bodybuilding – Page 7 – The Adventures of Ryan Takahashi

Like A Tiger Stalking Her Prey: Comparing a Muscular Woman to a Wild Beast

Desiree Ellis is a beast, no question about it.

Imagine a hungry tiger, crouching low in the sagebrush, stalking an unsuspecting prey. An ill-fated rabbit is drinking water out of a river, unaware of his inevitable fate. He prepares to return back to his home until…

The tiger strikes. The prey is caught. The prey bleeds to death. The tiger eats its defeated victim and walks away from the brief encounter satiated and happy.

The rabbit leaves this cruel and unforgiving world so quickly he has no idea what just happened. One moment he’s enjoying a refreshing beverage from the river, the next he’s being savagely devoured by a bloodthirsty beast searching for sustenance.

So it goes.

Mother Nature can be cruel to the weak and unprepared. Those of us fortunate to live in modern times have conveniences, societal structures, and laws that ensure we don’t need to resort to such barbarity. Human beings do from time to time have to engage in such vicious behavior for the sake of survival, but thankfully that’s the exception and not the rule. Despite its flaw, isn’t the 21^st Century great?

Yet, even for us city dwellers (or, Heaven forbid, those of us who live in the suburbs!) the “jungle mindset” has not gone completely away. We may shop at grocery stores, eat at fancy restaurants, drive sporty cars, use smartphones to communicate, read books to learn new information, and enjoy indoor plumbing, but deep down inside, buried in our psyches, we still secretly yearn to live in the wild.

Mankind may have become domesticated, but nature doesn’t go away that easily. We aren’t as far off from our caveman and cavewoman days as we might think (and no, I am not referring to the pop culture fad that is the Paleo Diet). We still enjoy hunting, hiking, athletic competitions, competing with others for a mate, and “earning” our right to live. We may not build our homes out of sticks and stones like the good old days, but we work at 40-hour-a-week jobs in order to pay for the roof over our heads.

Perhaps there’s still a part of us that yearns for our Paleolithic days. Even as a casual daydream. Or as the backdrop of a fetishistic fantasy. For those of us who love female bodybuilders, this fantasy manifests itself through our constant comparison (and association) of muscular women with wild beasts.

How many of you imagined the tiger described in the opening anecdote as a muscular cavewoman instead? How many of you thought about the helpless prey as a small, emaciated caveman who heralds from a rival clan? Or a badass chick slaying a (wo)man-eating tiger? Don’t worry if you didn’t initially. You’re sure to think about that now!

When fans of female bodybuilders describe the women they love, two different analogical themes usually emerge: Deific and animalistic.

The deific nature of female bodybuilders comes out when we talk about muscular women as being “goddesses” or “angels.” Describing a beautiful woman as an angel is quite mainstream. You don’t need to be George McFly to know what I’m talking about (if you don’t get this reference, ask your kids because they’re going to love it). Even the term “goddess” is more or less common among non-muscular women. But I cannot count how many times I’ve come across – or have personally used myself – terms like Muscle Goddess or Muscle Angel as nicknames for women like Alina Popa and Lindsay Mulinazzi.

It makes perfect sense. Female bodybuilders seem almost superhuman. Or in this instance, above human. And what types of creatures are above humanity? The gods, of course. Like Zeus and Athena looking down upon humanity from their ethereal clouds in the sky, female bodybuilders are like Hercules, a human/god hybrid who is technically a deity but has flesh-and-blood and chooses to live among us mortals.

The other theme is animalistic. One of my favorite football (for my non-American readers, I’m not talking about soccer) players of all time is Marshawn Lynch, a former running back for the Seattle Seahawks and Buffalo Bills. His apt nickname is “Beast Mode” because he runs like an unleashed wild beast when he’s plowing through defenders and picking up yardage. Even though Mr. Lynch (who’s being mentioned in this blog post so he doesn’t get fined) is now retired, he still sells merchandise that blatantly uses the Beast Mode brand.

Other athletes who are hardcore and play with reckless abandon are also often compared to beasts. Ronda Rousey, Rob Gronkowski, LeBron James, Manny Pacquiao, and others come to mind. There’s something to be said about an athlete who puts it all on the line, plays with a savage attitude, and doesn’t seem human when he or she is going about their business.

Bodybuilders, both male and female, are a different kind of animal (pun intended). Unlike athletes who compete in football, baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer, boxing, or MMA, bodybuilding is a sport that’s based on subjective judgement, not head-to-head competition. Most of the hard work is done behind the scenes, or more specifically, in the gym and kitchen. Top bodybuilders aren’t dunking over each other, tackling each other, throwing punches at each other, or trying to strike each other out with a 95 mph fastball.

That’s not to say that bodybuilding isn’t a true competitive sport. It’s definitely competitive in every single facet imaginable. But it’s different than other sports. Not better or worse, but different.

However, the beastly comparisons come into play when we think about the physiques of bodybuilding athletes. They look animalistic. It’s hard not to look at a bodybuilder’s hypermuscular body and not compare them to an ox (“strong as an ox”), bull, horse, or lion. So bodybuilders don’t necessarily act like beasts when they’re on the stage, but they indisputably look like beasts.

Male bodybuilders are often compared to beasts. So are female bodybuilders. So what’s the big deal? Here are a few takeaways:

Beasts and traditional roles of women

For as long as human civilization has existed, certain gender stereotypes and roles have also existed. Chief among them is the role of men being the hunters and gatherers and women as caretakers of the family and home. The clear-cut domesticated role for women still persists today in most parts of the world. Who usually takes care of the children? Either their mother or nanny (who is usually a woman). In other words, a maternal authority figure.

Men, on the other hand, are the so-called breadwinners. Men today may not actually hunt for their food, but they are encouraged to work at jobs that pay money intended to help put food on the table. Yes, women do make up a significant portion of the modern workforce, but old habits are often hard to break. Going back several centuries, men hunted for food. Women did not.

This social structure then makes the “woman as beast” motif a rather new phenomenon. Only in cartoons, graphic novels, fetish porn, and pulp literature do you see women portrayed as hunters and gatherers in the jungle (both literally and figuratively). Traditional gender roles make this paradigm not only unusual, but contrary to most of human history.

So associating a female bodybuilder with a wild beast is a definitive break from how we’ve traditionally viewed the role of women in our society. The “man as beast” motif makes sense from an anthropological perspective, but not the “woman as beast” theme. The fact we’ve come to view women in this light is fascinating.

Humans vs. non-humans

An animal is not a human, which is stating the obvious. We don’t expect a human being (not even Usain Bolt) to be able to outrun a cheetah or lift more than a grizzly bear. Humans have certain physical limitations. We can’t fly like an eagle, crawl up a tree like a squirrel or swim underwater for long periods of time like a shark. That’s not in our DNA.

When a human being can (sort of) do things that an animal can, the beast comparisons start to roll in. Mr. Bolt is fast like a cheetah. Andy Bolton is as strong as an ox. Ronda Rousey is as lethal as an anaconda. LeBron James can jump like a kangaroo. We know they can’t literally accomplish feats that a beast can, but sports media (and fans) are often prone to employing hyperbole.

Sporting the shades, Roxanne Edwards is not a woman you want to mess with.

For female bodybuilders, this is even more significant. Because women are biologically not as strong as men, when a woman can achieve a level of muscularity and pure raw strength that surpasses many men, the beast comparisons matter even more. Female bodybuilders are human, but seem almost non-human. They totally destroy whatever notions we hold about the limitations of female physiology.

Male bodybuilders are sort of viewed this way, but it’s exponentially amplified when applied to female bodybuilders. Our perceived stereotypes (and scientifically-backed) beliefs about what women can and cannot physically do shatter when we encounter a muscular woman. She tears down walls that we put around the female species. Like Samson pushing apart the pillars at the Temple of Dagon, female bodybuilders defiantly demolish the box put around them with the ferocious strength of a beast.

The fetishization of beasts

You don’t need to be an expert at Furry culture to know what I’m talking about. If you aren’t familiar with the Furry subculture, Google it and be prepared to feel supremely uncomfortable afterward (don’t say I didn’t warn you!). Yikes.

There exists in our culture the element of fetishizing wild beasts. Additionally, there is something fairly normal to this that has nothing to do with bestiality. Sexuality is a raw element to humanity, something that speaks to our base desires and ability to create future generations.

We like to think of humankind as being intelligent, civilized, cooperative, and advanced. Perhaps the smartest and most resourceful creatures who walk this Earth. It may not seem like it at times (just read the news for five minutes) but for the most part, we humans think of ourselves as superior creatures to wildlife in the jungle, fish in the ocean, and birds in the sky.

However, deep down inside there lurks a desire to reconnect to our animal brothers and sisters. It can get boring and tedious being a human, so why not switch it up for a change and live life (even in a pseudo-sexual manner) as an animal? This is less about anthropomorphism and more about believing that people are really no different than animals.

I’m no expert at zoophilia – and yes, such a term actually exists – but that sort of thing indeed does occur among some folks. Not a huge number of us, but there’s definitely something primal when it comes to thinking about human beings as being wild beasts in need of taming and domesticating.

Beasts are a natural adversary for man

Returning to the hunters-and-gatherers motif, another angle to this discussion is the fact that beasts are also a natural adversary to mankind. Wild animals can be a safety hazard. We treat wild animals as food; just like they treat us in similar fashion. Beasts are not just a common opponent to humans, they often can be an existential threat to humans!

The popularity of the Planet of the Apes and Jurassic Park movies speak to this. People are, for whatever reason, naturally worried that someday their global dominance will come to an end. Endless warfare, environmental disasters, economic collapse, destruction of the civil social order, and other unknown threats ominously loom in the distance. We experience all these things now, but it can get worse, right?

Right. Or not. But fiction rarely gives us a rosy picture of the future. History has taught us that those in power are always paranoid about losing it. That goes for kings, queens, presidents, dictators, mob bosses, war lords, and other people in positions of power. Human beings of all shapes and sizes are the same way. Will super intelligent apes or genetically reconstructed dinosaurs eventually replace us as the dominant species on Earth? It’s doubtful, but one never knows how future events will unfold.

This deep-rooted fear might explain why people have a natural inclination to demonstrate who’s boss. People hunt wild game, eat meat, keep pets, and trap animals in zoos for a variety of reasons, but one hidden reason might be our subconscious desire to remind these beasts who’s in charge. Every time we eat a steak we think to ourselves, “This is what you get for being lower on the food chain!”

Therefore, when men who love female bodybuilders start to compare muscular women to beasts, the same phenomena might be happening. Men, on a subconscious level, view a muscular woman as a threat to his social dominance. She’s bigger and stronger than him, which goes contrary to what thousands of years of biological evolution has brought to us. So in order to retrieve his lost masculinity, he imagines muscular women as being a wild beast in need of domesticating. She’s like a hungry tiger who is threatening to unmercifully consume him and his family. How will he manage to survive?

Perhaps this explains why many guys (not me, but I’m not judging anyone) love to wrestle female bodybuilders. I prefer sensual muscle worship, but I do not speak for everybody. They want to “defeat” her in a battle of physical prowess. While this “victory” is more symbolic than anything else (fantasy wrestling is just that: a fantasy come to life), nevertheless it provides him emotional comfort that he’s still a man and she’s still a woman – regardless of how much muscle she’s packed on her body.

Beasts are either defeated or tamed. A defeated beast is forced to either become food or retreat back into their domains and lick their wounds. A tamed beast can become a subordinate or a partner.

Wow. Who knew female muscle fetishism could be so deeply psychological?

Beasts lack inhibitions and manners

The last point speaks to why many of us love female bodybuilders in the first place: Female bodybuilders are rebels. They defy our expectations for what women are supposed to look like. They defy their biological limitations. They defy their socially-constructed subordinate role to men. They defy our standards of beauty, femininity, and masculinity. They do this whether they intend to or not.

What theoretically separates humans from beasts is that we’re civil and rational while beasts are uncivil and primitive. We live in air conditioned homes. They live in caves and makeshift nests. We can do algebra, calculus, perform symphonies, and write poetry. They can’t conceive of such activities. We can cooperate for mutual benefit. Beasts are forced to kill each other for the sake of survival.

But whenever you read about terrorism, war, political corruption, and crime in the news, it’s hard to say with a straight face that humans are civilized. Who are we to talk? We can be just as violent as a pack of wolves attacking a lone deer.

Beasts, however, lack inhibitions and manners. They are not expected to follow such protocols of rational behavior. A hungry tiger can slaughter a group of defenseless rabbits and none of us will blink an eye. A deranged psychopath can shoot up a public place like a school or a shopping mall and we (justifiably) look down upon that person with shame, disgust, and repulsion. People must behave in a certain way. Animals are, for whatever reason, not expected to do the same.

In vicarious fashion, maybe we envy the beast for not having to follow these rules. We are jealous that female bodybuilders have the self-confidence to pursue their dreams despite what society says – all the while we don’t possess even a fraction of those convictions. We love muscular women because not only are they physically beautiful, but because they’ve given themselves permission to do whatever they want to with their lives regardless of the consequences. That’s pretty cool. How many of us are willing and able to do the same thing?

We love female bodybuilders because they aren’t dainty flowers who feel constricted by social mores. They defiantly break those molds and create their own rules. They feel free to grunt, bust their tail, and sweat buckets at the gym without a second thought to what anybody else thinks. Their lack of “manners” is liberating. We get a sense of vicarious pleasure from watching this unfold.

I apologize if this post took an unexpected dark turn, but discussions about human sexuality isn’t always a bed of roses. Sometimes it is necessary to travel into the Dark Unknown in order to shine a light on Greater Understanding.

To summarize, there’s something undeniably animalistic about female bodybuilders. From the perspective of straight men who love female muscle, we fantasize about muscular women being wild beasts because it speaks to how we view our place in the global order. Are we at the top? Or at the bottom? Do we have power? Or are we powerless? Is our masculinity celebrated or squashed? Are men the stronger sex or are we secretly afraid that not all of us are able to carry this mantle?

Like the tiger hiding in the sagebrush, these questions are lurking in our minds. And like the tiger’s helpless prey, answering these questions may eventually lead us to an unpleasant confrontation.

Size Queens and Muscle Queens

Denise Masino and Roxie Rain are dictionary-definition Muscle Queens.

No matter how many millions of words are published – both in print and on the Internet – talking about female bodybuilders, speculation about certain aspects of their sexuality will always creep into the conversation.

Their sexual habits, preferences, anatomy, responsiveness, desires, and mechanics will forever capture our imaginations. A female bodybuilder is treated less like a world-class athlete and more like a philosophical jumping-off point for important issues pertaining to male/female relations, gender identity, gender roles, definitions of masculinity and femininity, sexuality, media representation, and so on. This blog unto itself is a testament to that.

Without question, female bodybuilders are fascinating. Yes, they’re tremendously beautiful and arousing, but they’re also intriguing on an intellectual level. The characteristics of their sexuality are of particular interest to us. I’ve written at length about female bodybuilders and orgasms, their clitorises, and generally speaking why their genitals mesmerize us. So you can count me in as someone who finds all of this to be compelling.

One subject in particular that continues to show up in Google searches and porn searches is whether or not female bodybuilders are also size queens. For those of you who have never heard of Urban Dictionary or are as sheltered as our nuclear arsenal, a “size queen” is someone who enjoys having sex with a large penis. Size queens could be men as well as women. A man who is a size queen doesn’t necessarily have a large penis himself, but nevertheless prefers men who do. A woman who claims to be a size queen is a commonly featured archetype found in popular pornography.

What factors determine who is a size queen and who isn’t? For the sake of argument, let’s talk exclusively about women. I’m not an expert at human sexuality, but I’d argue it’s a matter of personal preference more than anything else. I don’t think certain women are more genetically or culturally predisposed to being size queens than others. Just as every penis is different, I’m guessing every vagina is different too.

A very erotically charged moment featuring Yvette Bova and a friend (does anyone know who she is?).

What a woman enjoys during sex largely is dependent upon what she’s used to and who she’s with. The same goes for men. However, this discussion is often framed in terms of clichéd stereotypes that we’ve all been accustomed to hearing over and over again. According to casual research (which means a three second Google search), most so-called “penis maps” claim that men from Africa tend to have larger penises than men from Europe/North America, Latin America, and Asia. Of course, the stereotype still persists that Asian men have the smallest penises in the world. I can’t verify whether any of this is true (do professional sexologists go around the globe and ask random men to pull down their pants for the sake of science?), but let’s just assume there’s a statistically significant degree of truth to this.

Alright, is it fair to say that black women are more likely to be size queens because black men tend to have larger penises? Are white and Latina women somewhere in between? Are Asian women less likely to be size queens because they’re (generally speaking) not physically built to be like that? If we assume that “genetics is destiny,” these conclusions probably aren’t too far off from the truth.

But in all seriousness, we don’t actually know the truth. Lots of useless and innocuous ink has been spilled over the years making unverifiable claims about human sexual preferences. I’m not slamming anyone who is a good faith sex researcher, but pop culture has a way of diluting perfectly solid research to become nothing more than unsubstantiated rumors.

Therefore, who is and isn’t a size queen probably cannot be scientifically proven, disproven or accurately predicted. That doesn’t mean you should ignore what popular magazines have to say on the subject (or random bloggers like yours truly), but take everything you read with a grain of salt. People have hidden agendas, personal biases, or are motivated by click rates/page views in order to generate income. Take it with a grain of salt, indeed. Come to think of it, that’s probably the best advice you’re going to hear all day.

But one demographic group within the human female population that piques our interest the most is female bodybuilders. Are muscular women more likely to be size queens than non-muscular women?

It sort of makes sense, I guess. Muscular women are big. They have big muscles. They have big bodies. They also tend to have big personalities, huge levels of self-confidence, and astronomical amounts of drive, determination, and willpower. Female bodybuilders are larger than life, both literally and figuratively. Why wouldn’t they also enjoy having sex with a big penis?

A very sexy outfit being worn by Amber DeLuca.

After all, the vagina is more of a muscle than an organ. It’s an internal organ for sure, but its structure is mostly defined by its muscularity. So it’s understandable why we’d speculate whether or not a female bodybuilder can be sexually satisfied unless she has a big piece of meat pounding away inside her muscular vagina.

Do female bodybuilders have more muscular vaginas, just like they have hypermuscular biceps, quads, and delts? Eh, probably not. Unless they spend 30 to 40 minutes per day doing Kegel exercises (for reasons that have nothing to do with pregnancy or curing urinary incontinence) I don’t see why their vaginas would be any more tight or durable than “normal” women. It’s a fascinating topic to ponder, but I don’t think any peer-reviewed research on the matter has ever been (seriously) conducted.

Yet, fans of muscular women still wonder whether the buff and brawny ladies they love also happen to be size queens. Instead of discussing on a cultural/social/scientific level the veracity of this claim let’s talk about why people like us wonder – or even dream about – the Muscle Queen/Size Queen motif.

A female bodybuilder is not just a woman, but an Enhanced Woman. Or a Woman. Or a WOMAN. You get the idea. As fans, we treat these women as being new and improved versions of their non-muscular peers. They’re superior. They’re the next step in the evolution of womanhood. They’re ahead of the curve. They redefine the limits (or perceived limits) of feminine identity. They’re not just larger than life; they are life and everyone else is in the unenviable position of trying to catch up.

In our imaginations, female bodybuilders do everything bigger, better, and bolder than everyone else. We think of them as superhuman beings who break down every single wall we try to build around them and can reconstruct their identities from scratch. Everything they do is done to push the boundaries of what is possible.

A woman can’t be as muscular as a man? Nope!

A muscular woman can’t also become a successful business entrepreneur? Try again!

A woman can’t be muscular and feminine at the same time? Sorry!

Can a muscular woman prove her doubters wrong every single time? You better believe it!

Can a female bodybuilder turn her muscles into a financial asset? Yup!

Is it possible for a female bodybuilder to be hugely muscular and irresistibly sexy at the same time? Bruh. Do I even need to answer this question?

So not only can a female bodybuilder not be put into a box, she seemingly has no limitations to what she can accomplish in her life. Her potential for success knows no boundaries. And whatever so-called boundaries do exist are nothing more than an invisible fence propped up by your feeble mind. Fans of FBBs perceive these women to be almost like the next step in the Evolutionary Scale, a preview of what humanity will look like in 500 years.

These perceptions also apply to how we view their sex lives. If a female bodybuilder can transform her body to become superhuman, does it not also make sense that her sexual preferences would also be superhuman? And what could be more superhuman than to prefer to have sex with a large penis?

A popular genre of porn features a small, skinny, and petite young lady having sex with a large man with a big penis. Many times it’s “interracial,” but that’s sort of beside the point. We see the young woman tremble, moan, squirm, and quiver in pain as the large piece of man meat penetrates her diminutive body. Even though there’s little scientific evidence that “smaller framed” women have small vaginas while “larger framed” women have bigger ones, porn is rarely ever based in reality.

But many people get turned on by seeing our tiny female protagonist experience a jarring mixture of pleasure and pain as our well-endowed male costar pounds her inexperienced (in other words, “virginal”) vagina into submission. The violent subtext is a bit disturbing, but that’s unfortunately the world we live in today. I don’t really find such porn to be exciting, but I don’t speak for the entire population.

However, if there’s anyone on planet Earth who is tough enough to endure – and unapologetically enjoy – being pounded by a huge penis, it would be a female bodybuilder. She’s tough as nails in the gym, so of course she’d also be tough as nails in the bedroom. She’s “Woman enough” to handle such a prodigious piece of masculine meat.

Not only that, but she also enjoys having such a big penis inside her. Unlike our weak little starlet who is almost on the verge of tears as she’s having sex with her male costar, a female bodybuilder wants him to pound her harder and harder until he gives up. She isn’t experiencing sex with gritted teeth, but instead a smile. This scenario isn’t what I find to be particularly arousing, but once again, my tastes should not in any way be considered universal.

Many of us fantasize about our Muscle Queens also being Size Queens because we love the idea that they’re hard to tame. If you share the “Taming the Wild Beast” fantasy, you know what I’m talking about. As a weaker man (assuming you are a physically weaker man), we cannot lift more than a female bodybuilder or beat her in a wrestling match. So how can we assert our masculinity around her? Easy! We can make love to her and give her such a satisfying, spine-tingling orgasm that she becomes limp, drained of energy, and intoxicated by our male superiority. By Taming the Wild Beast, we men can reclaim our rightful position as being the dominant sex, all through the act of sex. As she’s cuddling up next to you, purring like a kitten, you beam with pride like a Man’s Man.

For many reasons, society tends to associate penis size with one’s level of masculinity. The bigger the member you have, the more “manly” you obviously are. It’s a crude measuring stick (no pun intended), but pop culture is more often than not simplistic and rudimentary. For men who feel insecure about themselves, watching a man thrust his big penis in and out of a muscular woman’s vagina until she reaches orgasmic climax is the ultimate turn-on. It’s vicarious entertainment intended to allow the male viewer to finally be able to dominate a female bodybuilder by proxy.

We can’t bench press more than her, but damn it we can sure as hell give her such a mind-blowing orgasm that she’ll be on her knees begging for more!

This fantasy speaks not only to our desire to see a muscular woman as being sexually superhuman, it also reveals our subconscious yearning to reclaim our masculinity. For an emotionally emasculated man, we see a female bodybuilder as a symbol of what society has become. Women are now in high positions of social, political and economic power. Men are not necessarily lagging behind, but it sure seems like it. So how can we reposition ourselves toward a return to glory? It’s simple:

Sexual performance.

If we can be so desirable that powerful, independent women become putty in our hands, it doesn’t matter how much money is (or isn’t) in our bank accounts. It doesn’t matter what our job titles are (assuming we actually have a stable job) or who our boss may be. In the outside world, we may be weak, feeble, and emasculated. But in the bedroom (or in our imaginary bedrooms), we are strong, powerful, and unquestionable masculine. We are Kings in our own domain, with our trusted Muscle Queen right by our side. She may be physically stronger than us, but she knows ultimately who’s boss.

It’s us. Heck yeah!

She may have more meat on her arms, but we have more meat where it really matters: between our legs. Sexual fantasies can be really weird at times. This is definitely one of those times.

Okay, let’s recap what we’ve learned. First, there exists in the imaginations of female muscle fans the fantasy of our beloved Muscle Queens also being Size Queens in the bedroom. Second, there is probably very little scientific evidence to suggest that heterosexual muscular women prefer larger penises over smaller or average-sized penises. Third, this fantasy is more based in men’s desires to conquer their sexual insecurities by envisioning a muscular woman being tamed and satisfied by a large penis. Fourth, the Muscle Queen/Size Queen narrative is essentially an assumption borne out of who muscular women actually are: larger-than-life superhumans who possess larger-than-life physical and sexual characteristics.

Angela Salvagno showing off the goods of Melissa Dettwiller.

Muscle Queens are not necessarily Size Queens. And who is and isn’t a Size Queen cannot be objectively predicted. Everyone is different. What we like and dislike in the bedroom often times has nothing to do with our race, ethnicity, culture, standard of living, political/social beliefs, or body type. It probably has more to do with our life experience, openness to new things, and willingness to experiment.

This discussion boils down to how female muscle fans think of themselves in relation to the muscular women they love so dearly. Do you view a muscular woman as a prize? As an object of desire? As a means to an end? As an opponent? As an ally? As the flip side of a coin (with you on the other side)? As a barometer of your own masculinity?

This is not, of course, a judgment on the people who ponder such matters. I often fantasize about this too. It does seem rather disappointing for a strong, powerful, and sexually aggressive muscular woman to feel 100 percent satisfied after making love with a normal-sized penis. Wouldn’t she naturally prefer something bigger and better?

Then I realized this: bigger isn’t always better. And this isn’t just a consolation prize for guys who are insecure about the size of their genitalia. Perhaps this is true for many women. Not all, but many.

Like most sexual fantasies, they expose less about the object of desire and more about the person doing the desiring. We love thinking about our cherished muscular women enjoying the pleasures delivered to them by a large penis because, in vicarious fashion, this is an example of a sexually powerful Man asserting his dominance over a Muscular Woman. She may have lots of beefy meat all over her body, but a Man has his meat where it counts. Perhaps this fantasy is more in tune with the Weak Man/Strong Woman motif that permeates the underground world of female muscle fetishism.

He may be a Weak Man, but he is indisputably strong where it matters: between his legs. She may be a Strong Woman, but she can instantly turn into a weakling the moment his powerful manhood penetrates her during intercourse. He’s not just Taming the Wild Beast, he’s also Reaffirming His Own Inner Wild Beast.

<Is he trying to strip her of the “Wild Beast” crown, or is he willing to share it? Hmmmmm…>

But this also speaks to our belief that muscular women deserve better. They deserve to be satisfied by the most sexually potent and competent men on the planet. There’s an altruistic component to this fantasy as well. Not only are we demonstrating to her our masculine powers, we’re also upholding her right to experience maximum pleasure because she is who she is.

She has the right to experience pleasure. And we are privileged to be able to help make that happen.

She’s strong. She’s beautiful. She’s powerful. She’s dynamic. Because of all this, she deserves the best. She deserves to be with an equally strong, beautiful, powerful, and dynamic man. If he happens to also have an impressive endowment, that’s great. He has the best. And she deserves the best. That’s a match made in coital Heaven.

Why We Love Watching a Muscular Woman Masturbate

There are many activities muscular women do that female muscle enthusiasts love to watch.

Lifting at the gym. Wrestling a hapless opponent into submission. Dominating a weaker man both physically and psychologically. Pumping their clit. Posing for the camera. Talking about her daily routine, best lifts, sex life, etc.

But there is one activity that’s especially compelling, one that deserves special recognition. It’s an activity we all do, although we may not want to necessarily admit it out loud.

We love watching muscular women masturbate.

There’s no denying this. The category of porn known as “solo performance” has much mainstream appeal, whether it features muscular women or “normal” looking women. But it holds special weight among the crowd who loves female bodybuilders. When a female bodybuilder masturbates, we love watching it not just because it turns us on, but because it provides us much needed emotional catharsis.

Think this is a bit of a stretch? Read on.

We all have our masturbation stories. When we first discovered it, when our parents “caught” us doing it, when it came in handy (no pun intended) after a stressful day, ways we’ve improved in doing it after much trial and error, and so on. We were all teenagers at one point, right?

But it doesn’t end after the gloriously awkward days of middle school. No, not by a long shot. Unless we’re a modern day Casanova, most of us do not receive the amount of sexual pleasure from a partner (or multiple partners, depending on who you are) that adequately satisfies our appetites. Many of us need to “release” our built-up tension in other ways. Hence, we do the job ourselves.

Woody Allen is right that we shouldn’t knock on masturbation as a bad thing. After all, it’s sex with someone we love. That’s a win-win in my book.

As a matter of pornography, masturbation is just as titillating an activity to watch as traditional – and non-traditional – sex can be. I don’t have exact statistics in front of me, but I’d be willing to bet that at least 15 percent of porn videos out there on the Internet have at least some elements of “solo performance” attached to it. I’ve seen videos of two people (one man and one woman) masturbating next to each other. They never have actual intercourse together. They just get themselves off with the other person in close proximity. I didn’t find this video particularly appealing, but as they say, different strokes for different folks.

Pun intended? You better believe it.

Returning to our original subject, there’s a huge difference between watching a pretty skinny girl masturbate for the camera and a big, beautiful and powerful female bodybuilder doing the same thing. Both performers will provide their audience the expected dosage of over-the-top fake moans and cheesy convulsing, but the latter carries with her a high degree of interesting context that the former does not.

Lisa Cross is not afraid to show off her assets for the camera.

When a woman masturbates for the camera, the obvious purpose is to sexually excite the viewer. That’s without a doubt reason #1. Yes, she may have exhibitionist motivations behind her, but by and large her performance is for entertainment purposes. Some people may find it more entertaining than others, but that’s beside the point. That being said, when a female bodybuilder gets off in front of the camera, it triggers inside us a whole host of thoughts, feelings, and opinions.

First, we associate masturbation as being the ultimate act of independence. It is, in a literal sense, having sex with yourself. When an FBB masturbates, it reaffirms her devotion to being a strong, independent woman. She’s perfectly able to please herself, thank you very much. It’s not that she doesn’t need a man or woman to please her (let’s face it, many FBBs are also lesbians), rather she knows her body better than anyone else.

Bodybuilders are by their very nature more in-tuned with their bodies than anyone else. It makes perfect sense. They spend years of their lives hyper-focusing on every single square inch of their bodies to ensure it meets their strict definition of “perfection.” This is no small task. So who is best qualified to give their bodies pleasure? That’s right. Themselves.

We love female bodybuilders because they defy so many perceptions we hold about men, women, and male/female relations. They’re stronger than most men despite women being naturally weaker than men. They’re headstrong, fiercely independent, and refuse to accept the status quo as being adequate. They aren’t women who claim to be strong. They’re women who actually are strong, both physically and emotionally.

Anybody can write a Facebook post claiming to be determined to pursue their dreams. Female bodybuilders, on the other hand, expend blood, sweat, and tears every single day to make their dreams come true. They live out their dreams so that it’s not really a dream, but reality itself.

Can't get enough of Kathy Johansson. Can you? — Can’t get enough of Kathy Johansson. Can you?

This spirit of individual determination mirrors the act of masturbation. Assuming we take a more positive attitude toward masturbation (have you noticed that a man who masturbates is considered a “loser” while a woman who masturbates is considered “liberated?”), watching a female bodybuilder get herself off is just one other example of her taking control of her own life. Her resolve to build up the biggest and brawniest body possible goes hand-in-hand with the desire to take her sexuality into her own hands (literally and figuratively).

When we watch a female bodybuilder pleasure herself with a dildo, vibrator or her own fingers, we’re seeing her display an act of independence that is a natural continuation of the independence she displays in every other facet of her life. Her unique diet, personalized workout regimen, and unorthodox lifestyle separate her from the herd. Her ability to give herself pleasure goes along those same tracks.

Second, we see masturbation as an act of a female bodybuilder rewarding herself for being who she is.

I don’t need to rehash the idea that being a competitive (or a dedicated non-competitive) bodybuilder is very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very difficult thing to do. Male or female, the life of a bodybuilder is without debate a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very difficult thing to do.

Uh, did I mention it’s a very difficult thing to do?

A female bodybuilder makes sacrifices that very few of us would also be willing to do. I’m sure there are days (and perhaps weeks on end) when an FBB really doesn’t want to go to the gym and lift. Her joints hurt. Her muscles are sore. Her back is stiff. Her stomach hurts from eating the same food over and over again and in such large quantities. She’s sick and tired of drinking so much damn water. All she wants to do is open a bottle of beer, order a take-out pizza, and sit on the couch and watch Netflix all day.

But that won’t get her one step closer to placing 1^st at the upcoming competition. That won’t allow her body to remain in a condition that her fans expect. Doing that will be bad for business, because these days female bodybuilders have to think of themselves as a one-woman business.

Instead, she has to suck it up and do what’s necessary to keep making gains at the gym and keeping her body in top shape. Her body wants to quit, but her mind must refuse to let that happen.

Abby Marie showing off her impressive set of abdominal muscles.

That attitude requires a level of mental fortitude that not too many of us possess. We all know that it’s easier for men to develop muscle mass than women. So when a woman achieves muscle mass that surpasses that of a man, we know that’s a supremely impressive accomplishment. We cannot imagine how much sacrifice it takes to get to that point. This is why as fans of female bodybuilders we feel a psychological need to “reward” them for their sacrifices.

If we cannot actually reward these women – through gifts, paying hundreds of dollars for a muscle worship session, purchasing their merchandise, or buying tickets to one of their contests – we need an alternate route instead. Watching them masturbate for the camera is, in a weird sense, a surrogate means of “rewarding” them. When we see a strong muscular woman experience a satisfying orgasm (assuming she’s not “acting” for the camera), we experience cathartic release.

Female muscle fans enjoy a body type that is both rare and tremendously difficult to achieve. It’s easy for us to feel guilty about loving muscular women when we know they don’t owe us anything. Female bodybuilders don’t owe us a damn thing. They don’t have to share free photos of themselves on the Internet. They don’t have to produce videos that are easily found by a simple Google search. They don’t have to make their Instagram and social media accounts open to the public. They don’t have to offer muscle worship and wrestling sessions to anybody who’s willing to pay. They don’t have to do any of those things. But they choose to do so anyway.

So when female bodybuilders do allow people like us to enjoy the fruits of their labor, we feel like we’re not worthy, just as Wayne and Garth weren’t worthy of meeting Aerosmith in their basement. We feel a small amount of guilt, as if we’re getting away with something. It seems almost criminal that photos and videos of Gorgeous Muscle Goddesses are available for free on the Internet. That seems rude. In the back of our minds, we feel like access to these women’s bodies should be safeguarded like the codes to our nuclear arsenal.

Like ancient tribes who made sacrifices to the benevolent gods for providing a bountiful harvest, female muscle fans feel like we must provide our beloved Muscle Goddesses a ritual sacrifice as well. Most of us aren’t able or willing to provide an actual monetary gift, so we do the next best thing: We enjoy watching them give themselves sexual pleasure.

When a female bodybuilder reaches the climax of a self-induced orgasm, we feel like she’s receiving the reward she deserves for being who she is. As voyeurs watching this exhibition of sexual self-actualization, we receive emotional comfort knowing her hard work is being given its due. Even watching a female bodybuilder have sex with another person (man or woman, it doesn’t matter) carries the same effect. Anytime an FBB experiences an orgasm, it’s a ritual emotional cleansing for us. We can now continue to enjoy her muscles without any feelings of guilt. She’s happy and satisfied. She’s glowing. She’s purring like a kitten. She’s experienced pleasure. She’s been erotically satiated. And we love that she’s able to experience this. Because damn it, she deserves it.

Alas, no good deed goes unrewarded. There is justice in the universe. Huzzah!

Third, we view a female bodybuilder masturbating as an act of defiance. Too often female bodybuilders face jeers, insults, and rude remarks from mean spirited and ignorant people. People will say hurtful and sexist things about them over the web or worse, to their faces. It sucks. It’s disgusting. It makes us angry. As fans of female bodybuilders, we feel defensive toward the strong women we love. It’s almost tribalist, as if an attack on her is an attack on all of us. We know that’s not technically true, but it sure feels that way.

If I ever saw Colette Nelson wearing a dress like that in public, I should not be held legally responsible for my actions!

One common insult hurled toward female bodybuilders is that they’re not actually women. They’re either men, wish to be men, or are freaks of nature whose gender identity cannot be properly diagnosed. Her sexuality is brutally deconstructed, minimalized, marginalized, and trivialized. Her femininity is brought into question. Our masculinity (assuming you’re a man) is also brought into question.

She’s treated like a freak, in summary. She’s not human. She’s repulsive. She’s a betrayal to womanhood. Heck, she’s a betrayal to manhood as well. People out there think she deserves scorn because she defies our common perceptions of “what a woman is supposed to look like.”

It’s enough to make my blood boil. I’m sure many of you know what I’m talking about.

However, when a female bodybuilder masturbates, she’s openly defying these insults and is taking control of her sexuality. She’s proving she’s not a freak, but rather an exceptional example of the potential of human achievement. She has a vagina, and is willing to spread her legs out wide to prove it. Her clitoris isn’t a small penis, but a clitoris that’s really damn big. Period. She doesn’t need a man to please her. She doesn’t need to gain anyone’s approval. She is perfectly able to live a fulfilling life regardless of the vitriol thrown her way. For her, masturbation is not just an act of defiance, but a total beat down of all the negative stereotypes thrust upon her.

When we watch a female bodybuilder masturbate, we feel like we’re watching a show of protest. We’re watching a female bodybuilder not just reaffirm her right to enjoy pleasure, but giving permission to other women (whether they’re muscular or not) to do the same. If she can unapologetically give herself an orgasm, you can too. Regardless of what her critics will say, she doesn’t give two shits about them. She’s going to fuck herself with a dildo no matter what. She’s going to moan, groan, scream, and squirm to her heart’s delight.

And there’s nothing you can do to stop her.

Indeed, watching a muscular woman masturbate isn’t just a simple act of erotic voyeurism. It’s almost like a religious experience. Or if you’re not spiritually inclined, it’s cathartic. As she’s experiencing sexual release, we’re experiencing emotional release. We may not know it but that’s exactly what’s going on in our minds.

I realize it’s a cliché to refer to an independent woman as being “liberated,” but that’s not far from the truth. Being free means being able and willing to forge your own path. Perhaps that’s at the heart of the matter. It’s one thing to be able to pursue bodybuilding. It’s quite another to be willing to go through the daily grind year after year after year. A so-called “liberated” woman is free from two things: Obstacles created by society at large and obstacles created in her own mind.

I’m a big believer that the most significant hurdles any of us will ever face in our lives aren’t created by other people, but instead are created by ourselves. We are our own worst enemy. The moment we tell ourselves that we’re going to fail, we’re inevitably going to fail. We can blame outside forces all we want, but at the end of the day our lives are controlled by one person and one person only: Us.

We hold the keys to success. We’re the drivers of our own cars. We lay down the bricks to our own sidewalks. We build the doors that lead to our own success. Once we accept that we can take life by the horns and run with it, there’s no stopping what we can do.

When a muscular woman masturbates, she’s doing that in a literal sense.

She decides how, when, and who can please her. If it’s herself, so be it. If it’s someone else, fantastic. If it’s a combination of both, great. Regardless, she dictates the terms of her own life. Just as she’s sculpting her body to look a certain way, she’s also demonstrating her erotic autonomy. As fans, we cannot get enough of this. As fans, we’re rooting for her to masturbate as often as she wants to. We want her to climax as many times as she desires. Watching this happen isn’t just arousing, it’s a purging of our pent-up frustrations about being a female muscle fan.

Didn’t think watching an FBB give a “solo performance” carried that much weight, did you? That’s the beauty of being a fan of muscular women. No matter how many layers you dig through, you’re always going to find more topics to talk about. The onion goes on forever and ever. Let us keep this conversation going, shall we? For the sake of the muscular women we love, it’s the least we can do.

So keep on masturbating, muscular women everywhere! You know you have a small army of dedicated fans who are in your corner, rooting for you like mad.

In the Palm of Her Calloused Hand: Female Bodybuilders and Exhibitionism

Seeing Gillian Kovack wearing that dress in public would definitely make me stop dead in my tracks.

When a female bodybuilder walks into a crowded shopping mall, how can you not stop whatever you’re doing and just stare at her?

After you pick your jaw up from the floor, you might need to sit down on a nearby bench to prevent your heart from going into overdrive. You wouldn’t want to die from cardiac arrest right then and there, huh?

Well, if a brief moment of regarding upon the stunning physique of a beautiful female bodybuilder happens to be your final life experience before the Almighty claims you, at least you died happy!

But consider this: The moment our hypothetical female bodybuilder walks into that public space, does she want people to notice her? Does she want people to freeze in place and do nothing but stare at her body? Does she want her muscles to be the center of attention?

Obviously, the answer more often than not is “no.” Female bodybuilders, like celebrities and other famous people, want to be able to enjoy their lives with a minimal amount of disruptions. She wants to be able to go to the movies without being harassed. She wants to be able to take her dog out for a walk without being the unintended cause of a fender bender caused by a negligent driver who was distracted by her and took his eyes off the road. She wants to be able to be in public without seeing people whisper to each other about her, gossip about her, or creepily fetishize her. These are all things non-bodybuilders and non-famous people take for granted.

Yet, it is interesting to wonder whether or not if, deep down inside, a female bodybuilder wants people to stare at her. Maybe not all the time, but at certain moments. If she’s going out to a popular nightclub and is wearing a sexy revealing dress, that’s certainly an example of her wanting people to notice her body. She obviously doesn’t want people to harass her, but perhaps she’d welcome a few conspicuous stares of admiration, awe, and lust.

On this blog there is an article discussing the fact that female bodybuilders are always nude in public, even when fully clothed. Please read that column before reading this one. To summarize, it discusses the idea that because large muscular women are rare in our society, she stands out like a sore thumb. So even if she has no intention of being seen or noticed in public, she can’t help but be seen and noticed in public. She can’t wear an oversized parka for the rest of her life. So she’s always nude (in a symbolic sense, of course) whether she wants to be or not.

This article is a sort of follow-up piece to the previous one. This time, we’re going to discuss the flip side of the coin. We now know a female bodybuilder will inevitably receive unwelcomed and unsolicited attention from complete strangers purely because of the shape of her body. Most of the time, our culture would interpret this as her being in a vulnerable position. Our society teaches us not to judge other people by their looks, but a female bodybuilder is constantly being judged by her looks.

In fact, if she’s a competitive bodybuilder (or physique/fitness/bikini competitor) she intentionally goes out of her way to be judged by her looks. Therefore, the other side of the issue is this: Instead of a female bodybuilder being in a position of vulnerability when she’s in public, is she instead in a position of immense and total power?

Sophie Arvebrink has a body that can cause time to stop.

Her body can cause car accidents. Her body can make men (and women and children) stop dead in their tracks and lose all sense of appropriate social behavior. Her body can make guys shell out hundreds of their hard-earned dollars just for the opportunity to touch it. Her body can spark arguments over the Internet. Her body alone can provide her hundreds of thousands of social media followers. Her body can give her a stable career, money in her pocket, and adoration from fans across the globe.

That’s power. That is a tremendous amount of power. A muscular woman’s body is so powerful she can gain massive amounts of attention with little to no effort toward promoting herself. An anonymous woman with an affinity toward exercise and fitness could post a selfie taken in her wretched bathroom on Instagram, use the right hashtags, and find herself in front of thousands of eyeballs around the world within minutes. And she didn’t have to spend a single dime to gather that kind of international attention.

Wow. What a world we live in these days!

A woman with a muscular body has an asset (or several assets, if you get my meaning) that’s indispensable. Her body can be as financially lucrative as she wants it to be. If our hypothetical female bodybuilder wants to offer muscle worship sessions, she can easily earn $1,000 of tax-free income (yay for avoiding government regulations!) for one evening’s worth of work. If you take traveling expenses out of the equation, that’s a significant chunk of change.

But let’s talk about this from another angle. Does there exist deep within her psyche a hidden streak of exhibitionism? In case you need a refresher, exhibitionism is defined as:

A perversion in which sexual gratification is obtained from the indecent exposure of one’s genitals (as to a stranger).
The act or practice of behaving so as to attract attention to oneself.

Psychologically speaking, exhibitionism is when someone fetishizes the act of exposing himself or herself to the public. Streakers at professional sporting games or creepy people who flash their genitals to complete strangers are prime examples. Theoretically, one could also include people who like to send unsolicited “dick pics,” web cam performers, and Tumblr users who enjoy uploading their own amateurish porn. But in this context, we’re talking about exhibitionism in a more casual sense.

We’re dealing with definition #2 instead of definition #1. Deep down inside, are female bodybuilders inherently exhibitionistic? It’s an interesting question; one that doesn’t have a definitive answer but should be explored nevertheless.

There probably isn’t any concrete scientific research to back this up either way, but it seems like a small streak of exhibitionism is sort of inevitable when we’re dealing with female bodybuilders. As mentioned earlier, FBBs exist in a world that runs counter to what our society is currently teaching us not to do.

Remember those ads launched by Unilever (an Anglo-Dutch multinational consumer goods company that specializes in creating food, beverage, cleaning agents, and personal care products) called The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty? The marketing campaign aimed to show what “real women” looked like, which was presumably supposed to provide a counterbalance to the countless Photoshopped supermodels we traditionally see in mainstream advertising. Despite its criticism, the ads were effective in changing the national conversation around beauty standards and how we should (or shouldn’t) judge women’s bodies.

This national and international movement to change people’s minds around beauty standards has caught fire in the past few decades. Anyone who values self-worth should applaud these developments. The creators of these marketing campaigns are right that the images of women (and men) you see in mass media do not accurately represent the entirety of womanhood. These images that are reinforced everywhere – movies, television, billboards, magazines, books, Internet ads, pornography, etc. – have the unfortunate symptom of creating self-esteem issues for women of all ages, shapes, and sizes.

Every body is beautiful. Especially the body of Coco Crush.

But standing in stark contrast to this – but not in opposition to, it should be noted – is the industry of bodybuilding. We are taught to not judge women by their looks, but female bodybuilders are encouraging people (or more specifically, a panel of judges) to do exactly that. Competitive FBBs train, diet, and work for years and years on end for the purpose of gaining certain people’s approval. It’s a strange juxtaposition, but that’s the nature of the business.

So logically, it follows that female bodybuilders, to a certain extent, want to be noticed by people. She wants to be judged. She wants the public to observe her physicality. She wants all her hard work to be put on display and appreciated by others. A female bodybuilder doesn’t just sculpt her body for the sake of a few judges. She sculpts her body for a whole host of people to see: Fellow bodybuilders, customers, fans of the sport, the media, corporate sponsors, friends and family, and so on.

Lindsay Mulinazzi doesn’t bust her tail just for a small select number of people to see her fabulous figure. Rather, she wants as many people as possible to see the fruits of her innumerable hours of sweat and labor. Many FBBs proudly display their bodies on social media and other places on the web. Obviously, we are grateful for such presentations of their beautiful bodies. Debi Laszewski doesn’t hide her hard work. She makes damn sure we all know she’s a bodybuilder. Whether we’re disgusted by her or aroused by her, she doesn’t apologize for her muscles. Nor does she go out of her way to shield her muscles from public view.

Whether it’s a small child or a Catholic nun walking by her, it doesn’t matter. Debi will not hide who she is. She’s a muscular woman. Deal with it.

Yes, there definitely is an element of exhibitionism inherent in the sport of bodybuilding. Whether an FBB receives any sexual thrills from displaying her body is almost beside the point. She wouldn’t be doing what she’s doing unless she enjoys people noticing her work.

A classically trained pianist doesn’t practice for hours upon hours just to play their instrument in complete solitude. He or she wants to eventually play at Carnegie Hall. A painter doesn’t dedicate his or her life to creating gorgeous canvases just to allow their artwork to collect dust in their basements. They dream of having their work hung up in The Louvre. No little kid grows up dreaming of playing basketball in the driveway with their buddies. They aspire to make slam dunks in front of thousands of screaming fans in jam packed stadiums across the country.

Likewise, a female bodybuilder doesn’t endure the daily grind of being a bodybuilder just to wear baggy clothing all day and be anti-social. She craves the attention. She feeds off of the jealousy, lust, and admiration her body instigates. Her body is a catalyst for sparking strong societal reactions – both negative and positive – whether she intends it to or not. And this isn’t necessarily an intentional choice; it’s an inevitable outcome.

Karen Zaremba is a woman who inspired me to start this blog four years ago. I highly doubt it was ever Miss Zaremba’s intention to motivate a random guy like me to launch a website dedicated to talking about female muscle. But whether she knows it or not (I highly doubt Karen even knows this website exists), she did indeed inspire that kind of action. She never asked me to do this. She’s never spoken with me or communicated with me in any way. All she did was display her gorgeous body on the Internet. And the rest is history.

However, I do wonder if FBBs care about the ramifications of their bodies being displayed in public. I wonder how often Pamela Anderson (who will be 50 next year!) ever thinks about the hundreds of thousands of adolescent boys and young men (and older men) over the years who have masturbated while thinking about her. Think about how many millions of self-induced orgasms Miss Anderson has encouraged throughout the past few decades. Count me in as someone who has contributed to this phenomenon.

Does Pamela Anderson get an erotic thrill knowing she solicits this kind of reaction out of people? Or for that matter, any high profile female celebrity who puts herself out there? It’s an interesting question. Female bodybuilders should be included in this conversation as well. But, to add fuel to the fire, unlike most mainstream female celebrities, the reactions elicited from an FBB’s body can be polarizing. To be fair, every celebrity is going to have their fair share of critics, but without a doubt muscular women will have much more.

They may not have the sheer volume of passionate vitriol thrown their way, but within mainstream culture muscular women are polarizing. To add an additional layer to this conversation, not only are muscular women primed to be noticed by the public, they also frequently spark debate, arguments, and raging fits of jealousy. I wonder how a lot of FBBs feel about that.

A lineup of gorgeous ladies at the 2015 Arnold Classic Australia.

When a female athlete decides to pursue the life of a bodybuilder, she’s making a bold choice. She isn’t just signing herself up for radically changing her exercise, diet, and sleep habits. She’s agreeing to put up with everything we just talked about: people will react to her with admiration, repulsion, respect, jealousy, fascination, lust, perplexity, confusion, cognitive dissonance, irrationality, etc. One cannot avoid this; it’s deeply embedded within the reality of being a female bodybuilder.

Thus, is it fair to say that some FBBs enjoy doing this to people? Do they welcome the “haters” just as much as they appreciate their adoring fans? Do they relish the fact there are guys and gals around her who are envious of her and wish for nothing but her downfall? Do they secretly get a thrill from knowing there are large numbers of men scattered around the world who masturbate to photos of them on the Internet? They obviously know this happens, but do they delight in all of it – the good, the bad, and the ugly?

The answers to these questions differ from FBB to FBB, of course. But even to the slightest degree, I’m sure every single muscular woman has a streak of exhibitionism residing inside her. There may not be a sexual component to this. Maybe she just loves the attention. It feeds her ego. It makes her feel empowered and emboldened. She loves the compliments. She loves seeing the looks on the faces of jealous girlfriends who cannot stop their boyfriends from staring at her. It’s just another day at the office.

The power a female bodybuilder has over the people around her cannot be underestimated. She holds more influence over people’s thoughts and feelings than she probably realizes. But undoubtedly there are plenty of FBBs who fully understand this power. And they stop at nothing to capitalize on it. These are the FBBs who are financially successful. They are the real winners, whether they formally compete or not.

Cindy Phillips is making many bold statements with her muscular body.

So when a muscular woman goes to the gym and pumps iron, she’s not just making herself physically stronger. She’s also making her entire presence stronger. Her grip on other people’s minds becomes stronger and stronger with every muscle fiber growing in size. When she walks into a room, she has everyone inside it in the palm of her calloused hand. She controls how they think, what they think about, and even how they choose to behave.

Will the guy lifting next to her be able to concentrate on his workout…or will he be distracted and accidentally drop a dumbbell on his foot? When she goes out to eat at a fancy restaurant, will an infatuated waiter bump into an unsuspecting patron and drop $250 worth of steak and lobster on the floor? When she goes home and makes love to her husband, will a Peeping Tom neighbor try to sneak a peek through the semi-closed blinds?

That type of power isn’t given. It’s earned. Earned with blood, sweat, and tears. If power is the ultimate aphrodisiac, female bodybuilders must be constantly turned on every single moment of their waking lives.

Whoa. Now there’s a thought! No matter how many blog posts I write about female bodybuilders, I will always find more material to talk about. That’s another indication of the power they have over people like me.

And you know what? I’m not complaining one bit!

In closing, female bodybuilders may or may not be exhibitionistic. It’s impossible to assess who has that fetish and who doesn’t. But that’s not nearly as important as recognizing that FBBs are always being watched. And the people doing the watching often times cannot control their behavior, no matter how rational or sexually mature they think they are. When she’s being watched, she’s not in a position of vulnerability. She’s in a prime position of power. If that turns her on, so be it. If it doesn’t, I understand why. But no matter who we’re dealing with, even the most sexually prudent female bodybuilder must receive some kind of thrill from knowing she’s at the center of attention every damn time she’s in public.

Even if she doesn’t, we can all sleep well at night knowing there are millions of people on planet Earth who get a thrill from seeing her. That I can guarantee!

Faster, Female Bodybuilder! Grow! Grow!

An example of FMG art, via David C. Matthews.

Female Muscle Growth (FMG) stories are a staple of online female muscle fandom. After all, who wouldn’t want to spend some quality leisure time reading stories about big and buff female characters doing what big and buff female characters do?

Well, what exactly do big and buff female fictional characters do? Whatever the author wishes, of course! Bashing in the skulls of dastardly villains, taking on a horde of flesh-eating zombies singlehandedly, warding off an alien invasion, or befriending a small and nerdy male protagonist (usually to the erotic benefit of said male protagonist) are all par for the course. Naturally, this genre of fiction appeals to a wide number of female muscle fans out there in the wider world.

Therefore, one would expect that yours truly, Ryan Takahashi, would be an avid fan of FMG stories. And do you know what? I’m……………..not.

Wait, what?

That’s right. As shocking as this might sound, FMG stories don’t really appeal to me. This sounds especially odd since I’ve published lots of female muscle-themed fictional stories on my blog. Doesn’t it make logical sense that Mr. Takahashi would also be a passionate supporter of FMG tales?

Well, not really. I’ve tried to read some FMG stories posted on popular female muscle websites, but they don’t allure me as much as you’d think. I’m not in any way shape or form judging these writers, editors, and contributors in a negative fashion. It’s not the quality of the writing, plotlines or narrative structures that I find unappealing. Rather, it’s the general concept of FMG that turns me off.

Like always, I shall explain what I mean in further detail.

Before you dust off the pitchforks and torches (as well as the tar and feathers), let me provide a little background on the genre of FMG so you can be assured I’m not speaking out of ignorance.

Female Muscle Growth is a subgenre of erotic fiction that features a female protagonist – although the character could be the antagonist – who starts off as a normal-sized young woman but eventually finds herself transformed into a beautiful, sexy and hyper-muscular She-Hulk of epic proportions. Usually this transformation happens for reasons such as a scientific experiment, a magical spell is cast upon her, special DNA is injected into her bloodstream, a supernatural talisman, side effects from a new brand of medication, a potion created by a sorcerer, latent superpowers that she just discovers, and so on.

The specific reason why our modest heroine is transformed into a Super Muscle Goddess changes, but the general idea remains the same. It isn’t because she’s a pro bodybuilder who built her muscles naturally by eating right, working out like a mad woman, strategically using steroids/human growth hormones, and resting in proper increments. That sort of transformation takes months and years, not mere seconds. It’s not magical; it’s scientific.

Popular forums for finding FMG stories include Diana the Valkyrie’s Library of Amazon growth stories, Forum Saradas, and various DeviantArt pages. There are of course individual blogs, websites, and Tumblr sites also dedicated to publishing or sharing FMG content. There might be printed books and e-books that follow the FMG formula, but I haven’t done enough research to point you in any specific direction. Without question, all the FMG fiction you want is just a simple Google search away. Isn’t the Internet a swell place?

As mentioned previously, many times these stories also feature a male protagonist who is usually meek, nerdy, socially awkward, and not very popular with the ladies (of any size). Just like a lot of us! I don’t want to paint all of us with a broad brush, but it’s probably not a stretch of the imagination to say that many of us aren’t what one would consider a modern day Casanova. Yes, I know many of you readers are happily married or are in a stable relationship, but that certainly isn’t every single one of you. I can speak for myself when I say my personal history with women isn’t full of proud successes!

So these stories are a perfect avenue for less-than triumphant guys (some would call them beta males, but that’s a whole other story) to live vicariously through these fictional characters. Even guys who are popular with the ladies occasionally want to fantasize about being with a big and buff female companion…if even for a few moments.

FMG stories are usually accompanied by either illustrations of these ladies (often times in the style of Japanese hentai) or images of real women enhanced generously by Adobe PhotoShop. Or there may not be any images at all. Not everyone is an artist or a PhotoShop wizard. Also, not everyone is unethical enough to steal images produced by another artist or wealthy enough to pay a professional artist to sketch illustrations for them.

That being said, why am I not a big fan of this genre of fiction? Well, there are a few reasons. The first is that I prefer muscular women who earn their muscles through hard work and dedication rather than through supernatural means. In all the fiction I’ve written featuring a female muscle protagonist, all of them are professional or semi-professional bodybuilders who became big and strong the old fashioned way. This better reflects the type of characters I find most appealing.

My love for muscular women isn’t just defined by the fact they have large muscles. I love big muscles just as much as any other female muscle fan, but I also love the context behind their fabulous muscles. I love that they had to earn every single muscle fiber they have on their beautiful bodies. I love knowing they’ve had to make difficult sacrifices in order to get that big (no FBB spends all her free time watching TV, drinking beer, and eating pizza). I appreciate their willingness to restructure their lives around building up the muscle mass they need to compete at the highest level. I love their vulnerability, toughness, emotional fortitude, discipline, and supreme confidence.

In other words, I love strong women because of what it takes for them to become strong women.

FMG stories aren’t my cup of tea because these characters don’t earn their muscles. Their muscles are given to them with little to no effort on their part. A magic potion, one individual super strength vitamin pill, a single injection of experimental DNA and things like that are cheap ways to gain unreal muscle growth. But Rene Campbell, for example, is different. She makes sacrifices. She’s costed herself a stable love life in order to pursue bodybuilding. She gets looks of disgust from people all the time because she can’t simply turn off her muscularity like a light switch. Her muscles are with her 24/7/365. They are a part of her identity. They are embedded within who she is as a human being.

A fan-created FMG interpretation of popular anime character Sakura Haruno.

As fantasy fiction, FMG stories do what they’re supposed to do. They provide quick titillation and entertainment for legions of female muscle enthusiasts. Fantastic! I have no quarrel with that. It’s just not for me. That’s it. I’m not judging the genre, insulting those who love the genre, or calling for the genre to adapt to my specific tastes. My opinion doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in this world. Even if it did, I wouldn’t alter the genre in any way. People love it, so they should be allowed to enjoy it. Sound fair?

It’s just not my cut of steak. That’s all there is to it.

Another reason why I don’t particular dig this genre is that the “beta male” stereotype annoys me. I understand not every single FMG story features this archetype, but many do. Look, I am in no way a “man’s man” or anything like that, but the perception that all guys who dig muscular women are somehow emasculated man-children who fetishize being in a hapless subordinate position to powerful women gets a bit tiring after a while.

One other reason is that at the end of the day, I find realism to be much more appealing than fantasy. I realize that all fiction is unreal, but what I mean is “realistic.” Effective erotic fiction should, in my opinion, reflect a certain degree of plausible realism. That isn’t to say that the sci-fi and fantasy genres can’t be erotically appealing. It’s just that on a personal level, I tend to prefer realistic situations that closely mirror real life.

This preference isn’t for everybody, nor should it be. I’m not judging people who don’t share my views. It’s totally fine to disagree with me. This is just how I assess what excites me.

This is why I find the vast majority of mainstream porn to be boring, stupid, and uninteresting. I don’t want to sit down and watch 30 minutes of two plastic surgery-enhanced doofuses have passionless sex all while hurling fake screams and moans in between painfully written dialogue. Wait, there’s actual dialogue in porn? Yeah, I guess there is. If you care about that sort of thing.

The kinds of porn that I do find fun to watch is when I can identity (or come close to identifying) the people involved. The “plotline” in most porn is so unimaginative it’s become an ongoing joke. Boy meets girl. Boy and girl take off their clothes. Boy and girl then have sex. And more sex. Then from different positions. Then a second boy or girl enters the room. Then the pizza delivery guy knocks on the door. Then mommy or daddy unexpectedly arrives home early, carrying with them the usual assortment of whips, handcuffs, dildos, vibrators, rope, and bottles of lube.

Yuck. We all know how it goes.

In similar fashion, FMG stories tend to (although not all of it is like this, to be completely fair) follow the same general outline. The names, faces, and specific situations may change, but not too much. We are introduced to a girl who is shy and weak. Then she miraculously becomes muscle-bound. Then she meets a boy. Then…well, the rest is up to whoever is writing the story.

A more pen-and-paper version of FMG art, via Diana Valkyrie.

I suppose I shouldn’t slam this too much. Lots of guys (and gals) in this world love FMG, so who am I to spoil the party?

Different strokes for different folks, I guess. Perhaps a better approach to this subject is to explain not why I don’t like FMG stories, but why other forms of female muscle fiction appeal to me more. I love browsing through photos of fitness models, female bodybuilders, and other kinds of muscular women. Cartoon drawings of such women don’t entice to me as much. I have nothing but respect for these artists (as the tiresome cliché goes, I can barely draw a stick figure!), however I much prefer the real thing. Just spend a few moments and take a look at Minna Pajulahti’s Instagram account. Oh boy. That’ll get your blood boiling!

Want some examples of female muscle fiction that I happen to enjoy? Read “Chemical Pink” by Katie Arnoldi (who herself is a former bodybuilder) and “Devil and Disciple – The Temptation” by L. J. K. Cross (a.k.a. Lisa Cross, the famed British female bodybuilder). These two novels are fantastic reads. Go check them out if you can! It’s easy to order them on Amazon.com if you have a few extra bucks lying around.

Here is how I will tie this all in together. If you haven’t started preparing the tar and feathers and searching for a railroad track to parade me on, go ahead and do so. I’ll wait. In the meantime, what I’ll say is this:

I love muscular women for many reasons. The main one is aesthetic. I REALLY love how they look. On this point, we should all be in universal agreement. Muscular women are Goddesses on Earth and should be treated as such. There’s a darn good reason why many of us fantasize about worshipping their muscles as if they were deities in the flesh. That’s because in our fantasy worlds, they ARE deities in the flesh. And they have a lot of muscular flesh on their gorgeous bodies, ready for us to touch – if they let us, of course.

The other reason why I love muscular women is because they’re beautiful in ways that they have to earn. Nobody gave them their muscles. They didn’t sign their names on the dotted line and a FedEx delivery guy simply drove their pre-packaged muscles to their homes and dropped them off on the front porch. You can’t buy big muscles at Target. You don’t sign any contracts. You don’t sit around and wait for someone or something to hand them to you.

You have to earn it. Every single day of your life.

And that’s exactly what female bodybuilders do. They earn their muscles. Since we love looking at their muscles, logically speaking they also earn their beauty. Unlike the beautiful Abercrombie & Fitch models you see on wall-sized advertisements, many female bodybuilders (although not all) are not born conventionally beautiful. We often get jealous of professional models because they make a living – although recent news stories have reported that there is copious abuse within the industry, which unfortunately shouldn’t surprise any of us – thanks to their natural God-given looks. In a way, that kind of jealousy is understandable.

But not so with female bodybuilders. Their beautiful muscular bodies were not given to them from birth. Good genetics did not automatically grant them their six-pack abs, bulging biceps, broad shoulders, thick thighs, rounded calves, and toned butt. They had to sacrifice blood, sweat, and tears to get those assets. While we may harbor some level of envy toward women who can bench press more than us, at the end of the day she busted her tail year-in and year-out to be able to do those lifts. If we put in the same amount of hard work, so can the rest of us. It’s that simple.

Personally, I'd rather look at photos of real life female bodybuilders like Minna Pajulahti. — Personally, I’d rather look at photos of real life female bodybuilders like Minna Pajulahti.

Getting to the top of Mount Everest isn’t nearly as impressive as putting in the work, strategic planning, and preparation necessary to be able to climb Mount Everest in the first place. The journey is just as compelling as the end goal. In this respect, I love female bodybuilders because of the arduous journey they’re on. We can appreciate the final product, but we can also appreciate the road they had to travel to achieve that final product.

At the heart of FMG fiction is cutting through that long and windy road and getting from Point A to Point B in a matter of seconds. That’s not intriguing to me; not because a particular FMG story isn’t well written or well-conceived, but rather because it eliminates the very core reason why I love muscular women in the first place. They earned their muscles through strenuous hard labor, not a magic pill concocted by a mad scientist.

I want female bodybuilders to grow and grow just like the next guy. But I want the journey to take as long as it needs to. Give me a photo of a young fitness Instagram model over a hyper-muscular ‘roided up cartoon character any day. But if that’s your thing, go for it! I encourage people to express their female muscle fandom in any way they choose (as long as it’s legal and consensual, of course).

But alas, I digress. If FMG stories are what rock your socks, I am in no position of authority to say it shouldn’t. By all means, read, write, and draw all the FMG art your heart desires! Do whatever makes you happy, I say. This is not a condemnation of FMG, people who like FMG, or people who create FMG. This is just my humble take on the genre. I’d be happy to hear your thoughts and reactions in the comments below or by sending me an e-mail at ryantakahashi87 (at) yahoo (dot) com. I may even write a follow-up post sharing what you write (or rant) to me.

In the meantime, I swear I can smell the tar boiling in the cauldron…

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Kudos goes out to David C. Matthews for being a supremely talented female muscle artist. Please check out his comic series Tetsuko if you haven’t already! The FMG drawing of popular anime character Sakura Haruno is created by Pegius. The illustration of She-Hulk is done by Michele Frigo.

Facing the Facts: Why a Female Bodybuilder’s Face Still Matters to Me

My eyes cannot help but fixate on Erin Stern's gorgeous face. — My eyes cannot help but fixate on Erin Stern’s gorgeous face.

When you first look upon a photo of a muscular woman, what do your eyes initially fixate on?

For me, if we’re talking about a full-body shot, or a near full-body shot, my eyes immediately focus on her face. This sounds odd considering my natural inclination is being a “leg” guy, but my brain involuntarily tells me to look at this (hypothetical) woman’s face first before anything else.

Before her legs, before her butt, before her hips, before her arms, before her torso, before any of that. Her face is what matters first to me, for whatever reason. Not necessarily the most, but certainly first. This is not the only thing I look at (obviously!), but old habits are hard to break. In fact, natural habits can tell us a lot about our deeply ingrained opinions, biases, and desires.

Even if she’s wearing a sexy G-string bikini. Even if she’s wearing nothing at all. No matter what pose she strikes or what she’s doing in the photo itself. My eyes will almost always go to her face before anything else. Why is that?

When I see a beautiful non-muscular woman walk down the street or step into an elevator with me, my eyes first go to her lower half: her legs, hips, and butt. I try to do this as inconspicuously as possible, as most of us are experts at doing. We’re all horny creeps to some extent; however some of us are better at hiding it than others. Or some of us are less ashamed about it than others.

But when we’re talking about a muscular woman, my eyes don’t look down, but instead look up. I want to see her face. Her eyes, her cheeks, her lips, her bone structure, her smile. Once again, why is that? The information I want to gather is plain and simple: Is she pretty?

If we’re talking about Larissa Reis or Shannon Courtney, the answer is undoubtedly “yes.” If we’re talking about Jennifer Kennedy or Kathy Connors, the answer ranges from “uh, not really” to “I love them…but unfortunately no.” I adore and respect both Jennifer and Kathy very much, so this is not meant to be an insult to them or their beautiful bodies. This is just articulating what many of us are thinking but are too polite to say out loud.

But the question “Is she pretty” is one that is packed with a whole ton of meaning. Why should this matter? Does this make me a hypocrite?

No matter how many essays I write explaining my position that muscles make women more beautiful, for whatever nonsensical reason my eyes still immediately search her face instead of laser-focusing on her hard-earned muscles. When I’m doing a Google or Bing search – and yes, I actually use both with great frequency – of various female bodybuilders, I still gravitate toward their faces first even though I know for a fact the muscles on their bodies are their claim to fame.

What a strange and unusual thing, indeed. What can be derived from this? Are there any lessons or nuggets of truth to be ascertained from this? Possibly. Let’s look at four of them.

1. Beauty still matters

For all the talk about “body image” and that “real women have curves,” at the end of the day the content of her face still matters a great deal. This might not be true for you, but it’s obviously true for me. Theoretically, I know from a cerebral point of view that I’m attracted to female bodybuilders because their remarkable muscle mass provides an aesthetic that I find particularly pleasing. However, my brain still insists on checking out her face first.

A female bodybuilder can control what her muscles look like. Heck, they dedicate their lives toward doing just that. All that blood, sweat, tears, and protein shakes go toward sculpting the most beautiful muscles possible. However, she cannot reasonable control her face. Cosmetic surgery notwithstanding, the appearance of your visage is determined before you were born whether you like it or not. It’s genetics, not hard work. Muscles are built through labor. A gorgeous face is not. So as a fan of female bodybuilders, why does her face still matter to me?

Alright, here's an apt exception. I know where my eyes go first in this photo of Flavia Crisos. — Alright, here’s an apt exception. I know where my eyes go first in this photo of Flavia Crisos.

Perhaps this reveals the truth that deep down inside, traditional beauty is still important to me. I can try to persuade my inner thoughts to value hard work over unearned genetics, but our brains are wired a certain way for a reason. I may not completely understand those reasons, but it is what it is. Beauty still matters. It always has, and it always will. My fetish for a muscular feminine figure may be strong, but my desire for her to still have a pretty face is also strong (if not stronger).

2. The eyes are the windows into the soul

Well, I don’t necessarily agree with this cliché, but there might be some truth to it. We are ingrained into believing the eyes are the best way to really look at a person. When you speak to someone, the polite protocol is to look at them straight in the eyes. Not doing that is culturally inappropriate (in the Western world, that is) and considered rude in most social circles.

So no matter how much six-pack abs, a round butt or swollen biceps turn me on, her eyes are where my eyes initially go. Other than this being a learned behavior, why is that?

I think this speaks to the fact we value the humanity of the people we encounter, even those we happen to be physically attracted to. For all the talk about “objectifying” people, at the end of the day most decent human beings value each other on some level. Obviously we value our friends and family more than complete strangers, but not too many of us wish ill on others without a compelling reason.

I obviously love female bodybuilders. But my appreciation for them isn’t just physical. I love their toughness, self-confidence, drive, passion, dedication, and service to others (many FBBs work as personal trainers or in the healthcare field). So when my eyes first focus on a muscular woman’s face, it’s an indication that I want to learn more about her: her interests, strengths, weaknesses, fears, failures, successes, feelings, thoughts, likes, dislikes, and so on.

There’s way no way I can actually learn any of that just from looking at a photograph of a female bodybuilder, but the natural instinct to want to know exists nevertheless.

3. A subtle bias against muscular women still exists within me

This is probably a bit of a stretch, but it’s worth talking about. I wrote a post recently arguing that muscles are the great equalizer when it comes to assessing one’s physical beauty. I believe this wholeheartedly, but perhaps there’s still a small hint of bias against muscular women that’s hiding deep within my psyche.

I look at a muscular woman’s face first because I want to assess how “feminine” she is. Is her face “man-like,” as many negative stereotypes go? Does her face have masculine features or does she appear to be traditionally feminine? Intellectually, I understand that not every woman, muscular or not, looks “feminine” as society widely accepts that term to mean. I also understand that years of taking anabolic steroids and human growth hormones can change the way your body (and face) looks.

A classic female bodybuilder from yesteryear: Sharon Bruneau.

The “hardening” of a woman’s face to appear gruffer and less soft – whatever these descriptors even mean – can happen after higher-than-usual levels of testosterone enter the body. I’d venture a guess that these so-called changes aren’t actually real. They’re more perceived due to social stigmas attached to women with big muscles.

These social biases run so deep that even yours truly believes in them to a certain extent. I’d like to think my “street cred” for supporting female bodybuilders should be unquestioned, but even I can admit that I occasionally give in to what popular perceptions teach us. When I look at a photo of a female bodybuilder for the first time – as opposed to a photo I’ve already seen before – my natural inclination to first look at her face tells me I’m still bias toward women who look traditionally beautiful. I still think of FBBs as being “different” or “freakish,” even though I embrace these differences as being a part of her unique beauty.

Bias is not the same thing as hate, however. It’s just what your brain (whether you know it or not) automatically tells you when you’re digesting new information. The first step is to be aware of it. The next step is to recognize that this doesn’t make you a bad person. The last step is to be able to make your own decisions whether the vast majority of others will agree with you or not.

4. It’s not just about her muscles, it’s about her entire self

On a more positive note, one of the reasons why I first tend to look at a muscular woman’s face is because I’m not nearly as fixated on her muscles as one would think. Maybe it’s because I’m a sucker for a pretty face (which I am!). Or it goes to show you that while I love an FBB’s muscles, I actually love her entire self.

Related to point #2, I first look at her face because I want to learn as much as I can about her as a person. Fantastic. But another important observation is that for me, and obviously I cannot speak for anybody else except for me, it’s not just about her muscles. It’s not the mere presence of big muscles on her body that make her extraordinarily beautiful. It’s the entire package.

People who aren’t familiar with the world of female bodybuilding get perplexed when they see a photo of an FBB because they can’t stop focusing on her muscles. Those of us who are more familiar with this aesthetic see past her muscles and appreciate her entire beauty – both external and internal. I recently participated in a muscle worship session with a pro bodybuilder who talked enthusiastically about her passion for helping others. She works as a personal trainer (as many often do) and loves inspiring people to become happier, healthier, and more confident. She spoke of serving homeless young adults, abused women, and emotionally hurt people who have lost their way. Through teaching them how to lift weights at the gym, she saw their lives turn around for the better. Some of her anecdotes were powerful to listen to.

I quickly decided that for as much as I appreciate her external beauty – and she is without a doubt a beautiful person – her internal beauty shines brighter.

Whether we’re talking about a slim pop star, a skinny fashion model, or a big and buff female bodybuilder, where your eyes go first when you look upon her depends on what you value, what you’re looking for, and the context of the situation. If a woman intentionally shows off her cleavage, it’s reasonable why your eyes would go there first. If her long gorgeous legs are front and center of the image, I wouldn’t blame you for your imagination running wild with what you’d like to do with those legs.

But for me, I first look at her face. Even if she has big muscles. Even if her muscles are supposed to be the center of attention. There are many reasons for this. Some of them are logical. Others are pure speculative. But it is interesting to reflect on why this happens to me. Do I need to face the facts about my inherent prejudices against muscular women, even though I’m one of the most vocal proponents of female bodybuilders on the Internet (or at least, on WordPress)? Or does this mean that at the end of the day, I appreciate traditional beauty above all else? Or am I so accustomed to seeing muscles on a woman that its affects are starting to wane on me?

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Slow down there! Can it be true that I’m getting desensitized to the sight of a muscular woman? Have I plunged so far into the deep end of the pool that looking upon the strong powerful body of Rene Campbell elicits the same reaction as looking upon the narrow skinny body of Taylor Swift?

I’m not showing disrespect to either Rene Campbell or Taylor Swift, but is my brain adjusting to the reality that not only do I think that muscles on a woman are beautiful, but it’s now an ordinary thing to look at?

Hm. Probably not. I don’t think I’ll ever get “used to” seeing muscles on a woman’s physique. No matter how many thousands of photos or hours of video I experience watching FBBs show off their beautiful bodies, I highly doubt the jolt of energy that erupts inside me will ever dissipate. My heart will always flutter. The “Madness” will never go away.

But if it does, is that an indication that I’ve become so saturated with muscular women that I’ve finally accepted that this body type is both “normal” and “not out of the ordinary?” Is this progress or a signal that I’ve become a female bodybuilder junkie, where my usual “fix” isn’t good enough to sustain my appetites?

Alright, this discussion is getting weird. I’m probably overthinking a fairly normal phenomenon. I like pretty faces. That’s it, end of debate. But like all topics related to female bodybuilders, muscular women, and analyzing why people like me love them so damn much, there are endless things to talk about. I haven’t even scratched the surface yet. I look forward to being able to dig a little deeper next time.

A Salute to Deidre Pagnanelli

Without a doubt, Deidre Pagnanelli deserves a salute!

If there is one female bodybuilder in this world who has enough crossover appeal to please both fans of muscular women and fans of “conventional-looking” women, it would be the one and only Deidre Pagnanelli.

Miss Pagnanelli is a woman who should make you go “Wow!” She has The Wow Factor. She has “It.” She can make your heart stop mid-beat and you would be powerless to stop it or complain about it. In fact, you might be perfectly fine with the image of Miss Pagnanelli being the final thing you witness during your time on Earth.

As the premiere fitness model of the 1990s, Deidre Pagnanelli is someone you don’t forget. Once you learn who she is, you want to be able to experience more and more of her. Your standards of beauty are raised exponentially. What you previously judged as being “beautiful” diminishes once you regard upon Deidre’s physical being for the first time.

Deidre has, as you can clearly tell, been one of my favorite female bodybuilders for years now. Here’s some background information about her:

Deidre Pagnanelli was born on October 1, 1974 in Italy, but currently resides in the United States. She made her fame being a fitness model and competitive bodybuilder. At the ripe age of 41 (as of this writing), she still works as a personal trainer and mother of four children. You read that right. This gorgeous woman has given birth four times in her life.

Unbelievable.

Standing at 5’9”, her striking good looks and exotic features made her the go-to fitness model of the 90s. Back then she was featured in a small handful of workout videos, but her stardom never really took off. Early in her life, Deidre participated in many low-level fitness and beauty competitions. Her contest history is a bit difficult to pinpoint. One source says she placed 4^th at the 2010 NPC Excalibur and 1^st at the 2011 NPC Iron Man Magazine Naturally Bodybuilding, Figure and Bikini Championships. I know she’s done more than that, but the available information is scarce.

Deidre showing off her guns.

There are also not a whole lot of Internet videos featuring her. There’s a modest YouTube channel dedicated to her. I cannot verify whether she started it herself or if a fan moderates it, but it only features four videos posted in 2012-2013. That’s not much.

It’s possible her birthday is different than what I could research. Some sources say she’s in her mid-40s, while I can only muster that she’s in her early 40s. Either way, her remarkable figure at her age is both impressive and erotically appealing.

That’s all the confirmed (or semi-confirmed) biographical information I can find on Deidre Pagnanelli. It’s not a lot, but perhaps that’s intentional.

As a mother of four children, I perfectly understand why Deidre would want to keep a low public profile (assuming that is her intention). The Internet can be a horrible place for a beautiful woman. I’d guess she doesn’t want her children to grow up reading and hearing horrible things about their mother. In this post, I will try to be as respectful to her as possible. I hope others will do the same.

Or maybe information about her is scarce because she doesn’t feel any inclination to publicize herself. As far as I can tell, she doesn’t have an official website or too many official social media channels. Her IMDb page only has one credit from 1998. From the looks of it, it’s probably a project she wants to forget about. I don’t blame her one bit. I too would want to scrub from the Internet any evidence that I once was in a low-budget piece of garbage with Andrew Dice Clay.

Judging from past and current photos of her, Deidre was never really a bodybuilder. She is more accurately described as a fitness model or fit model. Her muscularity has never been super impressive, but her physique must be applauded nevertheless. Deidre’s appeal isn’t measured by her degree of muscle mass (unlike Ms. Olympia contestants), but rather by her impeccable balance of traditional beauty, unquestionable femininity, athletic muscle definition, and universal sexual attractiveness.

Of course Deidre appeals to all audiences.

Deidre has big enough muscles to appeal to guys like me and more than enough curves and natural beauty to appeal to everyone else. Regardless of how you view muscular women, hopefully we can all agree that Deidre is a one-of-a-kind Goddess whose gorgeous good looks are both unforgettable and unparalleled.

I can say with pretty strong confidence that Deidre has one of the most beautiful faces I’ve ever seen. She’s gorgeous. No, she’s actually drop dead gorgeous. No, no, she’s much more than that! She’s…beyond words.

Her beauty is indescribable. Her body is flawless. Her entire aura is divine. If there’s ever a reason to use theologically-based language to describe a human being, Deidre Pagnanelli would be that reason. She’s a Goddess, an angel, a celestial being. She is not of this planet.

Can you tell I think she’s beautiful?

I often wonder why she isn’t more famous. I brought up the same observation in my post singing the praises of Minna Pajulahti. I’m saddened that both women aren’t international superstars. The difference is that Minna willingly puts herself out there to the public through her social media presence and proactive marketing efforts. I don’t think Deidre is doing the same thing. But perhaps that’s by choice, not necessarily circumstance.

It also helps that Minna is about 6 or 7 years younger and understands how to use modern technology to her advantage. I am not implying that Deidre isn’t social media savvy, nor am I saying that she isn’t putting enough effort to make herself more famous. She grew up in a different generation than Minna. Plus, she has a family. I don’t think Miss Pajulahti has a family quite yet. How public you want to make your personal life really depends if you have a husband and kids in the mix.

As I’ve mentioned before, there isn’t a whole lot of information out there about Deidre. I’ve also just lamented the fact she isn’t better known to the general public. There might be a connection here. Maybe Deidre doesn’t want to be better known. Maybe she tasted fame during the 1990s and was disgusted by what she experienced.

We’ve all read horror stories about the modeling industry. There’s a reason why drug abuse, eating disorders, risky medical procedures, and depression are experienced by some of the world’s most recognizable models. I have no doubt rampant sexual abuse goes on by the bigwigs in charge against their young and vulnerable employees. The pay isn’t great. The gigs are scarce, unpredictable, and often humiliating. By the time you reach the age of 28, your shelf life gets close to expiring. Who would want to go through all that?

I am not suggesting in any way that Deidre went through any of those horrible things when she was younger. I am not basing this off of extensive research, hearsay, or personally talking to people close to the situation. I’ve never met Deidre (although I’d love to!) nor have I ever communicated with her. This is all based on speculation. But I’m guessing she loves doing what she does now and wouldn’t want to have it any other way. Good for her.

Sexy heels. And sexy body. Sexy everything, to be exact.

Therefore, it wouldn’t surprise me that she’d rather be a personal trainer (and full-time mother) instead of doing whatever is necessary to become more famous. There isn’t a wealth of videos or photos of her on the Internet. Her modeling career seemed to end by the time the 20^th century turned the corner into the 21^st. But that’s perfectly okay. Not everyone needs to enjoy the spotlight. The road to gain further fame and fortune isn’t for everyone.

Instead, Deidre Pagnanelli will remain one of the most beautiful women on planet Earth that you’ve never heard of. Well, a good portion of female muscle fans will know who she is, but we’re certainly not in the majority. She could have been a major star, but that wasn’t in the cards for whatever reason. I am not critical of her life decisions, of course. I’m just a bit bummed out she never took off like she had to potential to.

It’s not every day you meet the second coming of Sophia Loren but have never heard of her before stumbling upon her by happenstance. While I don’t know her personally, she seems like a sweet and genuine person. She could have been a contender, as Terry Malloy would say. She has the gorgeous good looks to be just as famous as Ms. Loren, Monica Bellucci, and any other Italian beauty. But alas, she isn’t.

Perhaps the biggest tragedy here isn’t that she missed her opportunity at stardom, but rather we fans don’t have more of her to experience. I perfectly understand Deidre doesn’t “owe” us anything. If she wants to live a quiet life away from the public’s eye, that’s her decision and she’s definitely allowed to make that decision. But if she had chosen to pursue a career similar to Debi Laszewski or Denise Masino (I understand she never developed the level of muscle mass achieved by those two), we could have thousands of more photos and hundreds of more hours of video footage of her to appreciate.

But maybe, just maybe, that’s a good thing. Instead of viewing this as a missed opportunity, I should instead look at this as being a positive thing. Deidre never had to sell herself out to make it big in the modeling industry. She never had to resort to doing porn or anything else degrading to her reputation (I’m not ripping anyone who chooses to do porn. If you want to and you feel like it empowers your career, so be it. But all too often desperate young women will debase themselves in order to get their foot in the door of certain employment opportunities).

Applying the Scarcity Principle practically, the fact there’s limited media and information about her might work in her favor. It makes her mysterious. It makes her more legendary. It forces us to use our imaginations. It forces us to treat her not as a run-of-the-mill 1990s fitness girl, but instead a mythical creature who forces guys like me to beg for more and more. She can choose to provide us more of her, or she can deny us what we want. Either way, it’s her choice and her choice alone.

Not too many 40-something mothers with abs like that!

I’m actually sort of okay with Deidre Pagnanelli being shrouded in mystery. I love the fact that in 2016, Deidre is a 40-something mother of four who used to be one of the rising stars of the fitness industry during the Clinton years (we may have 4-8 more years of a Clinton administration ahead of us, but that’s a whole other story. My non-American readers should consider themselves lucky). I refuse to call her a certain term that’s given to attractive women who also happen to be mothers. It’s a vulgar label that’s totally beneath Deidre. Miss Pagnanelli is a classy lady who deserves better. I will treat her better.

Deidre could have been an internationally-renown crossover superstar who brought muscular women into the mainstream of society. She could have been on the covers of magazines for years, making millions of dollars from the fruits of her labor and natural God-given assets. I will say it one more time: Deidre Pagnanelli is one of the most beautiful women in the Universe. From head to toe, she’s absolutely immaculate. She’s the very definition of female beauty. She’s a masterwork.

I don’t know what she’s specifically up to right now, but I’d imagine she’s happy. She’s probably helping people become the best they can be (a personal trainer for busy moms, perhaps). It sounds clichéd, but there are actually people out there who inspire that kind of positive change in others. It takes someone with a special kind of flair, work ethic, compassionate attitude, and charismatic demeanor.

Yup, that’s Deidre alright.

The Benevolent Voyeur and the Female Bodybuilder – Part One

When you think of Rebecca Tanaka, think of a younger Tomoko Kanda.

Most people despise the daily grind. Rebecca Tanaka thrives in it.

Rebecca’s schedule is nonstop. Her evenings are always free – most of the time – but from 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., she is one relentless busy bee, churning along at her own frenzied pace.

7:00 a.m. – Wake up, eat breakfast consisting of egg whites, oatmeal, and fruit smoothie

7:30 a.m. – Walk on the treadmill for an hour, interspersing with light jogging every 10 minutes

8:30 a.m. – Take short shower, dress, and drive to the gym

9:00 a.m. – Workout at the gym, regimen changes depending on the day (Monday: Chest and shoulders, Tuesday: Abs and back, Wednesday: Rest day, Thursday: Arms, Friday: Rest day, Saturday: Legs, Sunday: Rest day)

11:15 a.m. – Shower, dress, eat second meal of the day (brown rice, chicken, and steamed carrots)

12:00 p.m. – Drive to physical therapy clinic, work with clients

1:30 p.m. – Eat third meal of the day (sweet potato, steak, and raw broccoli)

6:00 p.m. – Leave work, drive to grocery store, drive home

6:30 p.m. – Arrive at home, eat fourth meal of the day (Salmon, kale, asparagus, couscous, and tomatoes)

7:00 p.m. – Answer e-mails, schedule personal training clients, set up photoshoots, etc.

9:00 p.m. – Eat fifth meal of the day (protein shake and raw fruit)

11:00 p.m. – Go to sleep, prepare to do it all again the next day

Rebecca, one of the world’s rising stars in the international bodybuilding industry, doesn’t have much time for relationships or pets. No dogs, no boyfriends. But this doesn’t bother her at all. She loves her life and wouldn’t change a single thing about it.

Except for one thing, however. Being a competitive bodybuilder and part-time physical therapist doesn’t pay a whole lot of money. Lucky for her, she inherited a nice studio condominium from her deceased aunt and uncle (they died tragically in a car accident while travelling through South America four years ago) located right in the heart of downtown Bellevue. However, living expenses are still living expenses. Money isn’t tight, but she can’t afford to not be frugal.

All of that changed one fateful Tuesday evening.

Rebecca drove home and parked her car in the underground parking garage like usual. With her massive gym bag slung over her broad shoulders, she takes the short flight of stairs up to the lobby. There, she sees Craig, the reliable and friendly front desk staff person.

“Good evening, Rebecca!” Craig greets her with a wide toothy grin.

“Hi Craig. Has your wife decided on whether she wants to take the promotion or not?” Rebecca takes her keys out of her pocket and walks toward the row of mail boxes.

“She has. She’s not interested. Macy loves where she is right now,” he says. “I guess that means I’m here to stay.”

Rebecca turns around and shoots Craig a happy smile of her own. “Oh well. Darn. I was just getting used to putting up with your antics!” Craig’s wife works at the city’s water treatment facility and was asked to move to Washington D.C. to supervise the federal government on crafting better national water policy. Apparently, Macy didn’t like that offer and would rather stay here and get paid less. Rebecca has never met Macy but she’s starting to like her more and more.

Craig laughs. The phone rings. He stops laughing, puts on his “professional” demeanor, and answers it. Rebecca chuckles to herself and approaches her mail box. She unlocks it and finds the usual assortment of junk: Grocery store coupons, a community newsletter, a postcard asking her to donate to needy children in Tanzania, her monthly cell phone bill, and a lone letter. She doesn’t usually get individually written letters anymore. For that matter, in today’s digital age, who does?

“Jones,” she reads aloud. The return address is somewhere in Kirkland. Only the sender’s last name is revealed. The 4”x3” letter is modest in size but remarkable in its simplicity. She stuffs the mail in a pouch on the side of her gym bag and heads toward the elevator. She nods at Craig, who is still talking to a potential tenant on the phone. He graciously nods back.

Five minutes later Rebecca opens the door to her 15^th story condo unit and walks inside. She lays her heavy gym bag down on the floor and gently shuts the door behind her. Not thinking too much about the letter, she turns on the TV and tunes in to whatever baseball game happens to be going on. It appears the home team is losing by a score of 5-2. It’s the seventh inning. Whatever. Sports never interested Rebecca too much – except for bodybuilding, of course. That’s a sport she pays attention to with keen interest.

The clock in the kitchen says it is 6:39 p.m. Rebecca opens the refrigerator and pulls out a blue Tupperware container. Fish, veggies, and corn are inside. She pops it in the microwave and sets it for three and a half minutes. The humming of her dinner heating up provides the background music she needs to relax and unwind. Rebecca plops herself on her bed and turns on her laptop computer. Just as the home screen starts to boot up, the microwave makes the joyful “ping” sound.

Rebecca grabs a fork, napkin, bottle of FIJI Water, and the steaming hot Tupperware container. She returns to her bed and starts to eat. By now, the home team has scored another run and the score is now 5-3. The crowd goes wild. She couldn’t care less.

There are only four e-mail messages in her inbox. Two of them are junk. One is a balance statement from her bank and the other is a picture of a random man’s penis taken with his shitty cell phone camera. As a nationally known female bodybuilder, Rebecca is accustomed to receiving creepy or obscene e-mail messages from fans across the globe. She promptly deletes the dick pic and blocks the idiot from ever communicating with her again.

“Congratulations on being so well-endowed, buddy,” Rebecca says. “But you’re still a perverted jerk.”

A solo home run by the other team. 6-3 road team. The crowd goes silent. Rebecca swiftly changes the channel to the evening news. The first story she sees is a report that ISIS has kidnapped another European aid worker and has threatened to cut off his head. She decides to turn off the TV altogether. Nothing but bad news.

“It’s a hellish world we live in,” Rebecca whispers to herself. “God help us all.”

She looks at her gym bag and suddenly remembers the letter. After putting the dirty Tupperware in the sink, she takes a last sip from her FIJI Water and dumps the empty bottle in a recycling bin. Rebecca takes the envelope out of the pouch and opens it with a letter opener. She sits down on her comfortable leather sofa and reads it.

Rebecca gets plenty of fan mail, but they all go to her business mail box at the Post Office. So she has no idea who this could be from. Who does she know in Kirkland? The handwritten note says the following:

Dear Miss Tanaka,

I am a dear fan of yours. We’ve never met, but I’ve been following your career from the start. I see a lot of promise in you. You are destined for stardom, there’s no doubt in my mind about that.

I don’t know how much money you make being a professional bodybuilder, but I’d imagine it’s not nearly enough for you to live off. Or maybe you do make enough. Either way, who couldn’t use a little extra cash in their pocket?

That being said, I have a simple proposition for you, one you can refuse to do if you choose to with no consequences.

I happen to live within viewing distance of your condominium unit. With my trusty pair of binoculars, I have a clear view of your balcony. I have never made any effort to physically contact you, so do not feel alarmed. Thus, I’d like to offer you this: Every Tuesday evening at 9:00, I want you to stand outside on your balcony and strip naked for me. I want to see your beautiful body in all its splendor and glory. You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life.

Every time you do this, I will mail you $1,000 in cash the following day. I will also send you written instructions on what to do next. I will never ask you to do anything dangerous or unreasonable. But it will always involve me wanting to see your beautiful body.

Just to prove that I’m not joking, tonight at 9:00 please stand outside fully clothed for a solid 90 seconds. I will send you $500 in the mail tomorrow just for that simple gesture. If you do not do as I ask, I will interpret this as your refusal and I will never contact you ever again. I can promise you that.

I look forward to seeing where your career goes, Rebecca. Peace be with you Angelic Sweetheart.

Sincerely,

Jones

Uh, what? Rebecca looks up at the ceiling in disbelief, remaining frozen for what seems like forever.

What the fuck is this all about? Should she call the police? She knows the return address of this creep, so it wouldn’t be too difficult for the authorities to investigate and put this asshole in jail. However…

$1,000 is a lot of money. Fuck, that’s $52,000 in extra tax-free cash per year. Perhaps she should consider it.

Damn it! That’s crazy talk. This guy is nuts and should be arrested for harassment! Rebecca tosses the letter in the trash can and closes the blinds on all her windows. The last time she ever had a stalker was back in college. A random dude kept writing her love notes despite the fact she was in a committed relationship at the time (they broke up when he later revealed he was gay, but that’s a whole other story for another time). She reported this to campus police and found out it ended up being not a student, but a tenured English professor. She (yes, it was a she) was fired and had to spend 150 hours doing community service and pay a small fine. Rebecca never saw her again.

Writing and sending handwritten letters is a lost art.

The clock now says it is 7:45 p.m. Rebecca decides to call the police first thing in the morning and report this idiot. She logs on to Netflix and begins watching “House of Cards” to get her mind off of this shit. She may have seen this episode before. Or maybe she hasn’t. Whatever.

Time passes. Soon, it is 8:56 p.m. She looks at the time on her computer and smiles. Should she poke her head outside her balcony just to see if this asshole will actually pay her? Rebecca peeks at her phone bill and gasps when she sees how substantial it is. She’d used a lot of data this month, between using her phone for personal and business matters. Damn. How the fuck is she going to pay for all this shit?

8:58 p.m.

Fuck!

Rebecca puts on a pair of old slippers and cautiously opens the glass door leading to the balcony. She’s wearing pajama pants and a tank top but no makeup or a bra. Her jet black hair is a mess. She doesn’t think she looks terribly appealing at the moment, but this pervert apparently thinks she’s the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen in his life. Rebecca doesn’t know what is compelling her to follow through with this, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Standing at a diminutive 5’2”, Rebecca is just as short as most Japanese women but is much huskier than usual. Her thick thighs, broad shoulders, big biceps, 8-pack abdomen, and rounded butt make her stand out against most women, Asian or not. Her 30^th birthday is right around the corner, a fact she’s trying to not think about. She’s never been married but has never struggled to find a boyfriend. Most of her past boyfriends have been white, but she’s dated her fair share of Asian guys. But after committing her life to bodybuilding, she’s discovered fewer and fewer men want to be with her romantically. Maybe they’re intimidated by a woman with bigger muscles than them!

Rebecca looks up at the clock. 9:00 p.m. on the dot. Alright, time to do this.

She enters the outside and takes a deep breath. The sun is beginning to set. Earlier in the day it reached 85 degrees, which is practically the seventh level of Hades for someone who was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. She silently counts to 90 in her head. She looks around to see who this creepy stalker could possibly be. All around her are apartment buildings, office buildings, and fancy homes overlooking Lake Washington. There are hundreds of thousands of people who could see her at this moment. Is this guy for real? Or is this a prankster who gets off on writing disturbing letters to competitive female bodybuilders?

Rebecca may be willing to temporarily embarrass herself, but this is far from being the first time she’s ever felt helpless. Though she’s never been married, when Rebecca was 15 she became pregnant thanks to her then-boyfriend (who happened to be Asian like her) using a faulty condom. Her parents were outraged. The rest of her family shunned her. She eventually gave birth to a healthy baby girl. Rebecca reluctantly put the baby up for adoption. Within weeks of giving birth to the child, a couple in Indiana flew out to meet little Cecelia. They immediately fell in love with her. They hired some lawyers to draw up the adoption papers and within days the couple flew back home with a new daughter.

Rebecca has never seen her daughter since. Her family has never spoken about it. They’ve kept absolutely no contact with the couple from Indiana. She tries to not think about that dark chapter of her life, but every so often she’s reminded of it. This moment is one of those times.

A simple outdoor balcony overlooking a major metropolitan city (in this case, Chicago).

90 seconds have officially passed. She returns back indoors and shuts the glass door. She locks it.

“That was the longest 90 seconds of my fucking life,” Rebecca says to nobody in particular.

Looking outside at the setting sun, she wonders if anyone was actually watching her. Who is this “Jones” guy? Was he a balding middle-aged loser who was jerking off at the sight of a female bodybuilder wearing pajama pants? God, that’s disgusting. The thought of this put a churning feeling in her stomach. Rebecca feels foolish that she even went outside on her balcony as the letter instructed in the first place. Wanting to forget the whole ordeal, Rebecca goes to the kitchen, takes out a wine glass, and pours herself some Chardonnay. She returns to bed and turns the television back on.

The home team tied it up in the bottom of the ninth and ended up winning it in the 12^th thanks to a walk-off home run by the second baseman. Rebecca thinks he’s cute. Good for him. Good for his teammates. Hopefully, he’ll sleep tonight with a big fat smile on his face.

***

The next day Rebecca didn’t give a single thought to what had happened the previous evening. The thought of calling the police about the disconcerting letter never crosses her mind.

Wednesday is her rest day, so she can spend the morning working on her personal business before going to work at the clinic at noon. She spent the whole morning scouring the Internet for a new bikini. Her photographer tells her it’s about time they take new photos for her website. Now that the weather is improving, they agree to go down to the beach this Saturday and snap a few photos before the hordes of families, little kids, and drunk tourists show up.

Work is boring as usual. She sees four clients altogether. James, an 87-year-old former steel worker who’s suffering from chronic lower back pain. He thinks it’s caused by his days hauling gigantic hollowed rods across the mill he worked at back in Pennsylvania. Rebecca thinks it’s caused by the fact he’s in his late 80’s. Whatever. He doesn’t want to argue with “the pretty girl with big muscles.”

She also sees Tyler, a high school football player who suffered a major knee injury last season while returning a punt. Tyler’s a nice kid. He isn’t good enough to play at the college level, but Rebecca nevertheless feels he deserves a shot at being able to step onto the field again. He’s rehabbing his injury and hopes to be able to be ready in time for summer practices.

Rebecca is confident he’ll be able to do so. Tyler and his mother concur.

Sarah Hayes wearing a dress that shows off all her impressive assets.

The other two clients are a married couple named Frankie and Loren. They’re both in their 60s but still manage to work at the local public school district. Rebecca cannot imagine why they still want to put up with spoiled bratty kids when they’re so close to retirement, but they seem to enjoy the work. They must be good at what they do, apparently.

“I do it for the kids. I can’t speak for Frankie, but I feel like it’s my duty to my community to put these youngsters on the right path,” Loren tells Rebecca and Julie, the clinic’s senior physical therapist. Frankie nods in agreement.

“Damn right! But don’t tell the kids I occasionally swear. I always get them in trouble for cursing, so I don’t want to seem like a hypocrite,” he fires back.

“Don’t worry you two,” Rebecca assures them. “Your secrets are safe with me. My lips are perfectly sealed. What’s discussed in this building doesn’t leave this building, I can assure you of that.”

Now it’s Julie’s turn to nod her head in agreement. It’s so wonderful when everyone agrees with one another. That’s what makes life pleasant.

“See you next time!” Rebecca exclaims as Frankie and Loren stroll out the door. She waves at them. They wave back. All is good and right with the world.

The drive home is messy but not a surprise. There’s a stretch of 8^th avenue that’s being repaved. It’s a project the City Council promised to implement years ago, but it’s just now getting underway. Even in the most financially affluent cities it takes forever for simple government tasks to get done. Oh well. That’s the way things are, Rebecca supposes. Maybe that explains why Macy wants to stay put.

Like usual, she parks her car in the underground garage and hikes up the stairs to the main floor. It is at this moment that she remembers the strange letter she got yesterday from that mysterious creep. Today, Craig happens to not be working the front desk. That usually means he’s talking with the maintenance man to fix something. Instead, Hannah, a spunky 22-year-old blonde girl fresh out of college, is working in the lobby. Rebecca thinks Hannah is scared of her. It’s not a stretch of the imagination, however. It’s not too often you encounter a pretty Asian girl with big muscles!

“Hi Hannah. Where’s Craig?”

Hannah jumps in surprise at the sound of Rebecca’s voice. She is busy playing Temple Run on her phone and didn’t expect anyone to want to make casual conversation with her. Hannah puts the phone away and regains her composure.

“Oh, he’s milling around somewhere. A tenant on the 8^th floor complained about a weird smell. He’s looking into it.” That’s what Rebecca thought Craig would be doing. Fixing a problem. Hannah is usually an on-call staff person who comes into work if Craig knows he has a lot of building maintenance work to do. Rebecca thinks Hannah works part-time as a cocktail waitress at a dive bar in Renton. She could be wrong about that, though.

“Hm. Thankfully for him, I don’t have any weird or offensive smells coming out of my unit,” Rebecca says. “I’m sure he’ll be glad to hear that.”

Hannah can only smile. That’s pretty much all Rebecca expects from her. This must confirm her suspicions that she’s frightened to death of her.

This is what the inside of Rebecca's condo would probably look like. — This is what the inside of Rebecca’s condo would probably look like.

Rebecca takes out her mail box key and puts it in the slot. She twists it and opens the small door. She reaches inside and only finds a single item.

A modest 4”x3” letter.

Oh fuck.

She looks at the return address. Sure enough, it says “Jones” followed by a Kirkland address.

Well, shit.

Stuffing the letter in her jacket pocket, Rebecca smiles at Hannah and scurries off to the elevators. She presses the button for the 15^th floor. Three minutes pass until it shows up, which feel like ten. The door opens, Rebecca walks inside, and within moments she’s at her front door.

Rebecca isn’t usually a paranoid type of person, but how could you not be at this moment? Perhaps her decision to not notify the police was dead wrong. Before opening the door to her condo unit, she looks around the empty hallway. No one is in sight. That’s how it usually is at this hour. She unlocks the door and steps inside.

She immediately drops her purse on top of a nearby chair, tosses her jacket carelessly on the ground, and sits down on the leather sofa. Taking in a deep breath, Rebecca cautiously opens the letter without the letter opener. She doesn’t mind if she gets an innocuous paper cut. Fortunately, she’s just fine.

It’s another handwritten note. Of course. It reads:

Dear Miss Tanaka,

I’m glad you decided to follow through with my wishes last night. I did not know if you would ignore me or not. Fortunately for me, you made a choice I am most pleased with. Bravo to you.

In return, I’ve enclosed $500 in cash as I promised in my previous correspondence. I hope you put this newfound money to good use. I trust you will be judicious with it.

Your participation in last night’s trial run tells me you’re willing to play along with my proposition. I am pleased to learn of that. Now is the appropriate time to up the stakes. As I outlined before, I am willing to pay you $1,000 for further exhibitions. That offer is still on the table. I am only interested in watching you perform for me on Tuesday evenings at 9:00 p.m., so you have a full week before I am able to see you again. I cannot wait for our next encounter.

Next Tuesday, June 7, I want you to walk outside your balcony at 9:00 like last time. I want you to wear whatever clothing you happen to be wearing at the moment. I care not what it is. Once you are fully outside, I want you to meticulously strip naked until every single article of clothing is removed from your immaculate body. Then, I want you to twirl around slowly in a circle three times. No more, no less. I want to be able to see your entire body. It is my desire to be able to do so.

I want this full performance to last two minutes. Bring your phone with you if you need to keep track of time. Anything lasting less than two minutes will result in you not receiving any monetary compensation.

I trust you will agree with these terms. I look forward to seeing you next time.

Peace be with you Angelic Sweetheart.

Sincerely,

Jones

Rebecca freezes in stunned silence. Before she could reread the message, she digs into the envelope and finds five crisp $100 bills tucked inside. She holds the bills up to the light. As far as she can tell, they’re perfectly legit. A professional bank teller could tell the difference between a legitimate and a counterfeit $100 bill, but Rebecca’s amateurish opinion will have to suffice for now.

“Holy fucking shit.”

A chill runs down Rebecca’s spine. She isn’t sure if she wants to cry or call the police without a moment’s hesitation. Instead, she chooses to sit there on the sofa and stare off into the nothingness in front of her.

Minna Pajulahti is the Flawless Female Bodybuilder We’ve All Been Waiting For

Flawless? I think so.

Alright, ladies and gentlemen. Stop whatever you’re doing. Right now. I don’t care if you’re sitting in a waiting room about to undergo open-heart surgery and the nurse just called your name to get prepped. I don’t care if you’re about to have tea with the Queen of England (happy 90^th birthday!) or if you’re in the middle of writing your doctorate dissertation that’s due in an hour. Just stop whatever you’re doing and do what I’m about to tell you to do.

Find a device with Internet connection and do a Google search on Minna Pajulahti.

I’ll wait.

Ready to proceed? Great.

I’ve already shared photos of Miss Pajulahti on this blog, but I think now is the time to dedicate a whole blog post to her. She isn’t new to the scene, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t newsworthy at this particular moment. Have you seen what this gorgeous woman looks like? She’s newsworthy 27/7/365. Hopefully we can all agree on that!

There isn’t a whole lot of biographical information about her available, so I’ll summarize what I can.

Minna is a Finnish IFBB bodybuilder who was born on May 4, 1980. At the ripe age of 36 (although she looks 26!), Minna competes in the women’s physique division. She works as a flight attendant and fitness coach when she isn’t busting her butt at the gym.

She placed 14^th at the 2010 IFBB Fort Lauderdale Pro, 7^th at the 2011 IFBB Toronto Pro, 5^th at the 2011 IFBB FIBO Power Pro Germany, 16^th at the 2014 IFBB Europa Dallas, and 6^th at the 2016 IFBB Karina Nascimento Pro. She also participated at the 2010 IFBB Arnold Amateur International Bodybuilding, Fitness, Figure & Bikini Championships. She might have competed in other contests, but the history on that is scant.

In addition to competing in bodybuilding, Minna is also a powerlifter. She says she also enjoys cheerleading and everything related to fitness. Standing at 5’4”, Minna may not be super tall, but her gorgeous good looks, beach blonde hair, and powerfully built physique makes her stand out above the rest. She currently lives in Nokia, Finland.

A strikingly gorgeous female bodybuilder.

Every so often I’ll come across a female bodybuilder whose striking beauty and impressive muscular development gives her enough “crossover” appeal to please both female muscle fans and “female muscle skeptics” alike. We all know (or know of) people who are skeptical and irrationally disgusted by strong women. The stereotype they have ingrained in their brains of a female bodybuilder is someone with a man-like face, grossly unfeminine muscles protruding everywhere, excessive body hair, a voice deep enough to make a 17^th century pirate blush, and overly aggressive behavior. Minna Pajulahti takes all those harmful images and smashes them with the hammer of Thor.

Minna is different. Despite her huge muscles, her curvy figure is undeniably feminine. Her face is as gorgeous as you’ll ever see. She seems approachable, pleasant, and “normal.” But more important, her incredible good looks makes you stop dead in your tracks. You see her once and you’re hooked. How can you not want to check in on her Instagram every single morning?

First impressions matter. I can guarantee you your first impression of seeing pictures of Miss Pajulahti is to be hypnotized by her flawless combination of beauty, muscularity, and etherealness. She’s so physically beautiful she seems almost not real. She’s like a female muscle fan crafted a flesh-and-blood female bodybuilder from scratch and created the Perfect Dream Woman. Minna is that damn gorgeous.

This is how we react. Will others follow and be captivated by her like we are? Maybe, maybe not.

Whether Minna is likely to become a “mainstream” celebrity isn’t the point. Bodybuilders as a whole, even today’s most popular male competitors, are only known to a limited number of people. Guys like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno had what it took to become household names, but this isn’t the 1970s anymore. The sport still exists, but it can’t compete with soccer, basketball, baseball, football, and MMA in terms of widespread popularity. Bodybuilding’s market share isn’t what it used to be.

Minna has fantastic muscle development…

In a previous blog post, I talked about the difficulties of maintaining the so-called “perfect balance” of being a female bodybuilder who can appeal to a wide audience. Miss Pajulahti is someone who comes very close. I personally think she hits the nail on the head, but not everyone will agree with me. That’s perfectly okay. They have every right to be wrong!

But seriously, Minna is striking for being two things at once: She looks like a Baywatch lifeguard while at the same time having the muscle mass of an NFL linebacker. For my non-American readers, I apologize if I can’t come up with a better analogy. Heavyweight boxer, perhaps?

If you follow Minna closely on Instagram – and I highly recommend you do if you don’t already – she does everything you’d expect a beautiful woman on IG to do. She posts selfies, photos of what she eats, her friends, her work life, her accomplishments, inspirational quotes, and shots of herself modeling. The fact she isn’t a world-famous supermodel by now astounds me. But I get it. Women with biceps that large can’t possibly draw interest from the general public.

Or can they?

If given a chance, I have no doubt Minna could shake up the advertising industry. If she were 10-12 years younger (though like I said earlier, she looks a lot younger than she is) and were born and raised in Southern California instead of Finland, perhaps things could be different. If she chose to pursue a sport like MMA or if she became famous for posting viral fitness videos on YouTube, Minna could be a bigger international star than she is right now. Today, Minna is only “famous” to people who pay close attention to the fitness/bodybuilding world. But it didn’t have to be that way.

This “missed opportunity” isn’t necessarily tragic, but it is a bit disappointing. Minna is unquestionably beautiful, feminine, and accomplished. She also has bigger muscles that most people aren’t accustomed to seeing on a woman’s body. I can’t fathom how anyone would be shocked or repulsed by her. She would force you to do a double-take, but that’s not the same thing as wanting to turn away from her because you find her appearance unbearably unpleasant.

…and a gorgeous face to boot!

How can you not help but stare at videos of her deadlifting, squatting, and bench pressing massive amounts of weight? It’s impressive for anyone to be able to powerlift all that, never mind someone who also looks like she could be arm candy for Hugh Hefner (try not to vomit when you think about that). I am not in the least bit surprised that she used to be a cheerleader. She definitely looks the part.

Is Minna a “flawless” female bodybuilder? Well, that depends on how we define flawless. I find no fault in her physique, attitude, professional goals, and accomplishments. Will a diverse array of people, both those who are already sympathetic to muscular women and those who are not, like her in the same way? That remains to be seen. Sadly, we may never have the chance to find out. This is the missed opportunity I am quietly lamenting.

I will not attempt to project where her career goes from here. Will she score a small role in a big studio Hollywood feature film and become a major celebrity hereafter? Probably not. The odds of that kind of good fortune are nearly nonexistent. However, that isn’t totally outside the realm of possibility given the pop culture trends we’re seeing play out today.

Superhero movies are more popular than ever. The sci-fi and fantasy genres are about to take off to new heights. The rebooted Star Trek franchise and reinvigorated Star Wars universe are prime avenues for non-traditional looking performers to hog the spotlight. New episodes of Game of Thrones is starting to become a national holiday. Lots of popular sci-fi/fantasy books and graphic novels are ready for an HBO or Netflix executive to greenlight. Nobody knows what the future will hold.

So it’s not outside the realm of possibility for a sexy, gorgeous muscular woman to score a role in a major TV or film project that will attract millions of eyeballs. I won’t hold my breath for such an occurrence to happen, but it’s not inconceivable. It may not be Miss Pajulahti who lands this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity per se, but it doesn’t have to be.

I cannot bring up Minna Pajulahti as being the flawless female bodybuilder we’ve all been waiting for without giving proper respect to Shannon Courtney, Dani Reardon (despite an unfortunate domestic violence arrest), Sheronica Sade Henton, Beata Antoninas, Lauranda Nall, and other young rising stars. I wouldn’t say Minna is my favorite current FBB, but she’s definitely one who’s effortlessly captured my heart.

We will definitely be experiencing some turbulence during our flight this evening.

This lineup of young female bodybuilders who aren’t afraid to build abnormal levels of muscularity is impressive and encouraging for the future of the sport. It is unreasonable to expect the sport to become as popular as tennis or golf, but it doesn’t have to be. The goal shouldn’t be to find ways to expand the brand of female bodybuilding just for the sake of expansion. The ultimate goal should be to maximize the amount of support these incredible athletes receive so that they can feel emboldened to pursue their dreams.

Who knows? Maybe sometime in the near future someone else will emerge as the much-awaited “savior” of female bodybuilding. Perhaps this hypothetical person will be blessed with supermodel-level beauty, a charismatic personality, top-notch performance talent, intelligence, wisdom, grace, humility, passion, drive, the desire to be great, and an unapologetically hyper muscular frame. She’ll love who she is and will refuse to apologize for her muscles. She’ll be an inspiration, a one-of-a-kind pioneer, and someone who we can truly say revolutionized the way society views strong women.

That day may never come. Or maybe it’s right around the corner. Either way, all we can do is wait and see. This Ultimate Female Bodybuilder may or may never arrive on the scene. This could just be a pipe dream. Regardless, until that day comes, we’ll just have to embrace Minna Pajulahti – and hundreds of women just like her around the globe – with a full heart and an open mind.

You Can’t Please Everybody: The Difficulty a Female Bodybuilder Faces in Maintaining the “Perfect” Balance

Dayana Cadeau may not be able to please everybody, but she can sure please me!

There are some people in this world who need to please others. And not just please them every so often; they have this burning desire to please everybody every time with everything they do.

This, of course, is an impossible task. But that doesn’t stop certain people from trying to do so with all their might.

Call it insecurity. Call it a psychological complex. Call it irrational. Or you can chalk it up to good business sense. Being a bodybuilder isn’t just a lifestyle. It’s a business venture. Like all business ventures, success isn’t guaranteed, nor is the formula for success set in stone permanently. In our ever-changing market of goods and services (which is becoming more internationally-driven as the years go on), what works today won’t work ten years from now; just as what worked ten years ago isn’t the same as what works today.

The same is true for how a female bodybuilder has to promote herself to the public. In decades past, there were more “traditional” routes to how she could achieve financial success. Competitions were still fairly lucrative and endorsement deals were there for the taking. The money in it wasn’t always reliable or plentiful, but you knew where it was if you wanted it.

Today, things are much different. Big, brawny female bodybuilders aren’t given the opportunities they once were. They aren’t becoming extinct by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s hard to imagine the glory years of the 1970s and 80s returning any time soon.

Jill St. Laurent is a true saint in my book.

So here’s the fundamental dilemma: The general public – and whether this assertion if fair or not can be up for debate – tends to gravitate toward people who fit “one size fits all” molds. If we’re talking about strong women, they want these women to fit all these criteria:

Tough, yet approachable
Strong, yet vulnerable
Muscular, yet traditionally feminine
Accomplished, yet still physically beautiful
Intelligent, yet not condescending
Individualistic, yet still marketable
Talented, yet unintimidating
A woman, yet not defined by her gender
Speaks her mind, yet doesn’t ruffle any feathers
Dedicated to her craft, yet still has time to do “woman” things like get married and raise children

These hideous double standards are obviously not felt by the majority of male athletes. Whether the typical sports fan would ever admit this or not, this is how we treat our female athletes. In many cases, they feel this way without even explicitly knowing it! Talk about having certain attitudes ingrained into our psyche from birth.

Nobody can chain down Fabiola Boulanger!

If a female bodybuilder were to be one of those types who needs to please everybody every single time, she’ll go crazy and would tear all her hair out. Thankfully, the vast majority of FBBs are mentally strong and ignore useless nonsense like that. But this illustrates the predicament that comes with the territory of working in the industry. Female bodybuilders cannot possibly please everyone. The so-called “perfect balance” of being someone who can appeal to all audiences is a myth. Not even the most popular celebrities in our society are universally popular with all people. Singers, actors, TV personalities, writers, sports heroes, etc. Everyone has their fair share of critics. This isn’t a reflection of them, however. This is more of a reflection of the diverse tastes, opinions, and aesthetic standards we have available to us.

So how does one survive in a business where appeal is the name of the game? After all, if enough people don’t like your brand, your earning power will quickly diminish. Blockbuster Video no longer exists because Netflix (and, ahem, online pirating) replaced it as the consumer’s top choice for purchasing cinematic entertainment. Therefore, FBBs cannot completely ignore the importance of mass appeal.

What is she to do? There are two routes:

Appeal to as many different audiences as possible
Appeal to a very specific audience and take full advantage of this niche market

One could argue an FBB would best be served if she pursued route #2. Non-bodybuilders like soccer players, tennis players, basketball players, MMA fighters, and prominent fitness celebrities are more likely to find financial success if she dips her toes in route #1. But this could very well be wrong.

To an extent, appealing to a niche audience is what FBBs do currently. In many respects this is their only viable option to staying financially secure in today’s world. This isn’t a criticism of the “Female Bodybuilding Business Model.” This is just an observation of what actually works.

Ever heard of the “80/20 Rule?” Also known as the “Pareto principle,” in the business world it states that in general, 80 percent of your business revenue will come from 20 percent of your customers. If you open up a coffee shop in the middle of a busy downtown business district, your most valuable clients will be the people who buy an iced latte or white chocolate mocha from you five days a week. The spunky happy-go-lucky traveler who’s in town temporarily to visit his in-laws and decides to stop by your establishment only one time isn’t. That guy may be a totally nice person, but his value to your business is limited. Your repeat customers who loyally visit your shop on a consistent basis are way more important in the long-term.

Brandi Mae Akers posing in a sexy see-through dress.

For an entrepreneurial female bodybuilder, she must take heed of the 80/20 Rule. She may not have the largest number of clients available to her, but she can have a smaller group of fans who will follower her to the ends of the Earth. They may be small in size, but their return on investment (ROI) may be significant. One person who will buy tickets to a bodybuilding competition, pay you $500 for a muscle worship session, and purchase customized swag through your website is more valuable than 20 people who know your name but don’t want to have anything to do with you.

This small group of fans will adore you for who you are. They aren’t disgusted by your large size, shrunken breasts, deepened voice, and blunt personality. In fact, they love you because of all those things! Sadly, some FBBs feel like they need to get “smaller” in order to survive in the industry. That’s sad and hopefully they choose to look the way they want to look regardless of what other people think. But the pressure of being an elite athlete who remains unambiguously “feminine” persists whether we like it or not.

However, that doesn’t mean an FBB should be compelled to sell out who she is as a human being in order to earn a steady income. If she wants to squat so much her legs grow to the size of tree trunks, then she has every right to do that. If there are people out there who want her to stop squatting so damn much because she’ll end up “looking like a man,” here’s a pithy comeback for them:

Go fuck yourself.

That’s right! An FBB doesn’t have to be that crude, but she can be if the situation calls for it. The truth is, not everyone in the general population appreciates thick strong legs on a woman. But for those of us who know who Shannon Courtney is, a small but significant portion of us do in fact appreciate the finer things in life. Miss Courtney’s legs are definitely in the category of the “Finer Things in Life,” right up there with 50-year-old scotch whiskey, the cinema of François Truffaut, Lamborghinis, and Thai cuisine.

Shannon Courtney’s legs might be the best illustration of the 80/20 Rule. A vast number of us would appreciate her hard work and provide her a “you go girl!” compliment. A smaller number of us would willingly pay her $300 for the right to touch her legs. I have no idea if Shannon offers these kinds of services, but that’s not the point. If she wanted to, she could make a healthy buck on the side. For many female bodybuilders, they actually make a living wage offering customers the ability to touch their hard-earned bodies.

Shannon Courtney - definitely one of the finer things in life. — Shannon Courtney – definitely one of the finer things in life.

In order to survive in today’s interconnected world, a female bodybuilder doesn’t have to appeal to large audiences. She only has to find a specific niche and saturate that market to the best of her ability. And there is no doubt that such a niche market exists. It may not be obvious or widely talked about, but there are plenty of guys and gals in this world who share a keen interest in muscular women.

These are the people who matter to an FBB. Not the rest who are openly disgusted by her life’s choices. An FBB shouldn’t waste her time trying to please people who don’t already appreciate her beautiful muscles. Trying to convert them will be an exercise in futility. Instead, she should focus her attention on cultivating meaningful relationships with clients who already love her muscles. That will reap much more ROI.

Thankfully, most female bodybuilders are already doing this! This essay isn’t telling them anything they don’t know already. But it can serve as a reminder to the rest of us that living life as an FBB can be arduous, frustrating, and unpredictable. There are outside forces working against you. The deck is not stacked in your favor. But all is not lost. There are avenues to success that are proven to work on a practical level. The challenge is tapping into those avenues and feeling confident, supported, and empowered to do so.

Indeed, you cannot please everybody. This requires either maintaining the (impossible) “perfect balance” that appeals to all audiences … or diluting your product. The first option is impractical and the second option forces you to compromise your integrity. Either one stinks. So your third option is probably your best option: Screw what the masses think and embrace what your dedicated fans think.

And let’s be honest. Not even your most dedicated fans will appreciate everything you do 100 percent of the time. That’s totally fine. But you know they’re in your corner, cheering for you every step of the way. They may not make up large numbers, but their proud loyalty amplifies their voices ten-fold.