Picture This...

Picture this. You're a regular kind of guy. You've done well enough in your professional life to set up your own business and you've made enough money to buy your own home (no mean feat in the UK in this day and age). You have your friends, your family, your hobbies. You're no Brad or Leo but you're not bad looking either. You have all your regular check-ups, you keep yourself in shape. A little grey at the temples but you do a little bit more than the requisite amount of male grooming.

You're in your late forties now. You are single, as you have been for much of your life. There have been a few women who have mattered to you, but you've never settled down. When your friends and your family ask why, you shrug and say you guess you're hard to please. And you get them off the subject as fast as you can.

What you don't tell them is that you've never settled down because you're still waiting for the right woman. And since your teens, you've wanted nothing more than a woman with muscles. What you've always wanted is a female bodybuilder.

And then, just when you'd given up hope of ever meeting one, you do. She suddenly appears at your gym. No Alina Popa, of course, but you've never seen such muscles on a woman up close (apart from at those two shows you went to all those years ago). You are immediately and overwhelmingly attracted to her. The gym becomes your second home as you spend as much time there as possible in the hope of seeing her. Every time you do, The Madness consumes you. When she's not there, you experience an intense anxiety that doesn't leave you until you do see her again.

Then, one day, she's leaving as you're arriving. Without thinking you say hello to her. She doesn't break stride, but she does give you a smile and says hi back.

Your gym time is paying off. You're looking as good as you've done for maybe twenty years. Colleagues and friends (even one or two random women) have noticed, so your confidence is way up. That initial hello has paid off handsomely. Now you have shared a post-workout drink with her on a number of occasions. You've had chats, and during these chats you've held yourself together pretty well, you think. You haven't stared, you haven't got all tongue-tied and nor have you suddenly blurted out 'I think your body is hot!' (although that's exactly what you have been thinking).

Out of the blue she asks if you'd like to give her a massage at her place after her workout. And you would. And you do. For one beautiful hour your hands explore her magnificent body. When you get it just right and she sighs in appreciation death could take you right there and nobody would ever have died so happy.

And now, tonight, in just a few hours, she's coming to yours for dinner and a movie. The wine is chilling, the cushions are fluffed. Your heart pounds with anticipation. Tonight is going to be the night. All those years of waiting and finally your dream is coming true. A real live female bodybuilder is coming over to play.

So, how do you think the night ends? What do you imagine happens next?

Now, I'm pretty sure that you readers are quite an imaginative lot. But I doubt any of you imagined that the night ends with the woman kicking you in the head, biting your hip, and scratching your face before grabbing your balls and squeezing them 'really hard' before driving herself to the nearest police station and reporting you for sexual assault. And I also doubt that you imagined that because of your actions that night you would be given a one-year suspended jail sentence and an order to do 150 hours of community service. I doubt you imagined that on top of that you would have to pay £600 costs, and I seriously doubt you imagined that as well as all the above your name would be on the sex offenders' register for the next ten years.

From the Western Morning News, March 27th:

A sex attacker picked the wrong victim when he tried to grope a woman bodybuilder who fought back and squeezed his testicles until he let go of her. Paul Heppenstall thought he was in for a romantic evening when the woman agreed to watch a horror film him next to the open fire at his Dartmoor home. He did not get the message when she told him she was not interested but he soon discovered his would-be victim was in no mood for any sexual activity. She is a regular gym user and bodybuilder who kicked him in the head, bit him on his hip, scratched his face and finally reached for his testicles, which she squeezed "really hard".

The woman then left his home and drove straight to the nearest police station to complain about him, even though it was the middle of the night.

Graphic designer Heppenstall, aged 48, was handed a suspended sentence as a judge added insult to injury at Exeter Crown Court. He denied assault by penetration and sexual assault. He was cleared of the first and found guilty of the second. Recorder Mr Martin Meeke, QC told him: "You believed the woman was willing to engage in sexual intimacy. That led you to touch her and the jury clearly thought you believed she at that stage had consented. She then made it clear she was not consenting but you went on to perform oral sex on her. Given you age, employment, and good character and the fact this was not an attack from the outset, I am able to suspend the sentence."

During the trial at Exeter Crown Court the woman, who is a regular gym user, told how she was happy to cuddle the man but fought back after he started sexual activity. She said she had made it clear she was not interested in sex and told him just hours earlier that she had no intention of letting him "get into her knickers". She said "a mist came over him" and he assaulted her as they watched the horror film and the only way she could stop him was by grabbing his testicles and squeezing "really hard".

Heppenstall said he believed the woman was attracted to him and thought she wanted to take part in sexual activity with him because he had enjoyed a naked massage session three weeks earlier. He said he tried to perform oral sex on her despite her telling him "don’t do that" when he put his hand inside her knickers. He said: "I thought she felt uncomfortable and so I very briefly tried to have oral sex. It all happened very quickly. She attacked me and kicked me in the face."

Now I want to make perfectly clear that by painting a largely fictional picture of the man and his relationship with the woman at the top of the post, I am in no way condoning his actions. Nor am I in any way trying to suggest that the woman provoked the attack. Mr Heppenstall, like any man who tries to force himself on a woman, was, of course, wrong and should be held to account for his actions according to the law.

No reasonable person would sympathise with Mr Heppenstall. As a female muscle fan I know how overwhelming The Madness can be in the presence of a muscular woman, but that doesn't make it an excuse for sexual assault. There is no excuse.

Of course it's possible that Mr Heppenstall has done this sort of thing before and has got away with it. But given the court's judgement, it's unlikely.

The woman in this case was lucky enough to be strong enough to repel him. And she was frightened enough to drive straight to a police station immediately after she had freed herself. My sympathy is completely with her.

But I do feel I can, on some level, understand how a man with, as the Recorder put it, "good character", has ended up on the sex offenders' register.

I have done questionable things in the midst of The Madness. I have followed women. On occasions I have taken pictures or video of them. You too perhaps? And consequently I can't help but feel that there is a lesson for me in Mr Heppenstall's story. And I wonder if there are others among you who feel that way too.