Taking on a question considered by many but asked by few, Adam Ragusea recently completed a new project for Slate.com: Has gay panic ruined bodybuilding?
Now, it should first be clear that to ruin something as large as bodybuilding is quite the task. What is at the essence of bodybuilding that is ruin-able? The masculine figures? The understanding that the thoughts that competitor is aesthetic is an entirely different thought than that guy is sexy?
This is where the difficult distinction of bodybuilding arises. What is the difference between having a good physique and being a physically attractive person? From where does a judge derive the ability to distinguish between personal bias regarding attractiveness and objective value of physique? After all, isn't this the cause of much of the outrage involving fake breasts in female bodybuilding and the bent-over gluteal posing in women's bikini? We often like to believe that sexuality plays no roll in these competitions (or the results within), but is this more hope than reality?
Ragusea took on these questions in his article:
“The question is, ‘Whose body would I want to have?’ ” Schwarzenegger said, proposing what he believes should be the ultimate judging criterion but definitely isn’t. “I think that Cedric had such a beautiful body, he was so well-proportioned, that I think he should have placed higher than he did.”
Beautiful? Did he say beautiful?
It’s rare to hear anyone in the insecurely hyper-hetero world of contemporary bodybuilding describe a man’s body as beautiful, though that is ultimately what this “sport” is about. Competitors aren’t judged on their strength (that’s the domain of powerlifting, Olympic lifting, strongman competitions, etc.) but on the appearance of their muscular physiques. It’s a manly beauty pageant that calls itself a sport so the other boys won’t laugh at it.
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Bodybuilding in Arnold’s day was undeniably intertwined with gay culture, and early muscle men like Reeves were gay icons. Now, no one but the most ardent muscle fetishist would want to have sex with the cartoon characters who place at Mr. Olympia or the Arnold Classic. They’ve gone from flesh-and-bone Davids to circus freaks, and it’s a lot safer for an unenlightened meathead to idolize another man for his genetic and gym/drug/diet-fueled freakishness than his beauty.
Straight bodybuilding fans (and I remain one, don’t ask me why) have to do intense mental gymnastics to convince themselves they’re not watching male exotic dancing when they sit through a bodybuilder’s posing routine. That’s a hard thing to do when competitors are expected to turn their backs to the crowd, hike up the bottom of their “posing trunks” to expose their glutes, and show off the striations that occur there when one reaches near-fatal levels of leanness.
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“If you reward the right guys, then everyone will start training to have a beautiful body again,” Schwarzenegger said, again feeling no need to append his comments with the “no homo” qualifier that is so often used on bodybuilding message boards.
What the muscle mag/pill/powder-buying masses will have to ask themselves is: Will you be comfortable that, bro?
You can read the entire article on slate.com.
Bodybuilding is actually gay (sub)culture, it belongs to gay men more than it does to heterosexual men. Since antiquity, men attracted to men have been known for engaging in physical activities (sports, millitary) and for naturally having an appreciation for the male body. It is appropriate to mention that most works of art portraying the male physique are creations of men attracted to men.
Even the father of modern bodybuilding, Eugen Sandow, was bisexual, a man who despite the homophobia of his time, he managed to satisfy his male followers with very homoerotic photography. He was promoted as a sex symbol for women, but he was also a sex symbol for men and he enjoyed it just as much as he enjoyed being one for women. If his time would have allowed him to, he would have most likely be more open about his bisexuality instead of having to be admired by men in more accult ways.
Despite the fact that bodybuilding finds its roots in homosexuality the bodybuilding industry has tried to hide the facts and promote it as a symbol of heterosexuality. It is not a stretch to say that we are talking about cultural appropriation in the case of bodybuilding in that it is clearly a queer activity with queer roots yet heterosexual men have approrpiated bodybuilding trying to omit/erase/ignore its homosexual roots in an attempt to turn it into a symbol of male heterosexuality, ye it fails everytime given that the homoerotic nature of bodybuilding is palpable in every expression of it.
Many bodybuilders are gay and bisexual men, many. It has been so since always and that's expected because the male body is attractive for gay and bisexual men, the object of their interest; not the object of interest for heterosexual men.
This is why I think thinking of bodybuilding as a heterosexual activity or one that stems from heterosexuality is always inaccurate.