“I started this series to bring body positivity to the queer male community and to celebrate the many different shapes and sizes within it,” photographer Adam Moco tells Queerty about his most recent series Bare. “I primarily use gay hookup apps to find models. For Bare, I also opened it up to people in my daily life because I wanted to showcase a wide variety of men.”
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Moco, A Toronto native who is currently based in Lisbon, Portugal, says he hopes to challenge how some gay men speak about their various types and preferences, specifically guys who write things like “no fats,” “no femmes” or “no Asians” on their dating profiles.
“What concerns me is users whose online dating profiles are restrictive and blatantly rude in how they project preferences,” he explains. “I don’t think there is anything wrong with having sexual preferences, but I do think the way preferences are expressed is wrong.”
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Moco continues: “There is a difference between preferences and tastes versus outright racism, sizeism and the like, and it’s the latter that is problematic. Bare is my way of creating an inclusive platform for those who want to celebrate their bodies.”
Scroll down for a sampling of Moco’s BARE series, and see more at his website…
Mykey
What a good spread, at least what majority of the men look like! And there is inclusion of the minority
Masc Pride
Meh. Seems like just another shoot from yet another photographer that thinks grayscale makes his images look deeper than they are. I actually don’t even think the gay community has problems with inclusion of different body types. You have your bear scenes, twink scenes, muscle scenes, “silver daddy”/geriatric bod scenes, etc. Lean muscle will always be celebrated by default when it comes to mainstream standards–be it straight or gay–which goes back as far as Michelangelo’s David. However, I think the gay community is actually more likely to celebrate different male body types that don’t fit mainstream standards. The far bigger issue this community faces is why guys stay so preoccupied with what they read in profiles on hookup sites and apps. Too many gay men are seemingly defining their self-worth based on how well they do (or don’t do) on Grindr.
Stache
Not too bad. It’s my idea of bears. Not some grossly obese fatties.
HangryStarfish
While Masc Pride has a point about the diverse subcultures that have formed within the larger LGBT “community”, I think the point is that those groups typically don’t interact except when someone of a lean muscular build decides to fetishize one or more of those exiled groups and call himself a chubby chaser or a daddy’s boy. This photo series is a noble attempt at pointing out that there is a segment of our gay family that suffers widespread disregard if not outright rudeness and stigma from some of the young and the fit gay men who are too busy enjoying their privilege as the modern day Davids to stop and think about how their behavior feeds this division. And too much of the shorthand that has evolved from old school print ads to today’s Adam4Adam or Grindr profile is equally as thoughtless and divisive in that it attempts to elevate the person writing the profile above others who he deems less than himself.
If you think it’s trivial and overreacting for someone to take offense at being specifically excluded from the “shopping lists” of the vast majority of online profiles (most of which have become a vapid cut and paste boilerplate of acronyms and abbreviations, one all but indecipherable from another except for the particular torso attached to it these days), then you are absolutely enjoying the privilege of not having to empathize because of your outward appearance. You are, in fact, the very person who needs to see this photo series and be dragged into this kind of discussion.
Rick
I think this is perfect. Not everyone is a Ford model and these photographs says that’s cool, too.
HangryStarfish
@HangryStarfish: But not nearly as much as Stache needs it.
rmarin776
Anyone have thoughts on why gay people can be so horrible to each other? It’s especially sad for young people who, finally coming out, go looking for “community” without finding it.
Kangol
@HangryStarfish: Tell it!
These photos are refreshing. The darker-skinned bald man with the silvery chest hair is especially sexy.
@rmarin776: I think you’re generalizing. Can you be more specific? Was this your experience? Mine was very different, as was the experience of other LGBTIQ people I know. I found the gay world affirming as a young person, and my main challenge was the [email protected] and sissyphobia I encountered. Thankfully there were many gay “communities” out there, and many embraced me and many others like and unlike me.
heavylifter
@Kangol:
“my main challenge was the [email protected] and sissyphobia I encountered.”
I found it was the bitchy fems who make the gay world toxic. Fems make up the majority of gays on the scene.
Masculine men a small minority of the gay demographic and they tend to avoid the gay “community” which is fem territory.
That’s why it is hilarious when fems try to spin themselves as some kind of special snowflake minority within the gay subculture that needs rescuing or something.
heavylifter
Even all the pretentious grey scale photoshopping in the world can’t hide the reality that a skank is still a skank.
fingertrouble
Irony being that the comments saying ‘there isn’t any division’ or supporting just prove the body-fascism and ageism. I mean ‘fatties’? ‘geriatric’? – those are biased statements looking down on others…
If you want words that don’t look down on others, try the words those groups use: chubby, bear, stocky, older, mature, daddy. But then again I’m guessing you’re just queens wanting to look down your eyelashes at others and give shade. Whatever.
GC1985
@heavylifter: Still lifting that 12 pack of Budweiser pass your fat rolls?
Anyways as far as these pics, major pass. Not my type.
GC1985
@heavylifter: And since when do fems do that? Try a better lie next time.
Coming from a gay republican who always paints himself as a victim, that’s ironic. I really do remember the nonsense you write on here. You contradictory right wing gays always claim you are being discriminated against. Well you should stop supporting a party that is hurting our community and damaging the entire country.
David Aventura
Hurt people, hurt people. This explains the gay community. No other way around it.
Robothedestroyer
Someone complained about black and white pictures… I disagree I feel black and white becomes a study of light and texture and tells a specific story. It’s not about making something look deep, that really only applies to Instagram lol. Anyway, I like these. There are some sexy menz here and is way more pleasant to look at then cookie cutter muscle boys (but they are beautiful too, all men are). I have to say the man Queerty used as their thumb and headlining picture (he is sitting up looking down, like at his feet or something) is my favorite… he looks so cuddly!
iggy6666
@GC1985: true colors again. Call people fatties but don’t dare talk about fems. … were you not just preaching tolerance on another thread…..
iggy6666
@heavylifter: I have to disagree that there are more feminine over masculine gay men. Its just easier to spot a feminine man over a masculine gay man. From personal experience my life doesn’t revolve around my sexual orientation. I’m so many more things before gay. Which probably goes for other gay men who lean more towards the masculine side