Pearl - a female bodybuilding drama

Variety - “Pearl,” premieres on Sept. 1 in the Venice Days section of the Venice Film Festival. The drama, which centers on a female bodybuilder whose past catches up with her, stars Julia Fory, herself a female bodybuilder who has never acted before, and Peter Mullan.

The director, Elsa Amiel, is up for Venice’s Lion of the Future award for a debut feature. She has previously worked as an assistant director to Bertrand Bonello (“Saint Laurent”), Noemie Lvovsky (“Camille Rewinds”) and Mathieu Amalric (“On Tour”), among others.

In the film, bodybuilding star Lea Pearl is just a few hours from the final of the most important competition of her career when her ex-boyfriend shows up with the 6-year-old son she has not seen in years.

Talking about what drew her to the subject of bodybuilding, Amiel says: “There was a desire to explore the theme of the body in greater depth. How the body is portrayed.”

Her interest was sparked by portraits of female bodybuilders by New York-based photographer Martin Schoeller, which she found intriguing because the women “possess a quality that mixes uncanniness and femininity, while arousing a feeling of malaise mixed with fascination.”

She adds: “What unsettles the spectator is their vulnerability, which is completely unexpected when thinking about this discipline. This new perspective gave me the keys to explore bodybuilding.”

Speaking about working with Mullan, Fory says: “He was always trying to explore the best way to interpret each scene. I guess his approach encouraged all of us on set to keep tapping into that right emotion.” See more at Variety

Inside the Lucrative World of Female Muscle Worship

Vice UK: Male "schmoes" provide a livelihood for the muscular women they worship who are now too big to compete in most bodybuilding championships.

"I feel a special frisson with muscular women. The idea of a woman being stronger than me, and the sexual possibilities that that entails, is something I find extremely exciting."

Johnny, 37, is a technical trainer with the British Army. As a conventionally handsome guy in decent physical shape, Johnny is one of many men in the UK who engages in the otherwise unconventional practice of muscle worship. Also known as "sthenolagnia," muscle worship is a sexual paraphilia where a person becomes sexually aroused by touching and "worshipping" the muscles of a more physically dominant partner.

Male worshippers like Johnny are referred to in the muscle worship subculture as "schmoes." The dominant women they adore are their "goddesses." Although most schmoes can be found happily swarming around the fringes of your local bodybuilding show, the erotic pleasure they find in the strength and appearance of hyper-muscular women also motivates them to seek out female bodybuilders for private sessions where they can put those muscles to the test. These sessions can take place anywhere from Airbnb apartments to, on special occasions, the schmoe's own home. For many goddesses, sensual touching and wrestling is as far as it ever goes. For others, sexual intercourse is also an option.

"I've had several sessions," says Johnny. "They work out at about £350 [$453] per hour. Some guys like to engage in serious wrestling matches with the girls, but my own preference is for playful wrestling while encouraging the woman to show off her strength by lifting me and putting me in holds. The vast majority of sessions I've had have ended in full sex. Some girls are known for always providing sex. Others claim not to; but, in my experience, if the chemistry is good in the room, good things invariably follow."

Johnny goes on to explain how a surge of additional "goddesses" have become "available" to him recently, as the direct result of rule changes to the sport of women's bodybuilding.

The International Federation of Bodybuilding & Fitness has removed the women's heavy-weight category from the biggest global competitions (the Olympia, the Arnold Classic, and the World Championships) and replaced it with Women's Bikini—a weight class designed for lighter, more traditionally "feminine"-looking women. As the larger athletes are being phased out, many find themselves wrestling with men like Johnny to make ends meet. "There's barely any money in it for women," says Wendy McCready, "even when you do turn pro."

Read more at Vice.

Grow Samantha Grow

Sample573LA0818 - We’re not sure what Samantha Kelly took in the AO Labs, but we’re enjoying the side effects. In collaboration with MuscleGirlFlix.

An Area Orion female muscle and breast expansion morph. View the entire uncensored gallery at https://goo.gl/photos/vUZsZ2pg7NnbE8Js9