While hashtags like #StrongNotSkinny have made athletic (but importantly, slim!) physiques more socially acceptable for women, the sheer mass attained by female bodybuilders is obviously still extreme to the wider public. Bunsell uses 2017’s Wonder Woman film as an indication of acceptable muscularity. "The plethora of female superheroes on our screens do demonstrate a growing societal value to be unique and have special physical abilities," she admits. "Although, unfortunately, mainstream superwomen are rarely depicted with massive muscles." In fact, Wonder Woman's stereotypically "feminine" physique has barely altered since she was created in 1941 by American psychologist, William Marston."There's a heart and soul under those delicious muscles. It makes me wonder: how did she get to this point? What were the reasons that led her to cast away her womanly expectations and embrace a body of might and brawn?"
A few clacks of the keyboard and there they are: the Amazons of the digital age, their baby-oiled biceps glistening, their midsections taut as a bag of rocks. I'm almost afraid that the women on my laptop screen will muscle their way out and give me a beating. This is my earliest encounter with Herbiceps.com, one of the internet's most popular muscle worship webcam sites. Rather than a schmoe shelling out hundreds of pounds to meet a bodybuilder in a Travelodge, sites like these provide a service where schmoes can pay to have a live video chat with a muscular woman instead.The CEO and owner of Herbiceps.com is a man named Michael Eckstut. I managed to Skype with Eckstut out of his home in Las Vegas, Nevada, to find out what it takes to start a muscle worship empire. Although Eckstut tells me how the venture started off simply as a way for him to meet female bodybuilders, the business has since expanded to become something much larger."What the internet did was it made people realise they weren't alone and that this was actually something a lot of people were into," says Eckstut. "You were only ever one or two searches away from realising that this whole world existed. And when you're dealing with a scarce commodity like hyper-muscular women, when are you really going to get the chance to sit down and chat with them unless you go to bodybuilding shows? It's much easier to just do it from behind the computer.""This is the chance for the customers to get to know these women. You'd be surprised: more than 50 percent of the conversations are probably about how the weather is, or how much you like your job. It's not all about, 'Can you squeeze me to death?'"
Though I'm unable to verify Eckstut's figures – or his altruistic integrity – one thing that can be confirmed is his understanding of the muscle worship marketplace. "What you're selling these days is an experience," he says, echoing Kirok's emotional desires. "We're not purely an adult site. This is the chance for the customers to get to know these women. And you'd be surprised: more than 50 percent of the conversations are probably about how the weather is, or how much you like your job. It's not all about, 'Can you squeeze me to death?'"Although, Eckstut is swift to assure me, there is still that, too.Regardless of one's opinion of men like Eckstut, the muscle worship industry remains a financial necessity for a lot of aspiring competitors. Dominic Black, 22, left her hometown in Russia for Prague to pursue her ambition of competing in body fitness, and was offered a life-line by Eckstut's site. "I was lucky enough to discover Herbiceps.com so I could pay all my bills, plus afford a great coach," Black told Femcompetitor.com in 2017. "After a while I found out that all this domination stuff and overpowering is a great business, especially when you love it yourself naturally."As the demand for heavy-weight female bodybuilders has decreased, so too has the supply. And with fewer opportunities to compete, larger athletes like Black have become a rarity, phased out in favour of sinewy bikini models. Nevertheless, hope for the sport's future isn't over yet. Following the demise of the Ms Olympia, the Rising Phoenix Bodybuilding World Championship has been born from its ashes. The show, now in its fourth year, has become the most prestigious female bodybuilding event in the world – a place where the heavyweights of women's bodybuilding are free to compete.What makes the Rising Phoenix so remarkable isn't just the fact that it's putting money back into the hands of female bodybuilders, but, rather, it's where that cash is coming from. The competition is entirely funded by the Wings of Strength – a company that turns a profit by charging schmoes for access to exclusive photos and videos of female bodybuilders, before reinvesting 100 percent of those proceeds into the sponsorship of women's pro shows around the globe."Wings of Strength really came in and resurrected female bodybuilding," says Wendy McCready. "We used to get shoved to one side when the males were sharing the stage. But now we get treated like queens. We get flown over, we get put up in a mansion, taken for our food, taken for our training. Everything's better now."The next Rising Phoenix show, which McCready is already preparing for, takes place on the 8th of September in Scottsdale, Arizona. The first-place winner will receive a cash prize of $50,000 (£37,000), with monetary rewards for the entire event adding up to $100,000 (£74,000). It seems almost fitting that the very schmoes who've been benefitting from the decline of women’s bodybuilding might inadvertently be about to save it. Because if there's anyone who's terrified at the prospect of "goddesses" like McCready and Black joining the Amazons and Valkyries, it's the men who worship them.@LucasOakeleyUPDATE 28/11/18: A previous version of this article misattributed quotes. This error has been corrected."We used to get shoved to one side when the males were sharing the stage. But now we get treated like queens. We get flown over, we get put up in a mansion, taken for our food, taken for our training."