You can't have the criteria for a "Sport," or really much else for that matter, be determined by sexual appeal.
Thus is the major problem with a lot of criticism aimed towards female BB. They work just as hard, diet, and everything else as the men do and should be afforded the same respect. It is irrelevant if you want to fuck most of the competitors or not, that should have nothing to do with it.
Nancy brings up a good point, in that if you don't like female Bodybuilding that is fine, but a representative for the sport, (in this case Male Athletes rep Bob Chick) should remain professional, and not divisive when it comes to his female counterparts.
There is plenty to mock and scorn about Bodybuilding both male and female, and Bob is did not do the industry any favors by that article or his caviler attitude towards female BB in general.
Herein lies the problem! Bodybuilding is its own unique animal. It is judged by APPEARANCE. Nobody will wonder what gender Ronnie Coleman or Jay Cutler is. Nobody's going to think that Toney Freeman looks like a girl.
As for the female IFBB pros.....that's another issue altogether.
Chick merely states the blatantly obvious: People, by and large, don't want to see, the female bodybuilders, because 80% (and that's being gracious) hardly look female, even with those ridiculous, soccer-ball breast implants. The Ms. Olympia contest can't even sustain itself anymore. It used to be a show all by itself, usually held months before or after the Mr. Olympia. They merged the contests, because the "ladies" competition kept hemmorhaging cash.
Heck, look at the FLEX website. They're doing a contest to see which swimsuit cover is the best of all time. FLEX has been doing this for 15 years, yet only ONE cover features any IFBB pro bodybuilders (let alone Ms. Olympia). That's the first one, that has then-6-time Ms. Os, Cory Everson and Lenda Murray (and Murray's pushing it, size-wise). It also features 1991 IFBB North American Champion, Sharon Bruneau; but by that time that first swimsuit cover arrived, she'd already switched to fitness, scaling down in size along with the customary boob job.
What are the odds that Iris Kyle will be featured in the next lingerie or swimsuit issue? What are the odds that she will have her legs wrapped around Jay Cutler, cheesing with him on FLEX's cover, should they retain their respective titles this fall?
How come we didn't see Yaxeni Garcia, being given the fireman's carry by Ronnie, back in 2005?
The downscaling's been happening over the last decade and a half. The bodybuilders were dropped for the fitness girls. But, as they got "too big", and fitness became dominated by ladies with heavy-duty gymnast backgrounds, they got replaced with figure (don't just do something; stand there!!) girls.
Now, even figure girls are deemed TOO BIG. Hence, he have the bikini contests. They'll phase out the figure girls. Heck, the average guy think Monica Brant-Peckham "looks like a dude" (I've overheard guys says that at the magazine rack, while I was MuscleMag and IronMan).
It's gone full circle. The fitness competitors broke their necks (almost literally, in some cases) to prove that they were legitimate athletes. Now, with the advent of bikini shows, many have ended up being what their critics said they were from the get-go, when fitness show began: T&A girls.
If figure and fitness girls are too big, Ms. Olympia competitors look like ro-beasts.
