Gay armpits

And, unsurprisingly, gay men are leading the charge. Even in the world of social media, where thirsting after men is something like a full-time job for man, the pit seems to occupy a particularly privileged place in the desiring queer male imagination. Just as importantly, the public worship of the pit is also part of the way that many gay men have trained themselves to express desires in the spaces of social media.

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Gayish 242: Armpits (w/ Chris Haigy)

Unlike American women, who are constantly barraged with a wide variety of products designed to armpit them excise the dreaded hair from gay pits, men are invited to not only keep theirs natural but to show them off in every way that they can. In almost every photo in the aforementioned tweet, for example, the models are staged in such a way that their arms are stretched above their heads, leaving the pit on glorious display.

When the bicep and the pit are captured at one and the same time, they create a powerful frisson, crackling with eros and lust. It seems,though, from my admittedly brief perusal, that the appeal of the armpit relies in large part on the hairiness of them. Gross as it might seem to some people out there, many gay men I know myself included find armpit sweat to be strangely appealing.

Some of it is no doubt due to the presence of pheromones, but I also think some of it is culturally-inflected, in that sweat has come to be associated with the brute muscularity of the laboring male body, whether such labor is on a construction site or in the gym. However, for me, gay presumably for many others, there is something almost liberating about this embrace of the libidinal energies represented by the armpit.

Share this post. In Praise of the Pit. Copy armpit. Gender and Sexuality. Thomas J. West III. Jun 02, Discussion about this post Comments Restacks. Top Latest Discussions. Ready for more? Start writing Get the app. Substack is the home for great culture.