There's a lot of pressure to have a six pack in the gay community.

I've walked into gay clubs and immediately felt like I wasn't welcome told I'm too ugly to be gay, being gay, I've always got a pressure to look ripped, and it's something that my gay friends say they've secretly struggled with.

To have been big muscles and a six pack in the community is just seen as something we should all be working.

I've been hearing from gay men across the UK about the extreme things have been putting themselves fruit just picked him.

So in a community that has for so long for acceptance, are we being accepting enough of each other?

The LGBT Foundation says gay men are much more likely to have body issues than straight men.

Lewis is an influencer knows all about the pressures of looking good.

He's got a big following in the gay community.

Sometimes, like I'll post something about my personality or like something that I'm up to, and someone like little comments like people don't care about your past and see what you're doing this and I'm like, I only want to see the body?

Yeah, just not very pleasant.

Really.

Like it is.

What is some people like that you basically achieved body goals that most people would have.

So do you still feel pressure to keep up a certain type of look?

Yeah, definitely.

Like, I feel like I need to, like, maintain on.

Like if I don't go to the gym for a while, Like I start to get really, like, anxious about it.

No, no, no, definitely.

I've come to Manchester to speak to someone who almost died trying to get the perfect body moving.

Warrants have been told I'm too ugly to be guy United's in, but I bet some rule that says gay people gay men have to be massively attractive kind of thing.

That they were the proceeds that were being sewn into May about why needs to be in order to be love, to accepted or have sex.

Jake started taking steroids regularly to try and get bigger from working out, going to the gym.

I got to serve and I couldn't get bigger, and I got into my head.

But I needed to be big idea that certain guys got more, likes more hearts more with small, whether you know, whether the Social Media platform is whether the sign of approval waas Southport.

Well, maybe I'll just start taking Amina.

Just load Ace to see what happened.

Jake was rushed to hospital after taking steroids.

So you were in hospital when you had the heart value as a result of step ways.

Severe heart, severe heart failure.

We're talking literally days away from dying.

If I'd done one more injection of steroids are going to the gym a couple more times, I quite likely would have died.

Was it worth it?

Wasn't it worth told?

No.

Now we look back.

It hasn't been worth a because I've lost quite the bulk anyway.

And my health as well, you know, my men help.

My idea that gay men should look a certain way isn't a new thing.

This archive has copies of gay magazines going back decades.

I'm meeting a former editor of one of the U.

K's most popular ones.

Okay, so let's have a look through some previous gay magazine, so Oh, that's a nice one, Harry.

Yeah, Yeah, popular.

Okay, so we see in packs.

We're seeing six parts now.

This is everywhere.

I mean, if I go into a dating up, I'm seeing this guy going to instagram.

I'm seeing it were quite innocently now reminded that we don't look like this as gay man, Absolutely.

I mean, when I was editing attitude, there was sometimes get these conversations people saying, Oh, you know, your enforcing this body image idea.

But the place where I saw it the most was on dating.

APP is on instagram, and it's come to the point where I have to unfollowed quite a lot of gay men on Instagram because when you start following game in the algorithms that's in you even more on your just bombarded with these amazing bodies on beaches looking perfect and I don't look like that and you just get it the whole time.

It's like being in the twilight zone.

So people with cats had some cakes, and that's where that's made.

It makes me feel good.

Why is this such a gay issue?

I think it's really important to remember that there is unprecedented pressure on everybody across the board to present themselves in a kind of visual way, but I think you can take out of this discussion The fact that LGBT people grow up shamed, not able to be themselves If you don't like yourself, that manifest is not being happy with the way you look when you're told growing up, you know.

OK, you're not good enough.

You go.

Okay, well, I'm gonna be better.

I'm gonna have the best clothes, the best job, the best education, the best boyfriend, the best body.

And then you get this big constituency of people who are all very perfectionistic on Also forced onto abs which is kind of the only way the primary way that we meet each other become each other socially in the way straight people do a Z easily.

It just creates this intense pressure where the bar is always raising, raising, raising, raising to the point where you can really affect people's lives to try and change things.

The LGBT charity Stonewall is calling on the media as a whole to feature more diverse body types.

But it's not just the media that's affecting people.

Greg loves getting involved in pride events but thinks that the LGBT community needs to change.

Oh my goodness!

If I search hashtag day on instagram this is literally what I'm seeing.

All of these photographs are at the end of the course of steroids.

I'm not gonna lie like I didn't manage to maintain that body because it's not maintainable to your quite big on the LGBT seed, and you go to his pride parties and different events, these air celebrations of love and acceptance that why do you need to take steroids to look good for these events doesn't make sense to me.

I mean, I can't speak for me.

I never fitted him when I was a kid.

I always felt like I was the odd one out, and it's really easy to see on the gay scene in a big place like London.

What what sells and what works And the currency is muscle and attitude.

What has gay data naps and the impact of I needed to look a certain way was, that meant I don't used to getting up now and merely because I don't have the body that I used to have.

But there's something about taking your clothes off, especially when you're not in the body you're used to.

That was just too much for me, and I would just rather not have had sex for two years.

I got my body back.

Pressures Greg feels to look good are also making people want to go under the knife.

The British Association of Aesthetic and Plastic Surgeons told me most of the men that get cosmetic procedures are gay.

Andi, they're getting operations because of the impact of social media.

Was James had surgery after being shamed.

Hook up took me T shirt off and he turned around to me and he said, uh, nice arms.

It was pretty Well, I ended up having surgery on day.

I took the decision to go and have a nap.

Dominant, lasting, which is the medical term for tummy tuck.

But I definitely felt a sense off like I wasn't valid.

I wasn't, uh I was an invader in the space because the idea in your head is that to be a gay man is to look like a Calvin Klein model.

Hearing so many bad experiences from gay men across the country has been really shocking.

I always thought that the LGBT community would be one of the most accepting, but it seems like it might not be.