Fridae

They're better than the latest shoulder bag from Gucci, and likely to evince more gasps than your hot-off-the-sweat-shop-lines-of-Mauritius Prada sandals: a gym bunny boyfriend. Personally, I think they are the best jewelry my beer tokens can buy - sorry, make that Evian water. Goddess forbid your gym bunny might be seen imbibing alcohol in public.

But most of us good-thinking queers have to admit that although we love the fleshy rack of a good hard man, we do not expect there to be much meat between the ears. We all hear the echo of our own words resounding round the cavernous emptiness of his skull as we literally listen to ourselves talking, as he's got nothing to contribute in any case and is too busy checking out himself in the mirror, checking out the other muscle Mary across the bar, or working out how many reps he needs to do on his lower abdominals before he goes to bed.

I wish I could say it was my own prejudice, but every gym bunny I have met has asked me without fail within the first few minutes of initial conversation: "Where do you work out?," and when I say I don't, the conversation dies a rapid and unseemly death. If I had a nip and a tuck for every time I was asked that question, I'd be well on my way to Joan Collins immortality.

So why do Asian gay men strive to look like over-inflated cartoon characters, when the Asian ideal is a much lither and slenderer look? Dare I mention the US? I dare, but this time it's not the usual cultural dominance of the gay scene (well, I guess it is in a way), it's pornography. Asian gay men have had more access to American gay porn than any other. The butch porn star is always pumped up like a kiddies bouncy castle on a summer birthday.

And the Asian gay man pumps himself up to overcompensate for the fact that he is not and never will be a real man in the eyes of his Asian peers. The best he can do is mimic that semi-comic porno top as he grunts "yeah, you like that big dick, don't you, you faggot!" Let's not delve too much further into the gym bunny's blatant homophobia and almost certain closetedness� Even if he doesn't take it up the butt - and he will protest till you're blue in the cock that he's exclusively a top as those helium heels hit the roof of the lock-up - the fact that he likes dick makes him less of a man. Hence the need to look more of a man than a real man.

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And then there's dick size, of course. You may have thought I wouldn't go there, but you were wrong. The adolescent diet of gay porn we couldn't get enough of has most of us westerners feeling inadequate, but you can imagine how exaggerated that feeling is when you know you are smaller than average, as sadly many are in Asia. And by pumping the rest of your body up, you make your equipment look even smaller in comparison. Huge thighs look nice, but they will engulf your poor little pecker which will be pushed back to hide inside your pubic hair like a joey disappearing into its mother's pouch.

I often see these gorgeous guys at the gym and in the sauna modestly placing a hand or a towel in front of their packets, ashamed of what they've got. With such a powerful body they should be standing tall, shoulders back, tits out and legs splayed in a show of power. Why else are you spending so much time in the gym if not to show it off? I can even forgive an average sized dick on a muscleman as the feel - and look - of his solid chest, back, butt, hips and thighs can be a sexual experience all of its own. I can get off on him without the need to be pounded into the mattress.

However, that said, I do find gym bunnies to be not only boring, but also incredibly selfish. As I am invariably the one with the body that is not as muscled, he almost always feels that it is my job to worship him and that it is good enough for him just to show up. He will stand or lie there with his wonderful body presented like a prize and that's where he stops. Well, more than one gym bunny has needed the flesh of his bubble butt to soften the landing as he was booted unceremoniously out of my apartment for doing that.

I mean, it's like having a vibrator without the batteries. What the hell use are you as a man if you're not going to do at least some, if not all, of the work. Purlease! And if you manage to date the sheisters, they think that their gym regimen takes precedence over every other commitment in life. I can't count how many dinners were shriveled and dried up on the table as he did "just a couple more reps" on his favourite torture apparatus.

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Not that gym bunnies can eat real food in any case. If they're not guzzling powders mixed in the blender with a dozen egg whites, the intestines of three wild goats and a bitter gourd then they're snacking on apple slices and peanut butter. God forbid you offer them anything with oil in it. The ensuing shrieks are slightly less than masculine. Call me old-fashioned, but I like to get my protein and vitamins from actual food and not packets and pills. But maybe I am old-fashioned, as this is the generation brought up on packet meals which taste worse than the plastic they are served in. Protein powders are probably the best-testing and most nutritious alternative.

The gym: I often ask if it is all worth it. The hours of discipline demanded. The freakish obsession with diet. The unhygienic carpeting. And above all the pain. One of my more muscular lovers constantly had a vile-smelling patch attached to one or other of his lovely muscles, which sort of detracted from the overall tableau. And if he wasn't applying a patch, he was rubbing in some equally vile-smelling unguent (which really smarts if you get it on your nob) or trussing himself up in bandaging. When I later found out he was spending the third hour of his gym visits picking up the other patrons, I thought that I could easily have inflicted that much pain on him without the need for a trip to the gym. I am a great believer in time management.

Despite what I've said, the truth is that we all coo over their bulging pecs and biceps and love running our hands across their flat stomachs. Who cares if they're lacking in social graces. The pure aesthetics of bouncing around the sack with a gym bunny can make up for all that. At least once, anyway. And we just lack their discipline. Or insane obsessiveness. Whatever. But I won't be giving up on them quite yet.