被逼出來的肌肉型男

Kelvin Leong posted a photograph on his Facebook page. In the picture, he stands in tiny red briefs flexing his biceps. His hands are clenched, his body bent forward to show off his taut, shiny eight-pack. Veins in his arms visibly pulsate. ‘Another variation of side chest pose complete with quad development,’ runs the picture caption: ‘my quads are the result of years of heavy full squats, sometimes to the point of puking.’ Now 33, and training to be a lawyer in the UK, Leong works out every day, saying he wants ‘to be a bit bigger’.
Kelvin Leong在他的Facebook上發佈了自拍照片。圖中他穿着紅色緊身短褲，上臂彎曲，展示着他的二頭肌。雙手緊握，身體微微前傾，炫耀着他的6塊腹肌，手臂上青筋暴突，側身展示了他的胸大肌和股四頭肌，配上的標題是：“四年負重深蹲的成果，有時甚至會煉得嘔吐。” 33歲的他即將成爲律師，他每天鍛鍊，想要變得更強健。

Female body image issues have been flagged up for decades. Women are paraded and berated in the media, told they must be unhappy with their bodies and bombarded with flawless (often Photoshopped) butts, breasts and bellies.
女性的體型問題已經被社會爭議了幾十年了，女士們紛紛抗議和斥責媒體，社會過分苛求女性身材完美，其實世界上並不存在完美的臀、胸、腹，只有完美的PS。

But what about men? In past generations men were not expected to be extremely well-muscled. A slight stomach or skinny arms were okay. While many men played sports, few went to the gym merely to beef up. Today, however, shifting gender roles and the rise of social media – where everything is recorded and broadcast on smartphones – has led to increasing pressure on men, as well as on women, to look ‘perfect’.
那麼男性呢？過去幾十年社會並不要求男性一定要肌肉強壯，小腹平坦上臂瘦瘦的都可以接受。那時很多男性也運動，但很少有人純粹爲了肌肉去健身房。而如今，社會性別角色的轉變和社交媒體的崛起，手機上到處紀錄和傳播着自拍，讓男性和女性一樣有了外表壓力，他們也開始追求體型完美了。

Many men are ‘obsessed with being lean and muscular’ notes Roberto Olivardia, a clinical psychologist at Harvard Medical School and co-author of The Adonis Complex (2000). The ideal is ‘to look less like Arnold [Schwarzenegger] and more like a Calvin Klein male model’. That means a lean but defined upper body with broad shoulders, tapering to smaller hips in the coveted V-shape, ‘cut’ or ‘ripped’ arms and abs, and next to no body hair.
Roberto Olivardia，哈佛大學醫學院臨牀心理學家和《阿多尼斯情結》一書的聯名作者，指出現在很多男性沉迷於精瘦的身材和強健的肌肉。這不是指他們希望像阿諾德·施瓦辛格那樣，而更像Calvin Klein 男模。這意味着體型精瘦，肩膀寬闊，臀部微微上翹，上身呈倒三角，胳膊及腹部的肌肉要有線條感且呈撕裂狀。最好沒有體毛。
（注：阿多尼斯是希臘神話裏代表美與慾望的半神，常指俊美青年）

Images of this hyper-sexualised, commodified male are everywhere, from Hollywood films to glossy magazines and billboard advertising. British journalist Mark Simpson calls them ‘spornosexuals,’ men who want to look like sportsmen or porn stars, chiselling their physiques through a cocktail of gym sessions, diets and drugs. The spornosexual has evolved from the ‘metrosexual’, a term Simpson popularised in the 1990s.
超性感的男模圖片隨處可見，從好萊塢電影到娛樂雜誌甚至戶外廣告。這類人被英國記者馬克.辛普森稱作爲“肌肉美色男”，形容希望像運動員或情色男星一樣的男性，在健身房裏，在節食與藥物的幫助下雕塑肌肉. “spornosexual”（運動Sport、色情Porno與性傾向sexual合成）這個詞演變自這位英國記者在90年代捧紅的熱詞“都市型男”metrosexual（都市Metro與性傾向Sexual合併）。

Seeking acceptance from peers is key. ‘I don’t really care about what the girls think,’ said Leong. His Facebook audience are friends or fellow enthusiasts who offer a minute appraisal of body parts: more toning needed here, trim the excess fat there. Discussions focus on how to maximise results. This is a visual culture for men, by men. ‘It’s something for people to appreciate,’ Leong told me. ‘If we have been dieting for the whole week and we have better abdominals to show, why can’t people admire you?’
尋求同伴的認可這纔是關鍵。“我真的不關心女孩子怎麼想的,” Leong說。他的Facebook好友或同事會給予一些點評：這個部位需要更多的塑身，那裏最好減少些多餘的脂肪。討論主題圍繞着如何讓體型更完美。這是屬於男人之間的視覺文化。“就要想要大家欣賞我，如果我節食一週，就會有更好的腹肌，幹嘛不讓大家仰慕一下呢？”

There is a flipside to admiration: insecurity and criticism. Sometimes mental illness. Working out retains a sheen of good health, even when it reaches dangerous levels. Because of appearances, problems can be hard to discern: eating disorders go undetected, drug violations unseen. Use of anabolic steroids and aggressive fat-strippers can morph into muscle dysmorphia, a disorder in which putting on muscle mass becomes all-consuming. One study in the United States, published in the journal Depression and Anxiety in 2010, found that 50 per cent of sufferers surveyed had attempted suicide at least once.
令人羨慕的事也有不好的一面：不安全感和批判眼光有時會引發精神疾病。爲了保持健康的外表，健身鍛鍊有時甚至達到危險的程度。由於過於關注外表，對身體的內部問題往往會被忽視，例如對飲食失調和濫用保健藥物和補劑往往視而不見。使用合成類固醇激素、強力減肥藥物可以導致肌肉畸形。一份2010年發佈在美國雜誌《抑鬱與焦慮》上的報告顯示，50%的受訪者曾因不堪痛苦至少企圖自殺過一次。

Media outlets such as the Daily Mail and now hold men to the same impossible standards as women. Muscular bodies are praised, and the rich and famous mocked for their ‘man boobs’. Celebrities are not the only targets. In a 2012 survey by the Centre for Appearance Research at the University of the West of England in Bristol, 30 per cent of men said they’d heard others referring to their ‘beer belly’ and 19 per cent to their ‘moobs’ (man boobs). Three in five said such ‘body talk’ affected them negatively.
爭多媒體認爲現在的男性正在追求虛幻的標準。肌肉發達會被人誇獎，富人和名人們常常嘲笑“男性乳房發育”。根據2012年的西英格蘭大學體型研究中心一項調查顯示，30%的男性被人說過“啤酒肚”，19%的男性被人說過男性乳房發育。對於自己的體型被人評頭論足，這讓五分之三的男性產生了負面的心理影響。

It’s hardly surprising then that men’s body dissatisfaction tripled from 1972 to 1997, according to The Adonis Complex. The pressure to bulk up has hit adolescents particularly hard: a US study published in the journal Pediatrics in 2012 revealed that 90 per cent of high-school and middle-school males exercised to gain muscle; 38 per cent used protein supplements, and nearly 6 per cent illegal steroids.
根據另一項的研究，從1972年到1997年男性們對自己的體型不滿意率已經增長了3倍。根據2012年美國的另一項研究顯示，這種壓力對青少年的影響尤其嚴重，90%的男中學生通過鍛鍊增加肌肉，38%使用蛋白質補劑，近6%使用非法類固醇。