Why is weight stigma so potent among sexual minority men? We propose that sexual minority men may be more vulnerable to weight stigma because of factors not captured by existing measures – for instance, men’s perception of fatness as less masculine and/or more feminine. To investigate, we qualitatively examined how 17 sexual minority men (M_age = 28.52, SD_age = 1.63, range: 18–49) described fatness in their discussions of body ideals and appearance pressures. We generated two themes: (i) Masculinity is a currency that fat men have less of and (ii) Fatness is stigmatized or fetishized. Participants described appearing masculine (i.e., lean, muscular) as particularly valuable within the gay community – opposingly, fatness was framed as unmasculine and undesirable. Fat men’s treatment was understood as rarely divorced from their body size, either being stigmatized or fetishized because of their weight. Finally, being unattracted to fat men was constructed as a personal preference that ought not be criticised. These findings suggest the value of masculinity within the gay community may exacerbate weight stigma experiences and internalization among sexual minority men. Future research should account for the anticipated effects of fatness on men’s masculinity and clarify whether sexual preferences and fetishization should be subsumed in weight stigma definitions.

为什么在性少数男性中体重污名如此严重？我们建议性少数男性可能更容易受到体重耻辱的影响，因为现有措施没有捕捉到因素——例如，男性认为肥胖不那么男性化和/或更女性化。为了进行调查，我们定性地检查了 17 名性少数男性（M_年龄= 28.52，SD_年龄= 1.63，范围：18-49）在讨论身体理想和外表压力时如何描述肥胖。我们产生了两个主题：(i)阳刚之气是肥胖男性所拥有的一种货币， (ii)肥胖被污名化或迷恋. 参与者将男性化（即瘦、肌肉发达）描述为在同性恋群体中特别有价值——相反，肥胖被认为是不男性化和不受欢迎的。胖男人的治疗被认为很少与他们的体型脱节，要么因为他们的体重而被污名化或被迷恋。最后，不被胖子吸引是一种不应该被批评的个人偏好。这些研究结果表明，同性恋社区中男性气质的价值可能会加剧性少数男性的体重耻辱经历和内化。未来的研究应考虑肥胖对男性阳刚之气的预期影响，并阐明性偏好和恋物癖是否应包含在体重耻辱定义中。