Nature vs Nurture

[phy911]

Where you born pre-wired to be attracted to muscular women or was it something that developed from the environment/experiences that you were exposed to?


The nature vs nurture debate within psychology is concerned with the extent to which particular aspects of behavior are a product of either inherited (i.e. genetic) or acquired (i.e. learned) characteristics.

Nature is what we think of as pre-wiring and is influenced by genetic inheritance and other biological factors. Nurture is generally taken as the influence of external factors after conception e.g. the product of exposure, experience and learning on an individual.The nature-nurture debate is concerned with the relative contribution that both influences make to human behavior.


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[87fg]

I think it has something to do with early exposure. A young mind can be easily influenced by environment. So, it is possible that at an early age if you were exposed to strong or muscular women you might develop an interest in them. Although biology still is powerful, it's not the only explanation. It can be both a combination of nature and nurture.

[Bernie1212]

I think with me it is a combination of both.  For as long as I could remember I was attracted to athletic girls.  When I was young I just thought it was cool when the girls where just as athletic as the guys.  Which led me to having a liking to athletic girls in middles school and on.  One of the first things I remember with the first girl I really had a crush on was the head of quad, that she had nice full shoulders and a little bulge in her arm.  It just carried on from there.

Basically I liked the girls that could hang with the guys athletically, and muscles came along as an attribute of that.

[NinjaStar]

I do think there is something to the nature side of the argument, but I don't think it's a guarantor of attraction. I think you are hardwired a certain way and that dependent on exposure to certain elements develop characteristics within one's psyche and you go from there.

I think muscle fetishism comes from something else, rather than something you are predisposed towards. I'm not attracted to strength or being humiliated or anything normally associated with muscle fetishism. I'm just into the muscles in the same way I like big breasts and big butts. Whatever wires me to be into those things was formulated by comics, wrestling, and whatever else I was exposed to at an early age.

[M7]

I agree it can be both. I'll never forget the first time I saw a female bodybuilder and the instant attraction I felt, but when I think about it, I used to look at my dad's playboy mags at a very early age (well before I hit puberty) and that possibly could have desensitized my attraction to normal looking women. I can find all kinds of different women attractive, but for me nothing comes close to big, muscular women.

[ilovefbbs95]

Think it's more to do with nature as I remember finding the idea of muscular women fascinating before I was even knowingly exposed to one

[knufflschmoe]

First of all I was already turned on by strong girls ,even before there existed any form of female bodybuilding
so as looking at (a few) tomboy girl in school wrestling & pinning down boys in school (yet in childhood !...)

and I knew a girl from sandboy time on , I was wrestling a lot (was disappointed that I was stronger ,not considering the fact I was 2 years older - what concerns boys in her age she often was stronger !...)

then when I saw female bodybuilders the first time in magazins in the 80`s,like  "women physique world" I was bound
from this fetish from the beginning ,also a reason to enter a gym -hoped to meet a muscular woman there-
but there wasn`t any..... )
so it went on with magazins, then videos ,DVD`s (WPW,Ray-Martin ,......Iron Belles ,and so on )
the great source later of course the internet ,and finally the chance for session with real,living FBB

[knufflschmoe]

finally wanted to say that I think .it`s deeply rooted in your subconciousness,quite genetically , or perhaps learned
in early childhood ( freudian theorie) ,which only can encouraged & deepened by environment  , but not founded
by "learning" and external "programming"

[Tomd1]

I have no idea re my draw to fit / fbb / amazon types.

I find them utterly amazing. Plus i just love to submit. Be the same for built women too, kinda "big boned" and tall type ladies.

Id love to know when it started, but ive been intrigued as long as i can remember.

Wouldnt change it for the world !!

[hhheeeyyy12345]

Gender is a social construct

[Drbench012]

 I can't call it, I remember being attracted to female strength at an early age.

It could've been due to my surroundings and programming. I saw fit women in wrestling, I saw them in the comic books I used to buy, I saw them in competitions on television, movies, talk shows etc.

I'm leaning towards nurture. But ultimately I can't be sure, maybe I noticed something that others didn't because I was already attracted to them

[Patrick_Henry]

I agree with the basic consensus of responses so far.. it's some of both.

But ultimately, I believe Nature is a significantly more powerful influence than nurture..

[alison brundage]

On how it is to be a muscular woman from one who always was.

When I was a young girl in highschool...the last thing I ever wanted .....was to look like this:
...and that's how I looked!

I remember crying when I tried on a prom dress .  I looked like Arnold in a ballet costume.  I was made fun of by both the boys and girls.  I hated how I looked.  That stuck with me for decades...until it became AOK to have muscles on a female form...and I won my first contest after 6 months of training....I was in my mid 30's by then.


I'd have to say how the pack marches often rules how we see ourselves. I'd guess that's Behaviorism.  Today after so many years I'm happy to still be breathing let alone in shape !   I'm happy to be able to enjoy a sport at 72 yr old and could give a flying crap what anybody thinks about how I look.   I can cut my own grass in the field....I happy about all that . ( Maslow ...self actualization?) ...dunno



Both ends of the Nature vs Nurture spectrum plays in but evolves as time passes.  I think about Bruce Jenner who has had happy marriages and many children , an athletic career that puts him in the Hall of Fame and now is able to fulfill something deep inside of himself...he prefers to be a woman.  I doubt that happened over night yet once society accepted transgender more generally, he was able to express that openly. 

It all plays in .

Alison
BTW....I'll never forget being with the Jentz team back in the early 80's on a photoshoot there in Venice California.  They warned me about men they called "muscle-lusters".  I said: " You gotta be kidding!"  ( later Kay Baxter dubbed them Shmoes ).   Ok so now I "get it"   I suppose they always existed undercover...the muscle lusters.  I sure wish I knew a few when I was 18 !  ( ha ha ha )

[achilleus]

I think we are all born with some character, and that character strives for something. Something with depth, a value or a counterpart to the inner self. We might learn to live with it, to ignore it, or to fight it ... but it will always be there.

As for myself: I think I have a soft spot for feminity .... and this can come in many forsm and shapes, a certain movement, clothes, a voice. But I also am attracted to strength. And I am also looking for freedom, I always have. I like to travel, and I looked to the stars when I was a kid. This I would say I am born with.

Now female bodybuilding is a movement that just happens to cultivate from the 70s and 80s, so it gave me lots of opportunities in my young age to read about it, watch it on TV, attend the gym myself. Thats the nurture part, something external that defintely fullfilled my buring desire. IN other words: would I have been born 100 years ago, I might have get hooked on female circus athletes. 3000 years ago by the picture of a greek goddess.

I also think, its both.   

[achilleus]

I think we are all born with some character, and that character strives for something. Something with depth, a value or a counterpart to the inner self. We might learn to live with it, to ignore it, or to fight it ... but it will always be there.

As for myself: I think I have a soft spot for feminity .... and this can come in many forsm and shapes, a certain movement, clothes, a voice. But I also am attracted to strength. And I am also looking for freedom, I always have. I like to travel, and I looked to the stars when I was a kid. This I would say I am born with.

Now female bodybuilding is a movement that just happens to cultivate from the 70s and 80s, so it gave me lots of opportunities in my young age to read about it, watch it on TV, attend the gym myself. Thats the nurture part, something external that defintely fullfilled my buring desire. IN other words: would I have been born 100 years ago, I might have get hooked on female circus athletes. 3000 years ago by the picture of a greek goddess.

I also think, its both.