Pip McCormac gives So So Gay readers the second of a two-part exclusive preview of his new book, Mistakes & Ladders.
Pecs. Pectorals. Pecs that flex. Big, bulging, flexing pecs. Pecs that can open beer bottles between them, pecs which enter the conversation far earlier than their owner, pecs with a cleavage much deeper than any of the lustful thoughts they inspire. Pecs are the new sex – everybody wants them, everyone seems to be getting them, they’re a national obsession. Like drinking tea, only where the builder’s version isn’t necessarily the strongest. No, these days, every office clerk, whose heaviest weight is the pile of paper he pushes daily around his desk, has a pair of pumped up pectorals to help him do it.
You think I’m exaggerating? At the beach a few weeks ago I was surrounded by hulking, sweating, glistening pecs. Even skinny boys with beards, who really ought to have spent their free time at home listening to LPs and penning poetry for their girlfriends, had somehow ventured out from their existential angst and into the gym to sculpt their upper body. Man tits have gone mainstream. Forget having a good job, a nice house, a decent car and a Kitchen Aid blender – you can’t wear any of them as openly or as obviously as you can a pair of inflated beach balls stuck on your upper ribs. But these days, they’re more than just an instant status symbol, they’re an expectation. Imagine having a boy take off his top to reveal a body as unsculpted as the lump of clay Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze consummated their love over. There isn’t the ghost of a chance – we’ve all grown them because having a gym pass has become a de rigueur part of modern life, as common as owning a phone, or a door key, or deep-V t-shirts from American Apparel.
So when did it all begin? In the mid Noughties, the only pecs belonged to body builders, movies stars, and the swimming captain you stared at enviously in the showers at school. But post-economic crash, when all the big moves up the ladder of life seem so unattainable (like I’ll ever have a kitchen big enough for my food processor) – a cracking pair of tits can be achieved by all, and seemingly has been. We’ve gone boom for busts.
And I’ll tell you something else – I love my pecs. Like a security blanket, I fondle them thoughtfully, cupping a feel whenever I think nobody’s looking. Staring at them falling out of my vest top in the mirror at my gym recently, the unformed thought ran through my mind that I’d rather die than not have them. Dramatic, sure, but they’re my boys, and I love those mammaries like they’re my very own sons.
Which is why the yoga class dented my self-confidence more than a night failing to pull at Heaven ever could. Clubbing, I’m surrounded by hot 20 year olds next to whom I don’t really stand a chance – it’s wise to sometimes admit gracious defeat in the babyface of such competion. Here, at gay yoga in the unfashionable part of Angel Islington, surrounded by tubby middle aged men in badly fitting T shirts, the twistedly vain and bizarrely needy party of myself expected to be adored.
I have an odd relationship with my body. Sure, I love my pecs now, but mostly out of a constant state of surprise that they exist, of wonderment that they seem to stay stuck to the front of my suddenly-heaving bosom. At school, the other boys picked out my gayness even before I had. In the showers they pointed at my body and said ‘It’s not very manly, is it?’
To be fair, they had a point – I was a lanky teenager, as puny as I was thin. Watching Saved by the Bell and forming my first big crush on Zack Morris, I remember an episode where he took off his top and revealed some perfectly square pecs. He was my ultimate Alpha Male, and that was how I wanted to be. I was the least sporty boy I knew, so the chances of ever looking athletic were as slim as I was.
Arriving at university, I discovered a vague fitness regime for the first time – swimming a mile every day. Suddenly, a pair of biceps sprouted on my scrawny arms, becoming a talking point amongst my female friends. I started wearing tighter t-shirts and flexing my guns whenever possible.
Then I found the gym, and those all-important pecs began to sprout. The trouble is that I still need to hear compliments to feel ok about my developed body, to not feel like the effeminate kid I was growing up. Somebody failing to notice them in a tight shirt sends me into a downward spiral. A whole room of men not taking the slightest bit of interest in them despite having them flexed in their faces caused a major paroxysm.
‘Ok, that was definitive proof, there’s just something about me which isn’t attractive, that doesn’t make men want to have sex with me,’ I said to Paul as soon as we’d scarpered.
‘Maybe you should try being a bit more outgoing…’ he trailed off, unwilling or unable to give me the real reason. It had been a difficult class. Pectorals weren’t the only thing I’d picked up in gym – I was also sporting a rather large verruca on my left sole (I figured this book should be warts and all…). It’s gone now, and ever since I’ve always worn flip flops in the showers, but at the time of the yoga class I didn’t want to either spread it further or point my disgusting foot at anyone else. Choosing to keep my socks on, I almost got thrown out by the teacher.
‘It’s customary to do this barefoot,’ he yelled, as soon as soon as he saw me.
‘I know, yes, but I’d like to keep my socks on,’ I blushed, as everyone stared at me.
‘Why?’ he demanded.
‘I just, erm, I just…’
‘Take them off,’ he shouted.
It went on like this for a while. In the face of his protests, you’d have thought the only reason I could be keeping them on was either a verruca or athlete’s foot – something more gross than the embarrassment of being picked on. He refused to let it go, mentioning my socks repeatedly through the class. Presumably having figured out I had something amiss down there, it’s no wonder that my classmates avoided me like the plague – that’s probably what they thought I had.
Continues on next page…
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