Bodybuilding is Effeminate

Bodybuilding is effeminate, and something is effeminate when a feminine characteristic is applied to a masculine activity. If a man were to wear makeup, that would be effeminate.

Now, the goal of bodybuilding is aesthetic; that is, the goal is to look good. This is fundamentally a feminine attribute. This is something so obvious that it doesn’t really need evidence, but just for good measure: God has given gifts and virtues that are distinct to both men and women. This is true spiritually, emotionally, and physically. Man’s physical virtue or excellence is his strength. Woman’s physical virtue is her beauty. For instance, Paul tells us that the woman is the glory of man. We have always understood this. This is why we have billion-dollar industries devoted to women’s jewelry and makeup, and why we have beauty pageants. So when you have an activity like bodybuilding whose goal is beauty and aesthetics, that is feminine.

This is not to say that all men who participate in bodybuilding are feminine or that they have feminine intentions when doing it. What I am saying is that the activity itself is feminine for men. This is what St. Thomas called intention in action: the action itself has the character of being feminine.

The Telos of Strength

You might object: I said strength was masculine, and bodybuilding is building strength, so why isn’t it masculine? The difference that makes all the difference is in the goal, the purpose, the telos. In bodybuilding, the muscle is the end product. In proper masculinity, muscle is a means to an end.

Masculine strength has two main ends or goals: first, to aid in man’s God-given tasks of working and protecting; and second, to be an icon, an image, a tutor of spiritual and moral strength, which are the higher forms of strength.

First, Adam was given jobs that required his gift of strength. He was given the job to work, and for the vast majority of human history, that meant strenuous physical labor. What was this work supposed to be? He was made as a little image of God, and God had been working for the first six days of the week making the world good and beautiful—both functional and well-designed. Adam needed to work with water and earth, livestock, plants, and finally man himself, God’s sixth-day creation, which is the highest created thing. Man’s highest work is man himself, just as it was with God’s highest act.

In Genesis 2, Adam is given the jobs to serve and to guard the garden. Many translations render the verb as “to keep” instead of “to guard.” But this is the same verb used when Adam and Eve sin and an angel is placed with a fiery sword to guard the way into the garden. Adam did not do his job in guarding the garden from the malicious snake attacking his wife, so an angel is given his job. This is also the same word used of the priest guarding the way into the temple.

Interior and Exterior Strength

Second, physical strength is both a tutor and an icon of higher strength. How do we know this? The pattern in the Bible is that creation—physical stuff—reflects God’s glory and character, and thus is also his image.

Peter says, “Let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.” There is a correspondence between interior and exterior beauty. Or look at Paul in Ephesians 6, where he discusses the armor of God and says, “Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.” There is an interior and exterior strength. The exercise and development of exterior strength teaches you about the structure and nature of interior spiritual, emotional, and psychological strength—the higher strength.

Remember that God’s highest work is man, and working with man is fundamentally different from working with earth or water. Working with man requires higher strength: moral strength, spiritual strength, intellectual strength. When these two—interior and exterior strength—are torn apart, they lose their nature and become deformed.

This is why many bodybuilders today look freakish. They are a caricature of a properly strong man. That is what happens when you divorce strength from its design: it becomes a grotesque caricature of its true nature.

Look at the ideal man from antiquity, David. He is strong, but not freakish. He carries in his hands the purpose of his strength: sling and stone. His strength is for the protection of his people and the destruction of the enemy, and it can only be appreciated in that context. David has no strength for strength’s sake, or worse, strength for beauty’s sake. He does not spend his time gazing at his muscles or caring how big he is; he cares what he can do with them, fighting off animals attacking his sheep.

Strength as Sacrifice

Let’s turn to the final goal of strength. The final and highest act of strength is sacrifice. Jesus is the true man, both in terms of his humanity and his masculinity. The nature of strength is having the fortitude to do hard things. The hardest possible thing is giving up your whole being for another. That is the end and goal of strength, and it is nothing like bodybuilding.

St. Thomas, in question 133 of the Summa, identifies the inability to sacrifice with effeminacy. Men sacrifice. They sacrifice themselves and their beauty. Remember, the glory of man is woman. If you want to see the beauty of a man, you look at his wife; she is his beauty. This is why men traditionally do not dress in bright, fancy colors while their wives do. They give that up because the strength of sacrifice is their nature.

So get strong. Get really strong, both exteriorly and interiorly. But sacrifice yourself. Your beauty is for another. Get strong. Get a wife. Your strength and your sacrifice will be what gets you your beauty, but never beauty in yourself. You are too strong for that.

Watch the original episode.