Oh, Zach

 

ZACKMIKO

In what ways do you think the body positive movement is coming up short? From my perspective, I wish there was more room to address people who don't love their bodies and not making loving your body the end goal. For me, hating my body less has been the journey. Which I realize is a less marketable sentiment. But curious if you have any reaction to that?

I think one of the main pitfalls the body positive movement falls into is thinking that there is an end goal. Like you said, just hating your body a little less can be a huge step. There is no one way to be body positive. There have been times in my short career that I have weighed more, there are times that I have weighed less, I have felt great about how I looked and felt horrible about it. I see in our community sometimes people coming at others for losing weight, or gaining weight, almost as if changing your body in any way is somehow betraying the "body positive movement." I believe the movement is about accepting who you are and not hating yourself, no more no less. It's fine if you gain weight or lose weight, it's your body and no one else but you gets a say in how it looks or how you feel about it.

ZACHMIKO for Paper Mag.

Who would have thought that sometimes being body-positive is a struggle? Especially for a straight guy like Zach? Who knew? You'd think it would be easier for a straight guy to carry a little weight, because nowadays you cannot swing a cat without hitting a tv show that has a skinny wife and a Big-And-Tall husband. I know that gay men can be vicious when it comes to body shape and some men just refuse to fuck (or jerk off to) anybody with more than 5% body fat and not clearly defined abs. Oh, I know how it is.  Men  considered 'husky' in the gay community have had to come up with their own porn and have kind of fenced themselves in the 'Bear' category. Isn't that kind of a waste of time?

Hear me out: the thing is that many more guys are going to look like Zach than like any of those Sean Cody/ CockyBoys/ MEN/BelAmi/ Helix/NextDoor models. And that's a fact: if we do not follow a strict exercise regime and keep lifting weights/doing cardio/watch our mouths the second we turn thirty, we are going to gain some weight. Even the skinniest amongst us will go through some 'changes' once we hit thirty. Or forty. Or fifty. The waist changes, and that may be unavoidable for some with age, and there may be a slight muffin top if we like our pasta more than our broccoli. And we can lose some tone, yep, those pecs are going to be less perky if we don't keep the one hundred daily pushups going. The legs can stay hot, though, because most of our weight goes to our midsection or to our face. Small blessings. But it happens.

So what are we supposed to do once the collagen does not flow freely in our faces and three extra cookies and some ice cream after dinner will mean twenty extra minutes on the stationary bike? Shouldn't we kind of enjoy our bodies more? I'm all for staying fit for health reasons (blood pressure, joint pain, cholesterol, you name it) but being obsessed with how we look (or not look like)? Isn't that a little bit too much of a waste of time? Besides, for me, personally, I like husky men. Yep, I really like the idea of having a big bruiser manhandling me. So sue me. I'd rather have a guy like Zach give it to me good against a wall than than wait for some gym bunny to descend from mount Olympus to press me like I'm the news. 

From my point of view, men who are not perfect physically tend to fuck much, much better than men with perfect proportions and 2% body fat. Yes, men who exercise tend to have a higher libido (have had those) and tend to look awesome but exercise does not always translate into Adonis-like physiques or for that matter, being good in bed. Genetics may have a lot to do with staying fit and fitness does not always mean prowess in bed. I think men who do not look like models tend to be much more into their physicality and tend to focus more on their partners and their pleasure, and this alone makes them better lovers. I am not denying that fit men can be good lovers, but my experience has showed me the opposite. And I'm not advocating for stopping all forms of exercise. I think at some point in our lives, we need to exercise to stay healthy, but we would have to try hard to stay in peak physical condition, with washboard abs and hard-as-steel pecs well into our forties, fifties and beyond. Keeping those porn star physiques requires a strict diet and an even more demanding exercise regime. Those bodies do not come in a cereal box, dear.

Some men are very lucky and they stay fit all their lives. But many more of us will kind of tend to look like Zach. And I don't think that should be a sin. I think we should be a little bit more body-positive and extend that body positivity to others and to ourselves. The rise of the porn cottage industry that the pandemic has unleashed upon us has given us a wider variety of body types and much more relatable (and hotter) porn. I like that there's more barrel-chested and corpulent guys getting it on in front of a camera and that many more men who look like Zach are joining the ranks of the perfect Bel-Ami models as fodder for our fantasies. About damn time.

XOXO