Being a Boy Read Online Free PDF Page A

you cannot sit on the sofa five nights a week eating sweets, cake and chips.
    THE GOOD NEWS: Working out and exercising is really good for you and fun. Yeah, you have to find the energy and work out what kind of exercise you like, but there’s something for everyone. With regular exercise you’ll see results pretty quickly AND exercise has a positive impact on your mental health too. A healthy, balanced diet will make you FEEL better also.
    MORE GOOD NEWS: People will still want to shag you however big or small you are! (They don’t tell you that at school do they?)
    MORE BAD NEWS: Problems come when people are unhealthy. By that I mean people who are very underweight or very overweight. Malnourishment is not sexy and neither is morbid obesity. It’s because we’re programmed to find healthy sexual partners. Forget people wanting to have sex with you though, this is more important – it’s about being healthy for yourself. I am not an expert on nutrition or eating disorders, but there are lots of them out there and they will help you if you ask. Check out the School Dictionary at the back of the book for more information.
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    It’s not rocket science. Eat the right stuff, move about loads.
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PEACOCKING
    R emember earlier we talked about the peacocks in the human zoo, the gorgeous show-offs? There’s a little bit of peacock in all of us, and why not? There’s nothing wrong with wanting to look good. However, there is nothing more boring than really, really hot guys who talk about nothing other than the gym and protein shakes. Nothing is less sexy than vanity.
    ‘Tabloid culture’ has changed how we view men’s bodies. Until about a decade ago, we rarely saw semi-naked male bodies in the mainstream media. As we became hungrier for celeb flesh, actors, singers and sportsmen increasingly became models too.

    Celebs may start off quite normal, even though they are famous, but then something strange happens. They start getting ad deals and posing in their underpants. These guys always have smooth, hairless bodies; deep, golden tans; dyed hair; sparkling white teeth.
    Gradually the bodies of these guys have become the blueprint that all men want to adhere to.
    This is obviously a generalisation. At any given time there are numerous style and body icons to look to, but invariably many sportsmen, film actors, musicians and models have been plucked, waxed, sprayed and dyed in exactly the same way.
    The last twenty or so years have seen an exponential growth of the ‘male beauty’ industry and now men, after many years of sexist imbalance, can also understand the stress of chasing the impossible road-runner of physical perfection.
    As mere mortals we have to choose: Do we want to look fake or like an actual human?
    BODY HAIR: You’d be hard pressed to find a chest hair on an actor and yet men grow hair there. It even sprouts out of your nipples.
    If you don’t want body hair, you’ll have to pay someone to wax it all off, which is painful, or shave it, but note that chest stubble is as sexy as it sounds. The much-maligned hairy back is also a reality for most men. Let’s do some PR on back hair. Instead of ‘back hair’, let’s call it a ‘glossy coat’ or ‘man-fur’. The media shouldn’t be allowed to get away with feeding you lies every single day, but I’m afraid they do.

    We now have a double-double standard. For years sexist male pigs criticised women for having hairy legs or armpits. These days, they still do, but it works both ways. Sexist female pigs now react in horror to back and bum hair. (Yes, most men have somewhat hairy bums, too.) Why don’t we all just chill out and accept that we evolved from monkeys?
    PUBES: You don’t have to trim your pubes, but I encourage you to do it. A little pubic topiary will help keep everything down there a bit cleaner and it will make your dick look bigger – not that size really matters.
    TANNING: Much as with your face and your body hair I need you