The appearance potency of gay and straight men’s websites

Gay men's greater body dissatisfaction compared to straight men has been explained as a result of gay men’s more 'appearance potent' subculture. This study aimed to critically appraise this explanation by assessing images of men and women for their physical characteristics and objectification across 8 popular gay and straight men's dating and porn websites. 1,415 images of men and 715 images of women across the website’s main pages were coded. Results showed that the gay men's websites featured more images of men that were appearance-ideal, nude, and sexualized in comparison to the straight men's websites. With the converse true for straight men’s websites. These results highlight the continuing need to develop and provide interventions that critique the appearance potency of popular media, particularly so for gay men.

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