Department of Psychology, University of Mississippi, University, MS, United States.
Department of Psychology, Metropolitan State University of Denver, Denver, CO, United States.
Body Image. 2019 Mar;28:142-148. doi: 10.1016/j.bodyim.2019.01.007. Epub 2019 Jan 22.
Body image research with men who have sex with men (MSM) has largely focused on White MSM. The current study aimed to investigate whether men of color who have sex with men (MCSM) report similar levels of body dissatisfaction as White MSM. We also studied whether (a) the experience of sexual racism, a unique stressor for MCSM, is related to body dissatisfaction and (b) body image inflexibility moderates the relationship between sexual racism and muscularity-oriented behaviors. White MSM and MCSM (total N = 887) recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk completed questionnaires assessing body dissatisfaction, body image flexibility, and experienced sexual racism on Qualtrics. We found that MCSM report more engagement in behaviors aimed at changing their bodies than White MSM. Additionally, experiencing sexual racism was related to higher body dissatisfaction and body image inflexibility in MCSM. In addition, body image inflexibility moderated by strengthening the association between experiencing sexual racism and muscularity-oriented behaviors. The present study highlights the need for further research with this understudied population, including intervention studies on mitigating the impact of experiencing sexual racism by increasing psychological and body image flexibility and studies aimed at reducing the incidence of sexual racism.
与男男性行为者（MSM）相关的身体意象研究主要集中在白人 MSM 上。本研究旨在调查与白人 MSM 相比，有色人种的男男性行为者（MCSM）是否报告了类似程度的身体不满。我们还研究了（a）性种族主义的体验，这是 MCSM 特有的压力源，是否与身体不满有关，以及（b）身体意象的不灵活性是否调节了性种族主义与肌肉发达取向行为之间的关系。通过亚马逊 Mechanical Turk 招募的白人 MSM 和 MCSM（共 887 人）在 Qualtrics 上完成了评估身体不满、身体意象灵活性和经历性种族主义的问卷。我们发现，MCSM 比白人 MSM 更频繁地参与旨在改变身体的行为。此外，经历性种族主义与 MCSM 更高的身体不满和身体意象不灵活性有关。此外，身体意象的不灵活性通过加强经历性种族主义与肌肉发达取向行为之间的关联而增强。本研究强调了对这一研究不足的人群进行进一步研究的必要性，包括通过增加心理和身体意象的灵活性来减轻经历性种族主义的影响的干预研究，以及旨在减少性种族主义发生率的研究。
