Obsessed with the man in the mirror

Narcissus fell in love with his own reflection before it was cool. There is a new generation of young men who want nothing more than to have a reflection worth falling in love with. They believe that they’re ugly and that the most important thing in the world is correcting that disappointing reality. They’re preoccupied with their appearance, and they’re willing to break the bank, and their bodies, to make it happen.

They’re looksmaxxing. Maximizing their attractiveness is the goal and Braden Peters, aka Clavicular, is their guru. His nickname comes from his clavicle bone, which is 19.5 inches, which is apparently the way it’s supposed to be. They’ve developed an entire “science based” system that identifies ideal facial and body ratios and proportions.

Looksmaxxers will go to great lengths, literally, to come closer to what they perceive to be the objective standard of beauty for men. They’ll break their legs and have rods inserted in order to be taller; they’ll inject fillers and have reconstructive surgeries to improve their jaw line; they’ll use anabolic steroids and sacrifice their fertility; they’ll hit themselves in the face with a hammer to create microfractures that, hopefully, will cause their facial features to be more pronounced. They’ll do meth to suppress their appetite.

This isn’t necessarily about trying to attract a mate. In a recent New York Times interview, Clavicular confessed that “knowing he could have sex with a woman was in some ways better than the deed itself.” This is about status more than it is about sex.

Body image issues and inappropriate obsession with one’s appearance have long been assumed to be a “women’s issues.” No more. One study in Britain found that 54% of young men show signs of body dysmorphia (in contrast with 49% of women).

Looksmaxxing is a bundle of lies. It attaches itself to true biblical realities and then sucks the life goodness right out. To be made in God’s Image is a beautiful thing. To honor your body and present it in such a way that is compelling, clean, modest, and “wonderfully made” is giving honor where honor is due.

There is a tension here Christians must recognize. Putting on a tie, getting a haircut, exercising, and using teeth-whitening toothpaste are all obviously acceptable forms of moderate “looksmaxxing.” Hygiene and health are noble goals. Failing to take care of the temple-that-is-our-body is poor stewardship.

Conversely, as John Calvin observed, the human heart is an idol factory. We are “inventors of evil,” as the Apostle Paul said. There is nothing new under the sun, but there are infinite ways that old realities manage to reincarnate.

This obsession with the self and its attractiveness violates at least the first, second, sixth, and tenth commandments. Looksmaxxing breaks the first two commandments when it makes a false god of the self and bows down (in the mirror) to a technologically enhanced graven image. It violates the sixth commandment when it engages in risky procedures and drug use that will prematurely end life and inhibit a man’s capacity to be fruitful and multiply because it fries his reproductive organs. It’s suicide by lifestyle. And, perhaps most glaringly, it is an entire movement rooted in envy: the resent-filled desire to have someone else’s face, someone else’s body, and some else’s social status.

There is a homoeroticism baked into the culture. Wanting other men in the looksmaxxing community to acknowledge you as being attractive seems to be more of a motivator than actual attention from females. Constantly being bombarded by and reflecting on male bodies contributes to an abundance of disordered sexuality.

Looksmaxxing is the marriage of transhumanism and sexual perversion. It’s self-destructive and turns both men and women into commodities to be controlled and consumed. God has made every man on purpose and with purpose. Rejecting his design and its limits is fundamentally about ingratitude and glory-stealing—the desire to be worshipped by your peers.

We live in a world of counterfeit visions of masculinity in search of God’s authentic design. Parents, politicians, and pastors must all be keenly aware of the new wave of self-hatred and dangerous physical experimentation being normalized in the next generation of young men. We must warn them about this idolatrous black hole and cast a positive vision for what it means to steward the good gifts of the limits that come with embodied life.