By Charles Karel Bouley II

Pity the object of man’s affection if for no other reason than the things they’ll do to remain admired … An odd thought when sitting pondering a column that could relate to this magazine’s health and fitness issue. I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with health and fitness. Because of my past, a past filled with handicapped parents, a generation of friends with a variety of illnesses, a partner with HIV, loss of both parents and husband to various bodily malfunctions, well, let’s say I’m more than acquainted with the human body, its ailments and ways to help or prevent them.

It is this knowledge that helps fill the “hate” part of this relationship. You see, I know I’m fat. And I know I shouldn’t be. I know that I could lower my cholesterol, so I could perhaps get off the statin they have me on (43 and taking statins, how bourgeois). It’s working, which tells me I could manage this other ways. And I know I feel better, my back doesn’t hurt and I sleep better when I exercise. I realize this. But as I sit in the triple-digit heat that has lasted for weeks now in Southern California, the thought of exercise makes me think that being fit is over-coveted in the gay community and overrated in the straight. I mean, if we eat right and exercise daily, we’re all still going to die, right? Well, yes, but it’s how you live that often determines how you die and I’ve seen heart attacks, they’re painful. I’ve witnessed renal shutdown, it’s not pleasant. I’ve seen strokes, where a frightened mind lies trapped in a paralyzed body, and I don’t want one.

But I’m talking health now, and neither health, nor fitness, has anything to do with what we call “fit” in the gay community and what straight men think is “sexy” in the straight. Thus, my opening statement which bares repeating: Pity the object of man’s affection if for no other reason than the things they’ll do to remain admired…from spending countless hours at the gym to puking dinner, spending fortunes on supplements or near caloric deprivation.

In our era, in our time, slim and trim is in, to the extreme, which is psychotic because two-thirds of Americans are fat, and that includes gay Americans, they’re just called lesbians. OK, cheap shot, but actually, not far off the point. You see, when men are removed from the picture, people are free to love each other and often find that love comes in many shapes and sizes. I admire lesbians for the fact that they don’t hide their larger ones in places like “bear” bars. Truly, what is the lesbian equivalent of a “bear”? Is there one? If so, I’ve never heard of it, and if so, I probably don’t want to think of it. (OK, again, cheap shot).

But I digress. Gay men often live in a delusional world when it comes to health and fitness. They’ll spend countless hours at the gym to go out on the town (any town, Los Angeles, Palm Springs, San Francisco, South Beach, Atlanta, pick one) and then mix alcohol with a highly caffeinated sports drink so they can sweat all night long while dehydrating. Or better yet, they’ll skip the booze, go right for a substance like Crystal, E, K, X, Y, Z, whateva, and ruin multiple organs at once in the name of a party. I can’t tell you how many “fit” looking gay men—muscled, tanned, toned, together—love to “pNp.” It’s downright disheartening.

And what’s terrible is that, for years, I so wanted to look like them. Oh, how I thought my career in TV, in radio, in life, my dating adventures, would be so perfect if only I could look like one of them, the guys in the ads. If I work out more, eat less, take this or that substance, then I’ll have this spouse, that car, this house, but more importantly I will really like myself because damn it, I look great! It’s that thinking that drives the beauty industry, the vitamin industry, almost every industry. Your life will be so much happier if you just looked or lived like “them.”

And then I thought for a moment. I was loved for 12 years by the most handsome, the most loving, the most caring, wonderful, well, the smartest man on the planet, if I do say so myself, Andrew Lee Howard. He was hot by all standards. Oh how he got cruised every where we went. And he chose me. He chose a life with me, privately and then later professionally. We were as tied as two people could be, and as happy. Not always, no wonderland, but real, honest-to-god happier more times than not. And I didn’t look like “them,” I looked like me the whole time.

This weekend I found out my radio show in San Francisco is number one overall. Not number one talk radio, but number one period. I beat music stations on a Saturday night. And I did it looking like me, not “them.” I look back on the TV appearances, and there I was, looking like me, not “them.” So what on Earth could have been different if I looked like one of those chiseled models? Everything, because I would have been “them” and not me.

And I guess at 43 I’ve gotten to where that’s fine, being me is OK. And I have a weight problem. I always have. I always will. I’ll gain. I’ll loose. I’ll look fabulous and then I’ll look, well, more fabulous. But one thing is for certain, I will never, ever, look like one of “them.” And chances are, neither will most of you. And guess what? That’s OK.

Now, could I, you, me, we be healthier? Sure. But not in the way most in the community think of as healthy. Today I think the biggest crisis facing our community, the biggest health risk isn’t so much physical as psychological. We need to get a grip on who we are as individuals, what’s important to us as people and as a community collectively. We need to get out of the low self esteem of the past, we need many, many things to get a good mental health stamp of approval. And then the health of us as people, as to who we are needs to be addressed. Are we involved in something more than ourselves? Are we involved in our community in some way other than supporting the local club? Are we involved in our world, and I mean the entire thing, including Iraq, Israel, Lebanon and such? Can you imagine what it’s like for gays in that region right now? WorldPride was about to go on right near ground zero of this entire thing. Thousands of gays in the area. Then boom! War. Did that thought ever cross anyone’s mind? Did you even know? But what time is that spinning class next week…

Again, I digress.

I want my community to be well, myself included. Yes, I need to lose weight, and will. I always do. But there’s no magic person waiting under this 30 or 40 pounds. And I realize, that I must spend as much time each day reading the news, conversing with friends, interacting with loved ones and concentrating on career as I do making sure my biceps are bulging. I’ll remember the difference between health and simply trying to obtain some unrealistic ideal du jour of beauty.

Oh yes, and I’ll try to remember chocolate isn’t a health food.