Michael Atkinson, assistant professor of sociology, displays his book and tattoos.
Photo credit: Chantall Van Raay

Designer Masculinity:
Men, Science and Body Aesthetics

It’s not just women facing pressure to achieve society’s ideal of the perfect body. Men’s bodies have been squarely placed under the medical – scientific microscope and more and more Canadian men are exploring a wide range of methods for physically enhancing and constructing younger, healthier, vibrant and muscular bodies.

This talk addresses two popular scientific methods employed by men to physically enhance their bodies: cosmetic surgery, and the consumption of exercise/health supplements. In the first case, cosmetic surgery is rapidly becoming a tool for recapturing or formulating an established male body. In the second case, the consumption of scientifically engineered exercise supplements like Creatine, whey protein or human growth hormone has become relatively commonplace in male workout cultures as tools for bulking up or “bulking down”.

The study of men and the medicalization of everyday life details how an established masculine identity (i.e., the strong, silent, youthful, dominant, aggressive, and muscular male), is not an easily attained or privileging status. Rather, it is a perceptively unattainable cultural ideal against which many men anxiously monitor and critically judge their identities through daily physical regimen and rationalized self-presentations.

Research on the moral imperative to at least appear as an established male uncloaks how failing to physically measure up can invoke debilitating feelings of inferiority and alienation. Furthermore, in a culture where self-improvement is valorised and concerns about obesity and disease abound, Canadian men’s bodies are subject to intense monitoring, scrutiny and control by a host of established body experts such as surgeons, therapists, physical trainers, dieticians and academics.

Of central concern in this public discussion are the motives men express regarding their involvement in these body practices. Also addressed is the degree to which men rely on scientific intervention into cultural problems of masculinity, yet have only minimal understandings of the actual science underpinning these types of procedures.