THE BODY BEAUTIFUL

BIG ONES, SMALL ONES, SKINNY ONES, TALL ONES. THERE ARE ALL SORT OF BODY SHAPES AND SIZES AND THEY CAN ALL BE GORGEOUS AND DESIRABLE. JUST REMEMBER TO KEEP IT REAL…

WORDS: CLIFF JOANNOU PHOTOGRAPHS: VICTOR HENSEL-COE

LE GATEAU CHOCOLAT

PERFORMER, AUTEUR, DRAG ARTISTE, OPERA SINGER

How did you feel being photographed naked?

Really good. I didn’t want to do it at first, but I suppose this was a defiant response on my part to “no fats, no femmes, no Asians”. We need to represent variety. The gay community is a marginalised minority, but we are incredibly fascistic when it comes to our bodies. We’re awful. The other extreme is: “have you got a big cock?” Then there’s size, which makes me a bear, then there are chasers as well. That’s what you’re bombarded with, for a long time you kowtow to that kind of thinking: to be accepted or excel, I have to sit squarely in that expectancy. That made me deeply unhappy. It’s part of what spread my depression, being subliminally informed that you’re not enough.

When did you begin to move from that depression towards accepting yourself and realising you deserve love?

I don’t think you ever get there, to an end point. I think it’s a work in progress. Some days are exhausting and some days you feel like Wonder Woman. But if you think about how those epithets are born, if you only have that abb’ed muscular jock, twinky image represented, then it’s just viable that when you go on those apps you don’t want anything other than what you’ve been fed. I think it’s part of our responsibility to speak out and use a platform and showcase reality. Not everyone lives to have three per cent body fat, and that’s not derogatorily speaking about those that make that paradigm. But there are so many more of us.

How important is your body to your work?

I started in clubs in Brighton in 2008. At the time I was much bigger than I am now, and there was no hiding it. Most of my outfits were skin-tight Lycra, which was a conscious decision on my part to embrace and say: “this is what I’ve got to work with”. I think part of engaging with that denial and depression was largely putting Gateau on the stage. I was using my body as a tool and the things I was saying on stage fed into my life, and my courage to embrace my body on stage enforced the idea of who I was in my life as well.

When you look at yourself in the mirror, would you say you’re not just looking at a physical being but a much bigger picture?

Absolutely, it’s the whole thing. Some people don’t look at the whole thing, they only look at the body. I think there’s a level of dysmorphia that I have, or people have, when you’ve lived as a product of people’s projections. Hopefully, doing things such as this shoot says to people that they don’t have to be perfect. You’ve got to embrace the idea that you are enough.

Black, by Le Gateau Chocolat, is on tour throughout 2017. @LeGateauChoc legateauchocolat.com

MARTIN HUTSON

ACTOR

How do you feel about your body?

It changes all the time. For the first 15 years of my career I ignored it really. Then, about five or six years ago, I did a play in Australia and I had the lines: “This is a six-pack and these are called biceps.” And I didn’t have either of those features! So, I went to a personal trainer for five weeks and I hit the gym.

When your body started to change, did you become intoxicated by it?

Yeah, as the results started to happen I was kind of pleased. I think I probably overdid it; I look back now and see pictures of me looking underweight. And then I started to look at other people and I found myself becoming judgmental whenever I saw anyone who was out of shape, and that really bothered me.