Male pageant contestant’s viral swimsuit walk sparks body image debate in Philippines

A viral appearance in the swimsuit round by a male beauty pageant contestant in the Philippines has sparked a wider debate about male beauty standards and whether pageantry is ready to make room for people who do not fit its traditional ideals. RJ Perkins, 21, drew widespread attention after a video showed him strutting across an outdoor stage during the swimwear segment of Mister Pampanga, held in the province of Pampanga, north of Manila. Unlike the chiselled bodies typically associated with male pageant contestants, Perkins appeared onstage with a heavier, softer physique – and with the confidence of someone determined not to hide it. The video, taken on April 19, quickly caught the attention of social media users in the Philippines and beyond, with many praising Perkins for “breaking barriers and stereotypes”. shaking pageant norms RJ Perkins 🩲 Mister Pampanga 2026 - Angeles City 📹 Pageant Talk pic.twitter.com/AXdvu91FN2 — Makoy 2.0 (@JustMakoy_) April 20, 2026 “I love this! Men are just as pressured as women to ‘look good’ [and have a] ‘perfect figure’ … so we need more body positivity for men,” one user wrote. “I’m rooting for him. I admire his confidence, and I hope he wins big,” another said. Others said Perkins represented the physique of the average man, giving them a rare form of representation onstage. But the reaction also exposed the limits of that acceptance, with some commenters arguing that beauty pageants still had to uphold conventional physical standards. “If he wins, he would bring embarrassment to his city,” one commenter wrote. “There are other pageants for chubby-sized people, I’m sorry.” “Is this what passes for pageants now? A weight-gaining contest? It’s okay to have flabs as long as you’re handsome and smart? Where is the justice for beauty pageants?” another commented. Some commenters expressed support for Perkins’ pageant journey but said he would be better off losing weight. “He may be a bit chubby but he’s handsome. It would be easy for him to lose weight,” one user said. “You should lose weight,” another user wrote to Perkins. “If you do, you’d be a sure winner for the next pageant.” Perkins, who once trained for a programme in the Philippines that mirrors the K-pop system and studied performing arts at the University of Toronto, has taken his new-found popularity in stride. He told local news channel News 5 that he had not expected the attention he had received after his onstage performance and said that by the time the video was shared, he had already gone down to 100kg from an initial weight of 180kg. “I did my best, I walked on that stage showing who I am to the world … [then] I woke up to a bunch of notifications and [the video] was all over the internet,” he said. Perkins said he owed his onstage confidence to wanting to represent himself and his city and “set a standard”. View this post on Instagram The pageant contestant also said he wanted to encourage the public to “love [themselves] for who they are”. “I entered this pageant wholeheartedly knowing that it’s something new to me and is different from what I used to do – it’s going to be a big leap from where I came from, so jumping onto that and walking onto the stage, I said I must be proud of myself,” he said. Are pageant standards shifting? Perkins’ viral moment opened the door to conversations about whether standards in events such as beauty pageants were beginning to loosen, according to Samuel Cabbuag, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of the Philippines Diliman and a doctoral researcher on social media and digital cultures at Hong Kong Baptist University. Perkins’ entry in the Mister Pampanga pageant meant that he had met the contest’s criteria and standards for screening candidates, Cabbuag said. “That in itself says something,” he added. Cabbuag said a shift could be observed in online trends surrounding pageants, with growing demand for authenticity and relatability over perfection. “Before, contestants had to be very poised, very composed, very proper. But now we’re seeing [trends such as] comedy enter the space,” Cabbuag said, referring to a viral video of Darathorn Yoothong, a Miss Grand Thailand candidate, breaking into a hip-hop dance routine as other pageant candidates twirled onstage in March. “That kind of unexpected moment in a space as formal as a beauty contest signals that something is changing,” Cabbuag said. “And then with [Perkins] specifically – someone who doesn’t fit the conventional physical standards, at least in terms of what’s typically expected – the fact that the organisers allowed it already implies that something is shifting on their end as well,” he added. Cabbuag also pointed to the popularity of Joy Barcoma, a Miss Earth-Philippines pageant queen who has become popular online for her humour and comedic antics, which he said broke the mould of poised beauty queens. “Both [Barcoma and Perkins] found a way to insert their authenticity into the pageant space. They let their quirks show, and that made them more relatable,” he said. “In Perkins’ case, the message was essentially: this is my body, this is who I am. And that really resonates, especially with men … that’s something social media has made more accepted [despite some backlash],” Cabbuag said. “But the fact that this kind of conversation is even happening already says a lot. It means there’s a growing impulse to contest and resist the old conventions of beauty.” However, Cabbuag contends that the praise that Perkins received was in part due to him being a man, as women are subjected to harsher beauty standards. “With women, it’s usually framed as someone who just needs to lose a little weight or who’s slightly heavier than expected. But Perkins was a real contrast – genuinely not what you’d typically expect at a beauty contest. And it’s sad that for women, the standards tend to work against them more,” he said. Still, Cabbuag said that the response to Perkins’ performance showed that audiences “are becoming braver about opening uncomfortable conversations”. “This is a long-standing issue … the fact that people are resisting conventional definitions of beauty means there are many others who have felt the weight of those standards for a long time and are finally speaking out …. That’s why these representations matter. They push back against the beauty standards we’ve inherited and show us what it looks like to be a more open society,” he said.

Male pageant contestant’s viral swimsuit walk sparks body image debate in Philippines

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Observers said RJ Perkins’ viral moment shows beauty pageants might be ready to move beyond their traditional ideals

Observers said RJ Perkins’ viral moment shows beauty pageants might be ready to move beyond their traditional ideals