ABSTRACT
Chapter 14 summarizes the book’s various discussions and offers general conclusions. The book’s chapters have demonstrated that a person’s decision to use anabolic steroids can be embedded in a wide variety of circumstances and be expressed in many different ways. These various motives and ambitions do, however, share general traits, and there are common denominators among steroid users that are psychological, social and cultural in nature. One important feature is that the activity of working with one’s muscles is part of the male domain. Linking muscle-power to a person’s masculine status in this way may seem like a throwback to an earlier, premodern stage in human evolution. Yet, when such a seemingly anachronistic phenomenon has found its way into the mainstream of our world through the cracks in our rational thinking, we can only do it justice by taking it seriously. Otherwise, we cannot appreciate why Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his 1975 incarnation, still personifies the perfect body for many serious workout enthusiasts.
