So, speaking of “strong women.” ^_^
Venus With Biceps is the product of an overtly acknowledged lifelong fetish for muscular woman. David L. Chapman has collected memorabilia, advertising, erotica, and other ephemera portraying women with muscles, often nude. I’m not going to tell you it’s not fetish-y as heck. It is. But it’s still kind of interesting. My favorite pictures in the book are advertisements showing women lifting weights and the like.
While I like muscular women, I have only one story about me and bodybuilding:
In 1993, I volunteered for Gay Games in New York City as security. This mostly meant sitting around and BSing with folks at the Martial Arts competitions, because the Games were full of really nice people and went off without a hitch the entire time. My last event was the Bodybuilding event, being held in Paramount Theater in Madison Square Garden. The guy running the event was, well, a drama queen, and spent most of the day having screaming fits about the parade of contestants, or locking himself in the office sulking. I ended up directing contestants to the warm-up area which was: down the hall, take the elevator to the top floor, across the hall, in the back, through the door…behind Barbra Streisand’s tour equipment. ^_^
I wandered up there when all the contestants had checked in, hung out with a young woman who was also security whose girlfriend was a Judge for the competition. I met a woman who eventually went on to get the silver medal – she let me feel her bicep. That was special, let me tell you.
The MC was a comedienne whose shtick was extremely abrasive humor. She called the audience “tampons” and was angry, because at the last second, they added a second MC. He was, if anything, even more abrasive than she was. The crowd disliked them separately, but when they started trading sexist insults at each other, we all squirmed in embarrassment.
Finally – 3 hours late – the bodybuilding competition began. At 2AM it was finally done. And so was I. I’ve never watched another bodybuilding competition in my life.
Fun book, though. ^_^
That’s a great story- partly in a “This is a pain in the rear right now, but I’ll be able to laugh in retrospect” way.
I was in Chicago when they were hosting the Gay Games, because my dad was playing in a bridge tournament there. (July 2006, now that I look it up.) I remember perusing a brochure for it in the hotel, and seeing all the people who were there for it and being like, “Whoa!!”
My experiences with people at Gay Games were so utterly normal and bland that it’s almost disappointing. ^_^ But I had an awesome time!
This brings back fond memories of the Lisa Lyon book my mother bought back in my teens (during her kung-fu period) and which proceeded to blow my mind. I’ve had a love for muscular women ever since. In fact, when the Escher Girls Tumblr brought to my consciousness a certain sexist fanservice cliché increasingly enforced by manga and superhero comics publishers aiming at Loser Fanboy cults, I vowed to use strong women (mostly martial artists) as my weapon against it.
I haven’t been interested in bodybuilding for years either (nor pro wrestling, soap operas, and superhero comics, come to think of it). However, some of the magazines contain some pretty good workout techniques… ;)
Yeah – the Escher Girls Tumblr really bring home the “strong women” for men ideal equal T&A and a big weapon, but no muscles, versus these women, who are all muscle and not very hourglassy. Martial artists women are my fave, too – keep up the good work.
Yeah, me neither – I don;t think I’m cut out for buff. ^_^;