When Joe Weider first hooked up with Arnold Schwarzenegger, his company was taking in around $1 million a year. Not bad, but not the stuff of empires. A few years later, after an extraordinary partnership that inextricably linked the names Weider and Schwarzenegger in the public mind, that total had soared to $28 million annually, and eventually the empire was worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Ben Weider was very open about what he and many in the industry felt was the reason. "It was Arnold who finally helped us overcome the gay thing," he said. "That's how my brother used him and it worked beautifully. Straight guys started buying our products and we never looked back."
It is not difficult to figure out why some gay men would be drawn to the spectacular bodybuilders. Physique magazines were arguably the most openly--and self-affirmingly--gay male publications available to a wide American audience. Many gay Americans, in fact, first discovered their sexuality by looking at these magazines
Source: The Governator, by Ian Halperin, p. 91-93 , Oct 12, 2010
