Abstract
This chapter explores how bodybuilders and dedicated gym goers negotiate and conceptualise the notion of an idealised muscular and gendered body. Utilising both interview material and discussions presented in an online bodybuilding community, the chapter analyses how the acceptance of certain forms of illicit drug use (steroids and human growth hormones) is discussed and understood as well as how thoughts about the genetic max are contextualised in terms of gender and identity. The chapter explores the dynamic interplay between ‘accepted’ and legitimate bodies and alternative or even ‘deviant’ bodies. For example, many of the bodily appearances constructed in the context of a subcultural bodybuilding community could be regarded as signs of marginalisation in society at large. However, there is a complex and contradictory trend towards the normalisation of the hard-core muscle culture cultivated in the fitness and bodybuilding context, leading to changes in attitudes towards steroids, hyper-bodies and more. To a certain extent, hyper-bodies are gradually becoming normalised and brought into mainstream culture. Over time, bodybuilding culture has moved from being an extreme subculture to being integrated into the mainstream, feeding into contemporary spectacles and gendered ideals, creating a new bodily ethos.
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Andreasson, J., Johansson, T. (2019). Negotiating the Subcultural Body. In: Extreme Sports, Extreme Bodies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97238-1_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97238-1_4
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