Jackie Paisley from an issue of Muscle & Fitness purchased in the early days. I remember this being part of a pictorial that focused on Jackie’s flexibility, and I could not stop looking at it. In places I never dreamed a woman could have muscles, Jackie had them. What are those things on the insides of her thighs? Hot.
Before some seriously bad cosmetic surgery choices ruined her looks, Melissa Coates, seen here in one of her first pictorials from Musclemag, if not her first, had real star quality. In the mainstream mags, topless and covered was about as racy as it got. Which was plenty racy for a horny teenage female muscle fan.
At one time I had quite a collection of these magazines, all stashed away safely under my bed. But when the time came to leave home and go to uni, the sheer size and weight made it impractical to take them with me. And I didn’t want to leave them at home and risk discovery. So I ditched them. All of them. It was the first of a few purges I have done over the years.
I’m an abs man. Pictures like these probably have something to do with that. Carla Sedecca’s bullet-proof abs, Sandy Riddell in the kind of swimsuit that we see all too rarely these days (you may remember, older readers, she was a fire fighter – imagine her carrying you out of a burning building), and finally the gorgeous muscular symmetry of Juliette Bergman.
Again, the swimsuit with the abs showing. This time it’s Diana Dennis from a workout feature, possibly Flex, possibly Muscle & Fitness. Not the most well-known of Diana’s pics, but ones I remembered as soon as I saw them again on the net many years later. I loved (and still love) the way her tanned skin gleams and the contrast between her thigh muscles in the two pictures. Before there was VHS, DVD or mpeg, there were guys like me moving my eyes real fast between pictures like these!
And this is the magazine that made me come to my senses and start a new collection of female muscle, the exact one. I was in town, saw it, then walked out of the shop. But ‘the madness’ had already descended. Within minutes, I was back in the shop and nervously taking it to the counter, paying and getting back home as fast as I could for my fix. Rachel McLish in a golden swimsuit was no disappointment, and neither was discovering a magazine that only contained female bodybuilders.
Cathy Palyo was one of the downright hottest female bodybuilders of that time, dark and sexy, and I adored this pic first time around and can still remember the rush of seeing her in that bikini for the first time. I came across Denise Rutkowski’s WPW and Ray Martin stuff much later, so workout photos were my introduction to this legend. The size of her arms in this pic makes me weak at the knees to this day. Made for kissing. And then there was Paula Bircumshaw’s perfect British bottom. You don’t see a lot of muscle babes working out in thongs these days. Bring that back!
My eternal gratitude to people who scan these old magazines and share them. Seeing these pictures again has been one of the earliest joys of the internet for me. You are heroes!
I’ll end Part I of The Magazine Years with Monica Haslam. Once I’d discovered Female Bodybuilding existed, it wasn’t long before I found the peerless Women’s Physique World and was savouring the quality pictures of prime female muscle like this one. Through the magazine I came to know many women who never featured in the mainstream muscle media, WPW took the women very seriously, and portrayed them as women, even when at their most ripped. And I started to realise that I was not the only man in the world who found female muscle sexy. It was a comforting thought!
More Magazine Years to come. Thanks again to the scanners. And thanks to all the people who bother getting in touch and being positive about the blog. I'm always delighted to hear from any female muscle fans (6ft1swell@gmail.com)
Enjoy!
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