[cpbell0033944]

Then if that's the case should I lock the thread and have it sealed with an uberbuffed, uberbabe's kiss?  ;D

Pretty please! ;D 8)

[cpbell0033944]

Could it have been better timed?
Just as I started pulling out of my blue funk and decided that things weren't so bad after all, I found this:

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/news/local/article_1628651.php

and my spirits soared.
Women CAN look good and be buff.
Thanks for your support, guys, looks like you won't be seeing the back of me just yet! ;D

P.S. The brainless comments helped reinforce my conviction as well.

[cpbell0033944]

Could it have been better timed?
Just as I started pulling out of my blue funk and decided that things weren't so bad after all, I found this:

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/news/local/article_1628651.php

and my spirits soared.
Women CAN look good and be buff.
Thanks for your support, guys, looks like you won't be seeing the back of me just yet! ;D

[cpbell0033944]

Nope, single, and, as I explained, living with my parents.

[cpbell0033944]

And me!

[cpbell0033944]

I'm glad I opted for the "I'm not an artist, but I think it should be done" option in the original poll now!

[cpbell0033944]

P.S. (and ironically this is a landmark post for me – the 350th) I've just found an old thread that I've never read before which I think answers some of the things I mentioned in my previous post.  This from Lingster caught my eye:

I have a lot of issues with competitive bodybuilding.  I think the competitions are rigged and I think competitors are generally taken advantage of by the media companies, equipment manufacturers and the supplement companies.  They'll trot out a beautiful, god-like physique for a year or two to push product, until the owner starts to fall apart physically or emotionally, and then replace it with a new one.

Many competitors are motivated by the wrong reasons, more than a few become obsessed with increase in strength, muscle mass or improvements in appearance in a futile hope of overcoming personal issues with feelings of inadequacy.  But the nature of bodybuilding as therapy is that it tends to worsen rather than improve personality flaws – unlike a lot of other sports bodybuilding tends to encourage narcissism and self-absorption.  In bodybuilding, male and female, the most fragile egos are almost inevitably clad in the most outrageously muscular physiques – hugely muscled titans on the outside, puny 90 pound weaklings on the inside. 

The odds of serious injuries, health problems and premature mortality are high.  Bodymass beyond a certain level is a strain on the circulatory system.  High calorie and high protein diets accelerate cellular ascent to the Hayflick Limit, which usually accelerates aging and death.  Crash dieting and extremely low bodyfat do all sorts of bad things to men, and it's even more of a strain on women.  Also, everything authoritative I've ever read on lifting concludes that doing it more than three times a week is a recipe for serious repetitive stress injury, but competitors are expected to do at least that.

The whole thing is rigged top to bottom and the competitors, male and female, rarely come out ahead.  For every Monica Brant there are over a thousand women who suffer a financial net loss or a long-term injury.  But some do come out ahead. 

I love the look of a strong woman, but I regard competitive bodybuilders and other physique competitors as the moral equivalent of veal calves.

I was also struck by this, from gblock01, who's already given wise words in this thread:

With all of the responses to this topic, I can't really add much either. The most that I can do is to repeat what everyone else is saying. I caught part of the Supersize She documentary, and I found it as slanted as the documentary/movie Supersize Me. It showed many of the unhealthy aspects of FBB competitions, but it failed to mention that similar things take place in body building competitions for guys. It also showed that the women looked more like men with breasts due to the massive amounts of steroids that they have taken. Needless to say, this paints a rather negative picture of FBB's. It's true that the hormone testosterone is essential for building muscle, but you don't need to be pumped full of it to get massive. Every human has some level of testosterone in their body, and some (particularly men) have more than others. More testosterone just means that the body builds the muscle faster. Ironically, once you stop taking steriods, your body, to compensate for the sudden surge of hormones, releases other chemicals that wear away the muscle that was gained and usually causes the individual to swell up like a balloon with fatty tissue. It's this shortcut that seems to cause some of the worst problems. The next is the idea that a bodybuilder needs to have as low body fat as possible. If you have low bodyfat, then your muscles look more defined. That is perfectly logical. However, that logic is severely one-sided. Despite what the general public seems to think, your body needs to have some fat on it. There are a number of reasons, the formost is that the fat cushions your body's internal organs. The muscles protect it anyway, but if you get in a car wreck, and you have low body fat, and your a steroid-laden BB, and you tense your muscles, then you are basically asking to have your organs rammed into a wall and have a higher chance of having internal bleeding (pardon the run-on and the inaccurate example). Another problem with this is that your body is metabolizing food constantly. If you have no fat reserves, in addition to to hormonal problems that arise, you would have to eat constantly to keep your body from metabolizing itself. When this happens, the muscles (ironically) go first. Then we get to the aforementioned hormonal imbalances. At first they don't seem that big of a deal, but they can cause some serious problems if they persist. The loss of the menstral cycle in women is particularly bad.

I'm heartened that others are also sceptical about the benefits of steroids for female bodybuilders, and I'm intrigued by the suggestion that steroids do little to increase the size of a woman's muscles, but DO increase therate of growth.  It certaoinly explains why ladies such as Candy C, Gina D and Cindy P can build huge arm muscles whilst showing few, if any signs of steroid use.

[cpbell0033944]

Right, here goes, this is the looong post I warned you about (and thanks to Alex for your very touching words).
First off, as regards this quote from The_Collector_2:

If you're paranoid about your family finding out that you like muscular women, then clearly you have not come to terms with your love for muscles on a woman.

he's dead right.  I still can't accept it without having doubts.  I nearly did this about a month or so ago, and only just convinced myself not to.

In reply to The_Collector_2, and gblock01; yes, I'm aware of the hazards of suppressing such things, and I'm sure that, if I do, they will resurface sooner or later.  It's just that right now is NOT a good time family-wise for this to come-out – in a couple of years or so things may well be different, but we're dealing with a few problems at the moment that would make it twice as hard to add this to the mix.

There are many reasons that are whirling-around my head at the present time, but many of them seem to revolve around one issue in particular:  the balance between muscularity and femininity, particularly with regard to facial appearance. There are certain FBBs that are highly thought-of, both here and elsewhere (particularly on the GeneX forum) that, a couple of months or so ago I could enjoy for their physiques without the issue of facial attractiveness getting in the way, whereas now it does.  When I say facial attractiveness, I DO NOT mean how beautiful they are inherently; rather, I mean the effects of anabolic steroids/GH/whatever on their appearance – the squared jawline, the altered face shape, the skin, the voice, the hairline etc.  I still am (thanks to the fact that I like to kid myself that I'm quite pro-feminist) deeply respectful of their dedication, sheer hard work and of the fact that I believe that they alone have the right and power to do with their bodies as they decide (other than in the case of medical intervention), but as far as finding them sexy or drooling over them, sorry, I can't.
Yet, on the GeneX forum, one member started a thread with something like these words: "Forget the dreaded 'femininity', what about ripped, freaky, vascular, huge, sexy muscle?"  Now, I like BIG as much as anybody (Gina Davis and Nikki Fuller remain favourites of mine, and they're hardly small), but it's the 'Who cares about femininity?' philosophy that troubles me: I BLOODY WELL CARE, but stuff like that makes me feel that I'm not a genuine femuscle fan unless I find women like a certain FBB who appears on Howard Stern's show a lot to be beautiful.  I'm probably, like the rest of us here, less hung-up on facial appearance than most men you'd find, but I just can't find somebody with a steroid-affected face and a voice deeper than my own to be sexy – it's just a turn-off for me.
Other things have affected my feelings too.  Another thread in the same forum was prompted by a member writing that, on visiting one of the shows when competitors have stands so they can sign t-shirts, programmes etc., he tried to introduce himself to some of the competitors in as unthreatening and friendly way as he could, and was either ignored or lashed-out at.  He claims that one FBB, on finding-out that he wasn't interested in a wrestling session, (and therefore wasn't a possible cash cow for her) started shouting and swearing at him.  He then claims that the Fitness/Figure competitors were much more amenable.  Is this representative of FBBs as a group, in the experience of those that have had dealings with bodybuilders?  If it is, then it does spoil things IMHO because aloofness and arrogance are two of the human traits I most despise.
This brings me into the seedier side of things, as I feared might have been shown on the Channel 5 programme about muscle worship last night.  I received a kind PM from one Amaz0ns member this morning reassuring me that the programme-makers were reasonable and fair in their portrayal of both FBB and fans, but it only serves to re-ignite a deep unease I have with both the subject as a whole and my personal attraction to female muscle.  Does the fact that I would, if were able-bodied, jump at the chance to meet an FBB such as those that you good people know I like for muscle worship mean that I'm no better than those grimy types that pick-up prostitutes?  Am I a deviant, immoral, bizarre, mentally ill?  These are the questions I find myself asking.  Shouldn't I just be attracted to a pretty face, soft, slightly curvy body and nice breasts as most men are?  Is that the biologically and socially accepted form of attraction, whilst femuscle is perverting both biology and society?  I am attracted to the soft and slightly curvy figure as well (I think that Amy Lee of Evanescence is gorgeous, both physically and because of her apparent intelligence and personality), but I often find myself thinking that such women would be even hotter with 10 –15 pounds or so of muscle in the 'right places'.  I know it's not 'normal', and, after a lifetime of having distinctive tastes and ploughing my own furrow, that doesn't bother me, but there's a difference between 'normal' and 'immoral', 'deviant', or 'freaky', and I fear that this has crossed-over into that frightening territory.

[cpbell0033944]

Ah, yes, Norfolk was a county.  In the U.S., Norfolk is the home port for a good chunk of the U.S. Navy, not far from the original Jamestown fort.

Next month is the 400th anniversary of the successful English settlement of North America at Jamestown, btw.  Queen's comin' over; big hullabaloo.

Yes, and there was an article on our local TV news about some legal documents held hereabouts that were written-up as a draft constitiution for the settlememt by an English guy who based them on the Magna Carta.  They're going to donate them to the Jamestown museum.

[cpbell0033944]

Thank-you to all for your thoughtful, kind and considered comments.  I am sorry that my reply to Titaneer last night was as short as it was – I didn't have the time to thank you or reply properly.
I'll be writing a fairly epic-length post during today explaining my predicament in more detail, but what you've written so far is definetly food for thought.  I am feeling much more positive this morning than I was last night though; sleeping on one's problems does seem to help.

BTW – my situation with regards family is a little more tricky than most, as my parents are effectively my carers as well as parents, if you see what I mean.  My disability isn't that chronic or anything, but while I'm chasing postgraduate stdy options and the like, I can't really also think about leaving home.  To be honest, I really don't want to just yet for a myriad of reasons, but partly because my father and I, with help from a good friend, are building a model railway layout (model railroad for US members), and I wouldn't want to miss out on that – it's one of my two main pastimes (that and Formula 1 motorsport).

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