ABSTRACT
In the last chapter I explored not only the lifestyle and motivations of female bodybuilders, but also how they managed to maintain a positive sense of self in such a gendered and hostile world. This chapter follows on from that theme to explore, through a more empirical and ‘fleshed-out account’, the most deviant, yet underexplored, aspects of female bodybuilding. The first part of the chapter reveals the vocabularies of motive for, and provides accounts of, female bodybuilding muscle worship activities through the voices of the participants themselves. These narratives expose the complexity of the situation, which fits neither femininity’s ‘resistance’ nor ‘recuperation’. In the second part of the chapter, the phenomenology of drug taking (particularly steroids) is explored, focusing on how female bodybuilders maintain their sense of identity as female in light of the masculinizing effects of the drugs.
