ehsan gill

originally written up a LONG time ago this is the start of yet another paper which i will never finish

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Embodying masculinity

Much has been written about the specialised arena sport of professional bodybuilding and psychological perspectives of self-objectification. However, very little of this research articulates the proliferation of ‘bodybuilding practices’ as a lifestyle endeavor connected to mainstream readings of health and vitality. The purpose of this writing is to better understand the implication of bodybuilding practice to embodied manifestations of masculinity in Western contexts. Such practice and its reconfiguration of the body plays out many social structures vital to understanding the changing role of gender for male bodies in the first world. My intention is to tease out some of the core traits of the practice and how it manifests masculinity in ways that reflect concurrent social and economic paradigms.

Firstly it is important to establish some of the of the core aims and objectives of said activity. This can easily be done by comparison to weightlifting and is an important step for two reasons. Primarily it highlights the unique impact of bodybuilding practices to more mainstream readings of health and vitality. Secondly is specifically places such a lifestyle activity within the realm of body modification. With a specific ideological agenda and clearly defined goals.

In a physiological study of male self objectification researcher Lisa Hallsworth (amongst others) questioned three samples of male participants. Made up of bodybuilders, weightlifters and non athletic controls. The participants completed a questionnaire containing measures of self objectification, self surveillance and appearance anxiety. As the researcher had predicted,

“…a sport focused on appearance, such as bodybuilding, will be associated with higher levels of self objectification and resultant negative consequences than a sport where the focus is in the functionality, such as weightlifting”(454)

As identified by the research bodybuilding yielded unique results because the functional goal of the practice is an aesthetic ideal rather than a skill. That is not to say that body building practices do not require skill or that there is not an associated aesthetic to other sports activity. Only that, Bodybuilding’s focus on appearance and muscularity is vastly different to weightlifting’s goal of functional strength. Functionally the bodybuilder looks to assert their masculinity both in and outside the gym by their physique. Making powerful public and personal statements about their identity. In comparison weightlifting’s assertion of masculine strength is only appreciated by piers and the specific context of competition. Which ironically gives weightlifting a level of legitimacy as an Olympic sport, an acknowledgement not to afforded to professional bodybuilding.

Professional bodybuilding and bodybuilding practices (as proliferated under the guise of health and fitness) aspire to a body type known as “muscular mesomorphy”. Developing on the physique classification system created by psychologist W.H. Sheldon, this aesthetic is characterised

“by a well-developed chest and arm muscles and wide shoulders tapering down to a narrow waist” (p.148)

Although the practice of professional bodybuilding inflates this archetype to hyper-masculine proportions, the very identification of the male body as not pre-discursive but contingent is an important step.

Sociologist alan Klein described professional bodybuilding as a practice that preys on male insecurities; as ‘ a sport subculture built on a neurotic ore’. In Little Big Men it is Klein’s assertion that bodybuilding objectifies and thus splits the male self into body and mind. This is done by treating the male body as, “an externalized object or machine”(ref). For example in bodybuilding practice arms become ‘guns’ and legs ‘coils’. This process of mechanisation satiates male desire for self analysis through language that ties the body to paradigms of strength and industry.

This process of reconfiguring the body is key to bodybuilding praxis. In fact it is ingrained into the language of the practice itself in which literally the body is built. For this reason bodybuilding provides an ideal example of social constructionist reading of the body as ideological site and product of late modernity. As shilling attests,

“…the body is seen as an entity which is in the process of becoming; a project which should be worked at and accomplished as part of an individual’s self-identity” (p147)

Below

World body building champion Dexter Jackson

-VS-

World weight lifting champion Hossein Rezazadeh