早期關於男同志身體意象探索之學術研究大多侷限於西方文化框架。有鑒於此，本研究以東方男同志觀點敘述，希冀引領亞洲男同志健身文化等相關研究發展。研究目的在於探究兩個問題：為何健身在台灣男同志圈中成為主流趨勢以及健身與同志身份認同之間的關係為何。本研究引用現象學概念並採用民族誌研究方法，發展成三篇男同志生命故事。研究結果顯示男同志開始健身大多都是由於生活中出現了危機（例：與男友分手、還怕家人不認同自己的同志身份...等）；而身形逐漸壯碩也加強了他們對自己身材的正面意象並增進了本身對於同志身份的自我認同。此外，新形態的社交媒體（Facebook, Grindr, Jack'd...）加速了男同志對於健身的需求。由於男同志的社交模式改變，本研究亦試圖探索不同的同志族類（狼、熊...）對於健身的需求以及擁有肌肉身形的條件對於不同族類在交友重要程度為何。 / Earlier academic efforts on gay men’s body image were by and large made in a western context. Given that, this study is set out to address the academic gap by answering two questions: why bodybuilding has become a prevailing trend for gay men in Taiwan, and what is the relationship between bodybuilding and the nascent gay identity. With the phenomenology approach in mind, this study employed ethnographic methods to retrieve three gay men's life stories. The results indicate that gay men often started bodybuilding project after their life crises, and being muscular does instantly enhance positive images and self-confidence among the informants. However, the outcome of bodybuilding is mixed in the long run. Another important finding suggests that the demand for bodybuilding is accelerated by the new social media venues ranging from gay parties or other social occasions, to the prevalence of geosocial networking applications on smart phones, and to social networking sites like Facebook. As result of these new venues, this paper examines the new body type labels in the Taiwanese gay scene, indicating that bears and wolves with muscles are seen as more desirable than others in the Taiwanese gay community.

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