Gym Bunny
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"To join a gym you have to go a lot to get it to work, you gotta keep goin' and goin'. I don't know how these gay guys can do it. Every gay guy is built like a body-builder: when did that start to happen?"
—Greg Giraldo
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"...And they basically just work out the chest, arms, and abs. Fuck the legs."
—Bruce Daniels
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A rather common gay stereotype. A man who is constantly concerned with working out at the gym, not to stay healthy, but as a rather vain attempt to hold onto his youthful looks for as long as possible. It's not unusual for him to be Hollywood Pudgy, thinking his body is never quite good enough as he dives headfirst into the Spear Counterpart for anorexia. He also uses the Gym as a possible meeting place for potential mates. In many cases, he shows an interest in sports and athletics as well, especially when younger. In this instance, he is generally just portrayed as the gay version of a Jock or a Invisible to Gaydar. In many cases, however, he doesn't know the first thing about sports and is only exercising for the superficial benefits.
See Manly Gay and Macho Camp. Compare/contrast with Lesbian Jock, who tends to have a more genuine interest in athletics but might also use it to pick up women. Compare also the Lipstick Lesbian; both the Gym Bunny and Lipstick Lesbian are used as opposite sex Fan Service in very similar ways.
Film
- Scary Movie: Brenda's jock boyfriend. He doesn't explicitly come out of the closet until the end of the movie (and claims Situational Sexuality due to forced abstinence), but many unsubtle hints were dropped as a running joke.
- Chad from Burn After Reading.
- Benji's new boyfriend, "Idaho Guy," from The Broken Hearts Club. Eventually turns Benji into a Club Kid with a drug habit.
Live Action TV
- Jack of Will and Grace often displayed aspects of this trope.
- Jack from Dawson's Creek in the latter seasons.
- Gilmore Girls had Michel Gerard a character who constantly watched his calorie intake and apparently spent a lot of time working out to keep what he considered a proper male figure. However Gerard was specifically shown to not be gay, he was more of a depiction of a modern dandy.
- The Todd is portrayed as a bisexual version of this in Scrubs, occasionally.
- Riley in Degrassi the Next Generation could be seen as this, except that the reason he works out so strenuously is to convince himself that he's not gay.
- The whole cast of Queer as Folk.
- Taken to an extreme with Ben during the steroid arc
- Kevin from Dante's Cove. Several other characters from the show also have elements of this.
- One of Mad TV's skits with Lida and Molina (a pair of ditzy Latinas) has them hanging out with a group of buff men at a park working out...only to later realize that they're all gay.
Music
- Possibly the subtext of Macho Man by The Village People.
Video Games
- Vain, unstable, misogynistic but ridiculously loveable Ensemble Darkhorse Brucie in Grand Theft Auto IV.
- Just about the entire gym in Final Fantasy VII crossdresses.
Western Animation
- Stewie leaned in this direction in the Family Guy episode in which he was taking steroids.
Real Life
- Well, not as TV wants you to believe, but is considered a sub-set of gay culture, much like Bears. There are also many gay men of this type who such have a complex about their bodies to the point that it's disordered.