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- Will there be more mainstream acceptance?
Given the rise of muscle mommies online, and movies like Love Lies Bleeding, it will move a bit closer to the mainstream. The question is how far it will move.
Will it move closer to mainstream then move back and become more niche? Or will it permanently become more mainstream?
I think it depends where you are. In some countries like South Korea it seems to be far more acceptable than it was. But in the middle east, nothing has changed, and will probably take an eternity for any change.
No. Yes. No. No. No. N/A.
All this has been raised time and time again. Repeating the questions doesn't change the reality.
There is no more acceptance now than in the past. It's extremely niche, because it isn't attainable for most women, living a normal life. It isn't how a woman's body is supposed to be. It isn't how most women want to look. It isn't how most men want women to look.
It's cheating, plain and simple. I've done work for WADA.
My reasoning for your next 3 questions is already given above.
There is no shift at all. I live in the UK where it would be much more acceptable than say Saudi Arabia. There are above 5,000 gyms and fitness centres in the UK. 14% of the UK population has a gym membership. 10% use that membership regularly. Of that 10%, only 14% go to the gym every day. Of that 14%, only 2% train for more than 2 hours a day.
So let's break that down. The UK population is nearly 70 million, so 7 million people go to the gym. 980,000 go to the gym every day. 140,000 train for more than 2 hours a day. Of those at least 50% will be men. So there are 70,000 women in the UK, out of a total population of 70 million people, who go to the gym enough to be able to bodybuild. That's 0.01% of the population. Of those, how many will bodybuild in their 2 hours per day? 50%? 10%? 1%.
The numbers are tiny. Outside of this site, (which currently has 13 people in chat, and never has more than 40) where do you see a Dylan Crenshaw, or Vladislava Galagan? At the bus stop? In a restaurant? In the supermarket? Working in your office? Your neighbour? You just don't, because they are so rare and so niche.
This site gives you all the proof that you need. The pictures are of the same women every day.
No. Yes. No. No. No. N/A.
All this has been raised time and time again. Repeating the questions doesn't change the reality.
There is no more acceptance now than in the past. It's extremely niche, because it isn't attainable for most women, living a normal life. It isn't how a woman's body is supposed to be. It isn't how most women want to look. It isn't how most men want women to look.
It's cheating, plain and simple. I've done work for WADA.
My reasoning for your next 3 questions is already given above.
There is no shift at all. I live in the UK where it would be much more acceptable than say Saudi Arabia. There are above 5,000 gyms and fitness centres in the UK. 14% of the UK population has a gym membership. 10% use that membership regularly. Of that 10%, only 14% go to the gym every day. Of that 14%, only 2% train for more than 2 hours a day.
So let's break that down. The UK population is nearly 70 million, so 7 million people go to the gym. 980,000 go to the gym every day. 140,000 train for more than 2 hours a day. Of those at least 50% will be men. So there are 70,000 women in the UK, out of a total population of 70 million people, who go to the gym enough to be able to bodybuild. That's 0.01% of the population. Of those, how many will bodybuild in their 2 hours per day? 50%? 10%? 1%.
The numbers are tiny. Outside of this site, (which currently has 13 people in chat, and never has more than 40) where do you see a Dylan Crenshaw, or Vladislava Galagan? At the bus stop? In a restaurant? In the supermarket? Working in your office? Your neighbour? You just don't, because they are so rare and so niche.
This site gives you all the proof that you need. The pictures are of the same women every day.
Interesting numbers. In the US, I imagine the numbers are higher since this country is known for bodybuilding. If someone lives in a city, their chances are higher of meeting a bodybuilder. Heck in my residence, it’s crawling with them. My neighbor is a bodybuilder. I can go to a grocery store and find a muscular woman easily. Girls are more encouraged nowadays to accept their athletic bodies because I’ve seen way more jacked girls in the public. It’s increasing but I agree that it will be more of a niche than anything. It is nice to see it more common though
The USA is no different. The US population is about 330 million. 60 million have a gym membership. That's about 18% compared with the UK's 14%.
I've been to the USA often. My brother lives there. It isn't full of bodybuilders. What you do notice is how much fatter the average person is in the US, than the UK, because the portion sizes are much bigger than the UK. The McDonalds Big Mac in the USA has 590 calories. In the UK, it has 493.
People in general are less athletic than ever. Victimhood and vulnerability are badges of honor. The middle class is shrinking. This applies to both sexes. In the 80s/90s gyms were booming and FBBs were on trash TV once a week. Now I can't even be sure if I'm looking at an actual woman. The future looks bleak.
That's untrue. There are many more gyms in the UK now than there were in the 80s/90s. There has been a massive rise in the chain gyms and low cost gyms. More people have a gym membership than ever. What there hasn't been a rise in is muscle gyms, or people going to the gym every day for hours, and bodybuilding. Most people go to the gym twice a week for an hour each time, because they don't have the time to go any more often, even if they wanted to. You cannot bodybuild when you do that.
The USA is no different. The US population is about 330 million. 60 million have a gym membership. That's about 18% compared with the UK's 14%.
I've been to the USA often. My brother lives there. It isn't full of bodybuilders. What you do notice is how much fatter the average person is in the US, than the UK, because the portion sizes are much bigger than the UK. The McDonalds Big Mac in the USA has 590 calories. In the UK, it has 493.
Hmm I understand your point, but I believe our talking points aren’t aligned. The OP mentioned muscular women not bodybuilders. There are more muscular women that don’t compete in bodybuilding. I believe what you are referring to is the obese pandemic because that issue is a global problem in developed countries and that is its own separate topic. Again I agree with that, but what I have found more available is the degree of acceptance of a woman choosing to become stronger and more muscular. The media is displaying stronger women more often and that doesn’t mean bodybuilding because the two are not mutually exclusive.
Will there be more mainstream acceptance?
I think a little bit more than today but it will not be very mainstream
Will there be more pressure to reject athlete participation who clearly use PED's in pro sports? (bodybuilding, crossfit, Olympics, team sports, etc.)
No I think there will be more steroids and more advanced ones and they will make them legal in more countries too Will we see more of them in movies/TV? And even there, will they have more prominent roles outside of the typical comedy or super niche arthouse studio production?
Maybe but I think it will come in waves and there will be periods with a lot of female muscle in movies and periods were it's rare
Will they be among the most popular social influencers/content creators?
I think there will be a few very mainstream fbbs that will be famous but it won't be common
Is popular culture shifting toward not only acceptance, but preference toward more muscular women?
I think people are now more honest about their preferences so it seems like there are more now in the past people only shared this stuff with their best friends If it exists, how fast is the shift happening? Is it even noticeable?
There is a shift but I think it's just because of technology giving non mainstream things more attention and allowing us to find like minded people around the world
The society is diverging. There are more very muscular girls (and guys) today than it has ever been. There are also more "weak muscled" blue and pink haired people than there has ever been, and probably more lazy people in general than there has ever been. So depending on what realm you are talking from you can argue that muscle women are getting more, or muscle women are getting fewer.
As a youth in the 90's gyms were not nearly as common as today, and the fitness industry aimed towards women were those training videos you've seen from that era, with pink 1 or 2 lbs dumbbells and those colorful tight training outfit that was popular back then.
I was subscribing to a muscle magazine called B&K Sports Magazine where Mollica (who looked nothing like she was going to look a few years later after moving to the US) had a nutrition column. In the 90's (and earlier) the difference between the really muscular women, who were extremely few, and the normal fit training girls was a world apart. Today the gap have been filled by muscle girls on the whole spectrum. So even though the girls at the top are more muscular today then back then it's not as special being that muscular today as it was being a top muscular girl back then.
I think this trend is continuing. However I'm still baffeled by the fact that so many girls are willing to potentially sacrifice so much of looks; their face, their voice, hairline and overall health for more muscles, which they are doing when using PED's. I'll probably never understand that. Training without using PED's is a good thing for everyone though.
To answer your questions:
*yes. There is definitely more mainstream acceptance of women in the weight room as a whole, and more women than ever before are into lifting. That being said (hence the asterisk), I feel like a lot of "schmoes" (for lack of a better term) imagine that this will result in a mass uptick of muscular and ripped women looking like the ladies we see here, and I doubt that will be the case. There will be a lot more "fit" women, but the number of women who look like a "GWM" (of the type that we see here) will still be in the vast minority, especially given that PED use is pretty much required to look like that, and women are by and large more hesitant to jump on them than men.
No, and that's because the public as a whole is very ignorant on how prevalent PED use is among sports. As a CrossFitter, I can tell you that PED use is pretty rampant even amongst athletes who will only be competitive at a local level. And even if the public as a whole is more aware of PEDs in elite competitions, I doubt there will be much encouragement from them to get off them simply because people like seeing freak performances.
Maybe but probably not. Muscular men will still be continued an accepted norm in Hollywood and popular TV productions, but I think truly muscular women will still be seen as a novelty.
Probably not. While there are muscular women influencers with large followings, if you have ever seen popular male fitness influencers, they tend to have much larger follower numbers than the women. Women like LeanBeefPatty are the exception, not the norm.
No. It's still a niche preference among a minority of men.
Also no
This isn't the first time I have heard the "is there a culture shift happening?" question before in the 2+ decades I have been into this. I think we forget just how small and niche of a demographic we are, and while it is something that is going to increase, it's still going to be at a miniscule level proportionate to the rest of the world.
There are more women in the gym now but where I live (Austria) I rarely see a buff one. In my gym there is exactly one woman who could be called "big" in comparison to an average man. That's kinda depressing if you have this fetish... I think we would see much more big muscle girls if the "woke" movement/ideology (which I don't like) would embrace female bodybuilding as a form of female empowerment. But instead they are hyping up the "body positivity" nonsense...
I talked to a female fitness competitor at the Arnold sports festival. She competes in Bikini. We talked a bit about girlswithmuscle and just in general how popular higher levels of muscularity are. She sees it differently than me. She thinks the number of guys that like extremely muscular women is rare still.
I talked to a female fitness competitor at the Arnold sports festival. She competes in Bikini. We talked a bit about girlswithmuscle and just in general how popular higher levels of muscularity are. She sees it differently than me. She thinks the number of guys that like extremely muscular women is rare still.
Exactly! Acceptance and attractiveness are two different things. It seems that women getting in shape has an increase of acceptance, but the amount of guys that are attracted them is more likely consistently leveled out. As much as I’m attracted to muscular women, I understand that female bodybuilders isn’t everyone’s cup of tea whereas you’re average milf who works out will be more attractive to a general audience.
Here in Belgium muscular women are very rare and most people don't like them and nothing has changed in at least 20 years we have an obsession with bycicles( how do you spell this). so you see some women with nice calves but they don't even like having big calves it's strange. this country is progressive about many things but when it comes to other things (like media). we are permanently stuck in the year 2000
I think if they put the Olympia on Netflix, it could attract new fans.
I remember years ago in the early 90's TSN broadcast the Ms.O a few times. It was reported that they had never received so many complaints about a program ever. Then I found that FBB disappeared except for the odd music video. Strangely enough I find there's reference to it in cartoons all the time so maybe they're conditioning the next generation? I have however seen coverage several times in the last week for Love Lies Bleeding in mainstream press. The girl in the movie is lightly muscled so maybe more people are ready for it now.
I'd like this to be a productive think-thread. Please give your honest, well-thought out opinions on what you think the future of female muscle will be.
Some questions to consider:
You don't have to answer any of these if you don't want to. These are just examples to get the gears turning.