This transformation is demonstrated clearly by Christine (a bodybuilder of five years) who felt considerably ‘better’ and energized after she had trained: I had a really crap day at work today… before I started to train I was feeling tired and pissed off. But surprisingly, I had a really good session… got an amazing pump in my delts [shoulders], normally do shoulder press [dumbbells] with 20 kg, but today I did to 24 kg [in each hand] – so really chuffed with that.
These ‘incarnations’ occur through an undivided focus on the body. As Rachel (a bodybuilder of two years) comments: ‘training time is me time. I can just forget about my worries… focus on my body and how it moves’. Similarly, for Debbie (a bodybuilder of seven and a half years) bodybuilding ‘releases a lot of stress and tension and stuff, it makes me feel more relaxed… a place to release my emotions… it’s my world for an hour or two’. Hence, immersion in the process of lifting allows these women to escape from everyday life. Furthermore, it provides a cathartic action, enabling these women to ‘unleash any internal anguish, stress, anger and numbness. Thoughts and worries that overwhelm me are pushed aside…
I live and breathe for the moment’ (Anna, bodybuilder of five years; see also Kaye
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2005: 8). After the endorphin high, my participants articulated a sense of cathartic peace and liberation as a result of letting go of negative feelings and excess energy (Crossley 2006b: 39). In this way the workout not only enables a transformation of bodily sensation, but transfigures emotions.
Immediately after a hardcore training session (such as ‘legs’), the bodybuilder experiences temporary partial disability in the worked muscle groups.
When I asked Rachel to explain how she felt after completing her workout, she replied:
Physically my legs feel heavy, swollen and grounded. It’s difficult to walk.
Every step feels like I’m walking through a bog. My calves feel really tight…
My body’s crying out for rest, yet I’m perversely looking forward to tomor-row’s workout already… I feel a bit nauseous and yet peaceful, invigorated yet exhausted.
Samantha (a bodybuilder of three years) provides a similar narrative: ‘Post workout… my body feels strange, almost sick, but at the same time everything appears heightened, I feel euphoric’. Mary (a bodybuilder of 12 years) also sees these sensations as things to be enjoyed and embraced, even when they leave her so tired and stiff that she is ‘unable to walk down the gym stairs’. There is also a puritanical satisfaction in being able to overcome the pain and push the body beyond what is considered possible. This is captured in the comments made by Corina and Michelle:
There’s some part of me that enjoys it [the pain]. The pain makes me feel as though I’ve achieved something, pushed my body to the next level.
(Corina, bodybuilder of four years)
Great session! Totally trashed legs, two hours before they stopped shaking.
(mobile phone text message received from Michelle,
bodybuilder of five years)
Post-workout DOMS is welcomed by female bodybuilders as an instrumental pain, signifying a ‘good workout’, which has successfully torn and broken down muscle fibres. After an intense weights session, the targeted muscles will start to feel sore between 12 and 48 hours after the workout; the pain can last between 24
hours and one week, depending on the severity of the muscle damage. Feelings such as tightness, heaviness and tenderness make everyday exercises such as bending down, getting up and walking downstairs temporarily difficult. Due to the swelling and soreness in them, muscles feel ‘worked’ and ‘larger’ than they actually are, again creating a sense of satisfaction. As Emma (a bodybuilder of 19 years) explains, pleasure is found for these women in being ‘able to conquer the pain, to feel invincible’ and to feel in control of their bodies and lives. Carol, a female weight-trainer who participated in Tate’s (1999: 38) research, illustrates these findings more ecstatically:
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Yeah it’s like the dips. I do love them. Oh I used to hate them. I used to hate them because of the pain. They just killed my triceps and pecs. But oh, it’s beautiful, absolutely beautiful.
In this way the hurt and discomfort of working to ‘muscle exhaustion’, ‘muscle failure’ or to ‘the max’ is seen by female bodybuilders as ‘beautiful, pleasurable and satisfying’ (Tate 1999: 38). The pain that comes with pushing their body to its limits is perceived by these women as ‘perversely’ enjoyable. Female bodybuilders consequently seek out and engage with discomfort and fatigue as a way of transforming it into an experience to be welcomed (see also Crossley 2004: 55).
Male bodybuilders are not radically different from their female counterparts in this respect or, indeed, in some of the phenomenological changes they undergo in the gym (Paris 1997; Monaghan 2001). The contrast for women is arguably far greater, however, given the social ostracism they risk in the wider interaction order as a result of their more radical transgression of gender norms and the distance between their experiences and conventional modes of feminine being (Young 1990).
Erotics of the gym: new bodies, new pleasures?
The ‘erotics of the gym’ have been documented in some detail by sociologists such as Klein (1993), Mansfield and McGinn (1993), Wacquant (1995), Monaghan (2001) and Crossley (2006b). In Klein’s first visit to a hardcore gym, he describes the erotic charge that seems to emanate throughout the place:
The whole place seemed caught up in one large orgasm, and in the first encounter I did not want to be the dreaded interruption of this erotic scene, between humans, mirrors and metal.
(Klein 1993: 21)
The weights section has been portrayed as an area of hypermasculinity: as a mass of heaving male bodies, an orgy of engorged muscles, throbbing veins, constricted breathing, exposed flesh and physical interaction (through spotting, correction and so on). ‘The pump’ has been also famously been equated with sexual pleasure: It’s as satisfying for me as coming is, you know, as having sex with a woman and coming. So can you believe how much I am in heaven?’
(Arnold Schwarzenegger, cited in Wacquant 1995: 176).
Muscles, synonymous with the male, are imbued with sexual metaphors: hard, penetrating, erect, swollen and phallic (see Lingis 1988).
Interestingly, despite – or because of – the pornographic representation of female bodybuilders, very little has been written about the erotic experiences of women in the gym. However, for some female bodybuilders, such as Joanna Frueh (2001) and her friends, the euphoria resulting from the ‘bodybuilding high’
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extends to a feeling of erotic potency, as illustrated by the following comments: ‘I catch myself swaggering to the drinking fountain, radiating sex’ and ‘I feel horni-est when I’m working out’ (Frueh, 2001: 71). Likewise Natalie Gassel (1997: 4), in her autobiographical writings, explicitly describes the personal connection she makes between muscle and eroticism:
With a dumbbell in each hand, I flex my arms, alternating, so that my balls of muscle burst out, harder, more congested. My blood rises. My strength asserts its power. My fingers tighten around the cold metal of the weight.
My muscles become rigid, never losing the oily fluidity which I want to feel gushing into my muscles. I strain to lift once more. More swelling, capacity, bulk. My skin tightens. My power bursts. An orgy of sensations. I am in ecstasy. Radiance, a mass of fleshy, strong muscle tissue.
Whilst only one of the interviewees confessed that she was close to orgasm whilst performing leg extensions, several ‘knew of someone else’ who ‘got off on weight training’. Another female bodybuilder admitted that she found both herself and others more attractive when she trained. The intimate dyadic relationship and bond between two people as they train can lead to a form of ‘primary intensity’ (Rich 1980). As Michelle (a bodybuilder of five years) explains, it can be an erotic experience due to ‘the very physical natu
re of what you are doing – paying close attention to another person’s body whilst they are sweating and breathing hard’. Irrespective of whether female bodybuilders used sexual terminology to describe their erotic relationships or experiences, all participants expressed a deep pleasure in and stimulation from the sensual act of corporeal transformation.
It can be seen, then, that ‘the gym has been and continues to be a pleasure zone that provides challenge [and] sensual transformation’ (Frueh 2001: 81) – descriptors that resonate strongly with Monaghan’s (2001) comments on the sensuality and eroticism of the gym, but provide an interesting contrast to Crossley’s (2006b: 38) identification of sexual motivations for gym use. Whilst, as Crossley claims, some gym users’ motivation may be to meet attractive others, the sensuality discussed here can generally be seen as a form of auto-eroticism in which female bodybuilders are revelling in the experience of their own flesh. In a society in which women’s breasts and legs are fetishized by men (Saul 2003), female bodybuilders subvert heterosexual norms by choosing to eroticize and take pleasure in the creation and physical sensations of their own muscles. This self-inscription, like other body modifiers, might therefore lead to a ‘re-mapping and extension of the body’s “erotogenic sensitivity”’ (Grosz 1994: 139). This allows these women to explore their bodies and sexuality by ‘taking on a pleasure of a different order…
[to] reclaim, re-use, and re-intensify, body parts, zones, and functions that have been phallicly disinvested’ (Grosz 1994: 201). In this way, female bodybuilders potentially transgress hegenomic notions of sexuality and challenge the ‘phallic economy of desire’ (Sweetman 1999b: 201).
Furthermore, for feminists such as Lorde (1984), Cixous (1991a, b) and Frueh (2001), erotic experiences such as those described by female bodybuilders
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are of vital importance to women’s liberation. As Lorde (1984: 282) explains:
‘Recognising the power of the erotic within our lives can give us the energy to pursue genuine change within our world’. From a more essentialist feminist perspective, Lorde perceives the erotic as spiritual; ‘as an assertion of the life-force of women; of that creative energy empowered…’. She believes that eroticism, in its truest form, is about ‘power’, ‘honour’, ‘self-respect’, ‘satisfaction’ and ‘completion’ (ibid.: 278–9). In this way Lorde’s work ironically provides the possibility of creating a ‘true form’ of female bodybuilding by rewriting the erotic, by challenging the very core of bodybuilding, which relies upon a masculine identity and way of being. Although Lorde’s theory is not explicitly linked to activities such as bodybuilding, her work (albeit from a radical/essentialist feminist perspective) provides us with an alternative interpretation that bears similarities to the third-wave activism of bodybuilding that Heywood convincingly
advocates (see Chapter 4). As Lorde (1984: 281) expresses: In touch with the erotic, I become less willing to accept powerlessness, or those other supplied states of being which are not native to me, such as resignation, despair, self-effacement, depression, self-denial.
It is this focus on self-love, joy and sensuality that is captured in the following quote by Monica (a bodybuilder of two years) as she tries to articulate her feelings immediately following a bicep workout:
My biceps are normally 13.5 inches, but when I flex and train them – by getting a pump in my biceps, they swell to just over 15 inches… as I was contracting my biceps the veins were visible. My arms looked strong – I felt strong and I felt good… It felt like I was doing something purely for my own pleasure… enjoying the sensation of the blood flowing through my arms.
Feeling alive, feeling empowered, enriched… with all the positive endorphins flooding through my nervous system… and I felt almost – not attracted to myself exactly but just appreciating my body for what it is, just being…
fascinated by it I guess … what it can do.
Frueh (2001: 24–5) perceives the ‘erotic’ as a positive and pleasurable connection which takes individuals beyond themselves in a sensuous, intimate and emotional experience of unique meaning. For Frueh, this definition stands in stark contrast to the ‘body of pain’ and ‘erotics of pain’ which she claims to be prevalent in society.
She believes that the ‘beauty idol’ is one example of that body and suffering, one which causes a ‘strange erotics, an erotics estrangement from the pleasure of increase and expansion’. In this context, Frueh argues that the phenomenological delights that take place in the gym can revitalise the passions and release ‘an exuberance of life’ (Bataille 2006 [1957]: 179) that has been suppressed in patriarchal capitalist society. Within this interpretation, the eroticism experienced by these women in the gym translates as ‘an embodied creative power’ that not only provides them with a ‘flight from rationalized society’, but also provides
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‘a key to meaningful existence’ (Shilling and Mellor 2010: 2, 9). The ‘erotics of the gym’ can, at least in part, help to explain the motivations and identity of female bodybuilders, allowing these women to find meaning by experiencing their lives as invested with the force of strong, existentially significant, overwhelming emotion (ibid.).
Conclusion
My findings suggest that whilst many female bodybuilders did indeed embrace both the hypermasculine attitude towards pain and the satisfaction of being able to conquer it, there are alternative interpretations of these actions to those put forward by critical feminist and sports psychologists who see them simply as a pathological manifestation of self-hatred and inferiority. Instead, as Monaghan (2001) and Crossley (2006b) suggest (in their comparative studies on male bodybuilders and circuit trainers), traditional understandings of pain exist within, yet are also subverted by, the centre of the subculture itself. Thus female bodybuilders reworked the meanings and physical sensations of ‘pain’, so that they became pleasurable, enjoyable and desirable. The women cited feelings of ‘heightened awareness’, ‘euphoria’, ‘flow’, ‘release’, ‘erotic intensity’ and gratification. In this context it is hardly surprising that female bodybuilders wish to dwell in the gym for as long as possible, in order to savour and relish these sensations.
Furthermore, it is the actual experiences, feelings, emotions and intimate accounts of the bodybuilding process articulated by the female bodybuilders themselves which help to explain their commitment to a muscular order. The ethnographic findings in this research oppose the argument made by critical feminists such as Bordo (1988: 98) that bodybuilding is an ascetic act lacking sensuality: ‘preoccupied with the body and deriving narcissistic enjoyment from its appearance… [with] little pleasure in the experience of embodiment’. Indeed, the pain
‘of the actual process of bodybuilding’ and its ‘subjective and corporeal effects are central rather than peripheral to the experiences and motivations of many contemporary body modifiers’ (Sweetman 1999c: 205). This substantiates the importance of focusing on the ‘lived reality’ of such practices, rather than simply the text or outer appearance (Featherstone 1991: 171; Radley 1991: 112–3).
So far in this book, I have investigated the daily lifestyle of the female bodybuilder, exploring her interactions and experiences both outside (Chapters 5
and 6) and inside the gym (Chapters 7 and 8). The present situation, in terms of bodybuilding’s potential to ‘empower’ women, appears complex. However, a final assessment cannot be made until the most extreme and important moment in the bodybuilding calendar is explored – competition time.
9 Competitions
A heroic journey
I’VE DEDICATED MY ENTIRE LIFE TO BUILDING UP MY BODY
THROUGH HARD WORK, PAIN, HUNGER AND DESIRE. EVERY
SINGLE DAY REQUIRES SACRIFICE. The moment of truth… The time has arrived… Your heart is racing. Your veins are throbbing with carb-loaded blood. The hot lights are blinding you and all you can hear is one voice barking out orders as if you were in a prison line-u
p. ‘Quarter turn to the right, quarter turn to the right, quarter turn to the right, face the front’… All the diet, cardio, and busting your ass on the iron for weeks on end. All for that brief window of time to show what you’ve got on stage. You might ask yourself,
“Is it all worth it?” If you have to ask, it just might not be. This is bodybuilding. This is our world, our stage, our time to shine, and our moment of truth.
This is what makes a bodybuilder – the stage, diet, cardio, the selfishness of body over life. Any gym rat can hit the weights hard and get big with eating and skipping the 4:00 am cardio sessions. But it takes a true bodybuilder to cut down and step into the light.
(http://my.opera.com/mbodybuilding/blog, accessed 4 August 2009
[italics added])
Previous chapters have explored the daily lifestyle and experiences of female bodybuilders, both inside and outside the gym. This exploration has revealed the ways in which female bodybuilders manage to develop and maintain a viable sense of self, despite being stigmatized by the gendered foundations of the
‘interaction order’ (Goffman 1983). In this chapter, I turn to the most important part of all in the life of the female bodybuilder – the competition, an event that deals with the culmination of their ambitions and ‘sets the seal’ on these women’s identities. Critical feminists have argued that competitions are the most detrimental aspect of female bodybuilding. This chapter questions this stance by following the lived experiences of Michelle (a bodybuilder of five years) as she journeys from the start of her preparation to competition, to that moment
of climax.1
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The competition as the ‘holy grail’ of bodybuilding
The competition is the most important day in the bodybuilding calendar. It is perceived as the pinnacle of bodybuilding, where the profane daily struggle of hard work, dedication and sacrifice (both inside and outside the gym) culminates in a unique sacred moment. It is a time to be recognized, a time to stand out from the ordinary; to ‘be above the masses, different, a star’ (Heywood 1998: 171). This is supported by Amy (a bodybuilder of four years) in the following quote:
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