I am sure that formative experiences play a role, but it's our responses to them that make them seem significant. If as a younger person, you got turned on by seeing a strong woman in pop culture or in person, it seems likely it had that impression on you because that bit of code was already in your programming.

It actually happened for me when I was in my early 20s in college.  I was just browsing through a porn site and I clicked on a video of a HJ/BJ and the girl was pretty built.  I thought it was the hottest thing ever and it took off from there.

For me, it started with TV shows on ESPN - Fitness Beach, Tiana's workout, and then when Cory Everson started getting popular, then that was it for me!

I was even before there was sometime like FBB attracted by strong girls who liked to wrestle with boys
I was aged as a an elementary school boy then ! - and also liked to wrestle with one special girl a lot
I was really keen on at a very early age
as a teenager I joined a gym at age 16 (was quite skinny then ..)in the 80`s and was quite aroused by the magazins
l found there like "Muscle & Fitness " and then I bought "Women`s Physique World" which was amazing to me
and so it went on  as the videotapes emerged (Ray Martin /WPW )  and finally the limitless world of the web &
not to forget the sessions with live FBB

I remember on vacation in Chicago once, I was about 13, I had already been interested in female bodybuilders after watching Skin Deep, that one scene, and catching some shows on tv at 4am.  Anyways, so I went to the hotel gym, the woman was pretty built and jacked and she was all "you're too young to use the equipment." I didn't know what to say, so I just slowly backed up, but went to my room and thought about it afterwards.  Wow, I just remembered that!

Nice. Penny Price is a very fine place to start.

I was at my uncle's house. He had stack of Playboy mags in the bathroom.
I think it was in 1976 came the issue with LISA LYONS. Her bod was muscular when compared to the other ladies,
no where near as big as today's Goddesses, but nevertheless, her looks was like Cupid's arrow through my heart.

Google:
Lisa Lyons playboy
then hit the images tab.

I think I was around 13 years old and just out of pure boredom I went through my mother's old feminine magazines she always held on to for WAY longer than necessary.  Well one of them had a random advertisement page on muscle enhancements.  I was about to flip the page when my eye caught the sight of a small picture of who I now know was Sue Price.  I was mesmerized as I had never seen a female bodybuilder before.  I cut the picture out of the mag and held on to it for a years.  But it wasn't until about 3 years later when I saw a picture of Annie Rivieccio out of a muscle mag while at work when I realized I love a woman with a muscular body.

WPW print magazine.

I liked to stick around magazine stands waiting for my mom do the shopping and once a heading about female bodybuilders caught my eye. I tried to imagine what it looks like and only some months later found a cut out with Lenda Murray at my friend's. I was lucky to share my passion with my friend

I saw Carmella Cureton on a talk show in the 90s. She was Carmella Key back then. Carmella was dating a male bodybuilder at that time and told the crowd that she was stronger than him.

I also saw Corey Everson on Hercules several years later.

Come to think of it Female Bodybuilders were a big topic in the 90s. Especiall for talk shows.

Hey Streetfighter- great post: one lesson I see in your personal story is that muscle and strength may be the initial attractant, but there has to be the making for a long-term relationship, if that is what one is seeking. ASnd it takes two people working together on that relationship for it to last.
I once and briefly pursued a bodybuilder/ wrestler. But I quickly realized that there was not sufficient compatibility for  any meaningful relationship to develop. But the sex was great for awhile.

I had just climbed into a boxcar in Watsonville, CA (this was back in the '70s), and found a copy of the old Police Gazette.  Inside was a picture of Abbye Stockton, puffing out her chest and standing on her tip-toes in a three-quarter pose.  Not very muscular by today's standards, but for the times she was a revelation.  That old magazine saw about every railroad yard in these fifty states before it fell apart.

 I stumbled upon pictures of Pudge Stockton in some very old Strength and Health magazines, while browsing in a used book and magzine store in the Times Square area back in the early 60's. The magazine was from the early 50's. She was "the gold standard" back in the day.
Another star from the old days was Bonnie Pruden.
She had an exercise  TV show back in the 50's.
Bonnie  had a fabulous muscular ass- her buttocks, even in the leotards and tights she always wore, were really well-developed and hard-looking.  For some reason, I was fascinated by and turned on by that  ass!