne, which can uphold largely unattainable physical standards.
Anton also developed performance anxiety.
"I used to find it uncomfortable 'seeing me'," he says. "What is he going to think of me?"
Psychosexual therapist Arlyn Owens addresses spectatoring regularly in this practice.
"What often happens is we're thinking that something is wrong with our bodies that we need to fix," Mr Owens says.
"We become a bit separated from our body as a source of pleasure."
Finding confidence
Mr Owens says one solution to feeling disconnected with your body is mindful sex, which consists of slowing down, focusing on sensation, and what is happening in the body.
"So in a nutshell, we are trying to get out of the head and into the body, away from goal-oriented penetration and ejaculation to pleasure-focused sex."
However, the first step is for men to seek help.
According to the Australian Medical Association, males are less likely than women to seek medical help. And the notion that body image issues pertain to women creates a stigma which can discourage men from seeking the necessary help.
Oliver, for example, needed therapy after a break-up. Although body image wasn't the main focus for him, he found therapy helped him cope with body image issues, even if these still rear up their head occasionally.
"We always want to be taken seriously for who we are as a person," Owen says, "But at the same time, we want to be pretty."
*Names have been changed for privacy.
Marcos Benhamu is a freelance writer with an interest in psychology and music. He is also a volunteer presenter in community radio in Melbourne.
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