Walking around town last weekend, I thought I had been transported to West Hollywood by mistake. Everywhere I looked, or gawked rather, there were men buffed and bronzed to Trojan perfections, Brad Pitt-style. It did not escape my expert eye either that most of these hunks would have set sail not for Helen of Troy but Hector the General.
According to a 2001 Singapore Sports Council survey, around 2.89 percent of adults in Singapore are gym-goers - a startlingly low figure that is perhaps not a true reflection of the current situation, especially in view of the plethora of gym membership offers on the market now. Gay men definitely form a highly disproportionate size of gym membership, although most gyms are reluctant to admit it openly. An anonymous source claimed that it could be as high as fifty percent in some locations!
Not that anybody is complaining about the bountiful buffed-up boys but it is worth understanding how the gym culture has entrenched itself so well in the gay scene in so short a time. For this, we need to look to the West, in particular the US, where the gym culture has taken root as early as 20 years ago.
In the 70's, gay men in America were largely slim in build. There were bodybuilder types of course but they were few in number amongst the gay population. Come the 80's, the advent of Aids left many in the gay community ravaged and gaunt in appearance. In response, HIV+ gay men took to bodybuilding to bulk up and counteract the debilitating effects of Aids. This trend was also fuelled in part by doctors.
According to Michael Shernoff, MSW, writing in the Gay & Lesbian Review, "in an effort to stem AIDS-related weight loss and wasting, physicians began to prescribe steroids, testosterone and human growth hormones. The onset of combination antiviral drugs brought countless people with AIDS back from the brink of death. Weight training in combination with the above-mentioned drugs changed the way many people with AIDS looked. People who had once been very gaunt developed into imposing hunks."
Over time, bodybuilding became de rigeur in the gay scene. A pumped-up body became a symbol of health, not just an object of desire. Being buff also became a physical extension of the gay man's defense mechanism.
"Getting pumped can be a tangible way for gay men to regain control of their bodies and feel strong and powerful in the face of a health emergency as well as a sometimes hostile society", says Shernoff.
The circumstances surrounding the development of Singapore's own gym culture had little to do with Aids, and more with the societal factors. Certainly, given the pervasiveness of American culture in Singapore, it is not surprising that a well-muscled man also became a highly sought object of desire here, and a trend of gay men working out in gyms started to take root. But there were two other main factors that account for the gay gym culture to develop so rapidly in the last few years.
Firstly, gyms became more commonplace and accessible. There have always been gyms in Singapore obviously but most of them were in hotels and expensive to join. It was the arrival of US chain California Fitness on Orchard Road in 1997 that caused a stir and sparked off a wider interest in gyms by making them seem hip. Within a few years, gyms sprouted all over the island, from other fitness chains like Planet Fitness and even schools and condominiums. Any guy who has half the heart to join a gym can find one within easy reach.
Secondly, it is no coincidence that the gym culture in Singapore also grew in tandem with an increasing openness and tolerance of gays. As the gay scene develops, men become more confident of their sexuality and the need to be openly desirable to other men become stronger. At the same time, working out and pumping up becomes a defiant response to traditional stereotypes of gays as limp-wristed and physically ineffectual men.
In the short term, the rising gym culture and its associated worship of the body beautiful is not necessarily bad. It heightens the interest in health and exercise for a start. Also, a steady stream of hunky and fit looking men as eye candy is not a bad deal either.
In the long run, however, there is risk that this heavy emphasis on the perfect gym body will lead to severe consequences. The current gym culture has already been labelled as "body fascism," so narrow and hegemonic it has become.
Professor Ian Bernard of San Diego State University observed that the "gay male gym culture today has nothing to do with looking or feeling healthy; it has everything to do with prescribing the goal of gay beauty, or of desperately trying to conform to this prescription."
In time to come, more and more gay men will suffer from low self-esteem on the basis of how their bodies look. An increasing preoccupation with muscles means the chances of getting looks or a date are directly related to the size of your biceps.
Psychologically, it can become a story of addiction and obsession - psychiatrists and researchers in the US have spoken of men who could never be satisfied with the size of their biceps or the percentage of body fat - regardless how large or low.
Just as society places an aesthetic demand on slim and beautiful women, a prevalent gym culture means that gay men face pressure of living up to a Greek God standards. In a reverse development to women's anorexia, men are pushing ever harder to be bigger and more muscular, a condition known as the Adonis Syndrome.
Physically, the quest for Mr Universe body proportions has already spurred increasing steroid abuse among gym-goers. The Sunday Times had highlighted this problem only just recently. Gay men are certainly amongst the culprits. If left unchecked, a whole generation of us will suffer untold health problems.
Socially, a narrow view of the perfect gay man as being buff and fit will marginalise those who do not wish to follow the herd. Indeed, the dictating power of the gym crowd will actually result in a gay scene that far less diverse and interesting.
Jim Tan, 34, is one of those who rants against such tyranny. "I refuse to believe that I have to be in possession of a barrel chest and 10% body fat to be desirable," he fumes.
Given the nascent stage that the local gay scene is in currently, we are not likely to see sophisticated discussion on the current gym culture and its attendant consequences anytime soon as gay men would continue to be fed with images of well-oiled muscled men, from the Internet to local gay-friendly magazines.
So for now, the buffer-than-thou attitude is unlikely to abate, and the muscle boys will be increasingly dominant in the local gay scene's pecking order. It remains to be seen whether Singapore will go down the same route as America's major gay cities and risk becoming the West Hollywood of Asia - all style and no substance.