ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at drug use as crucial in producing the extreme, highly technologized, freaky body aesthetic that has been dominant in the culture during its late period, and has particularly intensified since the mid-90s. Drug use is a recurring feature in representations of the culture from the 'outside.' A profiling of bodybuilding as monstrous in the negative sense is typically based on this most contentious of practices, and is understood inside the culture as malignant stereotyping. By situating the debate in a post-1990 USA climate of anxiety over performance enhancement, and anabolic steroids in particular, the chapter shows how drug use has been an important factor in shaping a sense of an inside in opposition to a 'misinformed' and 'hostile' outside. Through a dominant competition model that renders drug use a practical necessity, the field of elite practice becomes the showcase for a whole culture of experimentation and performance enhancement.
