My own introduction to female bodybuilding was Carolyn Cheshire on TV in the mid 1980s, flexing on a popular science show called Bodymatters in an orange bikini.
It was a life-changing moment.
I recall Donna Hartley on Jonathan Ross' The Last Resort not long after that.
There was Gladiators - the women of the UK version had a lot less muscle than Raye, Erika and Shelly so the American edition was by far my preferred watch! And also from the US onto UK TV screens came the daytime talk shows Geraldo and Montel, the latter having more than one show devoted to female bodybuilders as I remember.
In those days it was a case of actually catching the show by luck - hurriedly getting the VHS recording for repeat viewings - or design - with the VHS cued up ready to go! If you didn't see it at the time, you had to wait for the internet to be invented to do so.
Times have changed. When one or more FBBs are on TV anywhere in the world, it isn't long before clips are posted on the forums. There are (or were in the case of the UK) whole TV channels devoted to the fitness industry that regularly feature muscular women and which also have their own YouTube channels to view at your leisure.
Documentaries like Supersize She or Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends or Jodie Marsh on Steroids haven't always painted FBBs (or us fans) in the kind of light we would wish, but in general these days mainstream TV (that I've seen anyway) almost always portrays women with muscle in a positive way, and a forthcoming UK TV documentary featuring Welsh fitness tycoon Kate Austin promises to continue that trend.
And this month in the US, the very gorgeous IFBB Figure Pro Cydney Gillon - a two-time Chicago Pro champ and two-time Olympia contestant nonetheless - is one of the castaways in the new series of Survivor (CBS, first episode Feb. 17th, apparently).
Appearing briefly in a season preview - fast forward to 0.48 - Cydney describes herself as "a woman who takes care of her body, not eating double cheeseburgers all day". And here, kicking off a week of FBBTV on FMS, is her "Meet the Castaways" introduction.
Go Cydney!
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