I thought I was confident in my body — and then I got a girlfriend
The first time I ever got a girlfriend, I was delighted. I'd come out as bisexual when I was 18, and two years later, after only ever been on dates with women, I was in a relationship with one.
Shortly afterwards, though, I started to struggle with the way I looked. I'd inherited a tumultuous relationship with my body, and almost taught, as many women are, to feel insecure with it.
While there's a part of me that presents a confident front, there's always another side – one that wants to hide away and wear baggy clothes, even during the summer.
When I entered my first same-sex relationship, these insecurities worsened. It wasn't that I didn't feel love from my partner; more that I couldn't stop comparing my body to hers. I saw that she was much thinner than I was, and wished we could swap figures.
Every woman I've ever been with, even casually, I've struggled not to fall back into that pattern of comparison. While I've still had similar insecurities while dating men, it's certainly heightened when you're dating someone with a similar body to you.
According to LGBTQ+ organisation The Trevor Project, queer and trans youth are disproportionately impacted by body confidence issues.
In 2023, nearly 87% of LGBTQ+ youth reported being unhappy with their body.
Elsewhere, pansexual people were the most likely to feel insecure (91%), followed by those identifying as queer (88%), asexual (87%), bisexual (86%) and lesbian (85%). The statistics worsened amongst trans youth, too, at 90% compared to 80% of those who identify as cisgendered.
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It's an issue those in the public eye have spoken about too. In May, retired Olympian Tom Daley revealed in an interview with The Times that he 'hates' the way he looks – and this has only worsened since he stopped diving professionally.
'I've always had such horrible body issues going through my diving career. Now I'm not an athlete that trains six hours a day, I especially hate it,' he shared.
As a gay man, Calum McSwiggan believes that the community can be 'toxic' when it comes to body image.
'Going out on the gay scene to parties, there's such a higher expectation placed on you,' Calum, who is 35 and currently travelling the world for Metro's Pride Around the World series, tells us.
'Sometimes, it can feel like if you don't have the body of an Adonis, that you don't measure up to your peers.'
During lockdown, Calum used fitness as a coping mechanism. Dedicating hours each day to working out, he got himself 'in extremely good physical condition.'
'I was racking up between four and five hours of exercise a day, which is obscene. Now, I recognise that I was over-exercising, but I never saw it that way,' he details.
When it comes to seeking a partner, Calum says he's attracted to faces and personalities, stating that a 'body is just a bonus' – and yet, he still lays this pressure on himself.
Calum's previous boyfriend happened to be a model, and since he had 'all the abs and the muscles,' Calum found it incredibly difficult not to compare himself and 'not to want to become him.'
'I was dating him because I adored him as a person, and yet seeing his body compared to mine, you can't help but think that you're not good enough,' Calum recalls.
This mentality is still very much present in his love life, and whenever he goes on a date with someone new, even if it's casual, he struggles to shake it.
'If they're more muscly than me, or leaner, there's always that feeling of 'they have a better body than me, so they're not going to want to be with me,'' he adds.
Whenever he logs onto dating apps, Calum feels that every profile he scrolls through depicts the same thing: someone with abs and muscles.
It gives him much the same feeling as when he goes clubbing; that if he's going to be part of this dating pool, he needs to 'match that.'
'When you're dating someone of the same gender, it's almost like holding a mirror up to yourself. There's the concept of boyfriend twins where gay couples end up looking like each other, and you're always comparing yourself,' he says.
Recently, Calum's life has changed a lot. As a nomad, he's now much busier than he was – and since he's changing country every week and living out of a bag, he no longer has the free time available to 'work' on his body so much.
'When I was at my most fit, that was when I beat myself up the most,' he reflects.
'Even when I had the abs, I never saw them in the mirror. I think I'm in a better place with my body image, but still not a great one.
'I genuinely don't know that many gay men who are.'
While some people in same-sex relationships struggle with comparison, for Megan Jayne Crabbe, it's helped her embrace her body.
'I started having body image issues when I was four or five years old,' she tells Metro. 'I was dieting by the time I was 10 and was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa when I was 14.'
After recovery, she dove straight back into 'chasing body goals and ideal weights.'
At the time, Megan, now 32, says she dated men who had much narrower expectations of how they expected a female body to look.
'I've dated men who've pointed out when I've gained weight, men who've been disgusted by my body hair, even a self-proclaimed 'feminist' who told me he wouldn't want his girlfriend to 'let herself go'.'
'I was always more self-conscious with men and felt I had to perform a version of desirability that was as close to the beauty standard as possible, whether that was by always having my make-up done or sucking in my stomach whenever they touched me.'
But when Megan was 21, she found the body positivity movement online, and worked on untangling the relationships between patriarchy, fatphobia and toxic dieting culture.
She feels that, had she not embraced her body, she may not have been able to embrace her sexuality, which saw her come out as pansexual, aged 27.
'My body image issues were so all-consuming that I couldn't be at peace with anything about myself,' Megan, who is a creator, author, presenter and host, details.
Now that she's dating a woman though, she has a completely non-judgmental partner who not only loves her body – but embraces it, too. Now that she's in a relationship that 'doesn't include the male gaze,' these patriarchal ideals of beauty, no longer get to her.
'For me it has been healing to date someone of the same gender,' Megan says.
For Megan, practising self-love and accepting her body is something she still has to prioritise, but now that she's put in so much work, she recognises that she doesn't fall into that 'comparison trap' with her partner. More Trending
'Before, I probably would've really struggled to date someone like my current girlfriend because her body falls much closer to the cultural beauty standard than mine does.
'Now, I can appreciate that our bodies don't have to look similar for both to be good enough.'
View More »
Megan Jayne Crabbe's new book, We Don't Make Ourselves Smaller Here, comes out on June 26.
If you suspect you, a family member or friend has an eating disorder, contact Beat on 0808 801 0677 or at help@beateatingdisorders.org.uk, for information and advice on the best way to get appropriate treatment.
For other helplines across the UK, visit here for more information.
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