this is not a journal title

I hate bodybuilders. Not the people, but their bodies. I find them disgusting, as in I can become physically nauseated looking at them. It's not simply that they're not human, but that they *were* human and no longer are.

But that said, one of my LJfriends in a locked post recently linked to two photo sets of female bodybuilders, both pages originally in Russian (Babelfish does a sufficient translation), which are worth relinking. Not because of anything in particular about the bodies, but because of the photography. See, most bodybuilding photography is about the bodybuilder's muscles. But these two sets express the woman behind her muscles.

The first set by Martin Sholler is from the book "Female Bodybuilders" and the photos are face-on portraits of the women. They are not photos of bodybuilders who happen to be women, they are portraits of women who happen to be bodybuilders. There is personality in their eyes, their mouths, that tell us if they're fun people to be around. Even their choice of how to style their hair, what earrings and bikinis to wear, tell us who they are.

Perhaps more amazing is the (NSFW) set by Bill Dobbins, "Amazons". This one reveals the sexuality of female bodybuilders. You don't - or at least I certainly don't - think of bodybuilders as attractive (I do not find bulimia enjoyable), and yet these nudes and lingerie-clad forms are displaying exactly that.

I still find bodybuilding quite bizarre, and their bodies repulsive, but it sheds a new light upon the women hidden inside the muscles.