Size Queen: A Gay Guy on Girth
by John Chaich

A moment at this year’s New York City gay and lesbian pride parade revealed my own pride—and shame—as a short, stocky gay man. Among the rainbow flags, the pink triangles and the occasional pampered pooch walked a living, breathing cornucopia of gay male body types. Go-go boys let us see their thong th-thong-thong-thongs. Leather daddies let it all hang out—literally—in their chaps. The gay swim league and wrestling team slipped and slid in Speedos and singlets. If a float featured flesh, the crowd cheered.

And then came the bears—the self-styled posse of hefty, hairy homos who looked more like lumberjacks than limber jocks. With their grizzly goatees, glistening chest hair and jutting guts, they were here, they were queer, and the audience was not sure what to do.

The otherwise enthusiastic onlookers seemed to cheer less and ponder more as these hirsute hulks marched on. By the time the next float full of short-short-wearing, waxed-chest-baring men approached, you could almost hear the collective sigh of relief from the crowd. Or maybe we were all just exhaling the stomachs we’d sucked in when the bears bounced by.

At that moment, I don’t know what I felt more ashamed of: how the years of media criticism and body empowerment that I’d preached alongside feminist friends could leave me as easily as a Fleet enema, or how the years of half-and-half in my coffee have settled so obviously in my lower half. And with whose gaze was I most concerned: the buff boys’, the beefy bears’ or my own?

From the streets to the sheets, gay men faithfully fight and foster the battle of the bulge—both below and around the waist. At thirty, I’d like to think my skin is as thick as my thirty-six-inch waist and I’m comfortable in my own body. Yet, I am most out of sync with myself when I’m feeling sized up by the brave and the shirtless at events like this.

John Chaich is a self-proclaimed “artivist” and feminist “phag” whose birthday falls between those of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Eartha Kitt, Charo and Dolly Parton. He has presented nationally on AIDS and the arts as well as produced theatrical, curatorial and musical outreach projects. After publishing his own zine, sway: style + substance for smart sexysomethings, he became a contributing writer to Bust and a columnist for several Midwestern publications. A Cleveland native, Chaich currently lives in New York City.