Introduction
In the research, and as a phenomenon, the use of illicit performance- and image-enhancing drugs (PIED), such as anabolic androgenic steroids (henceforth steroids) and human growth hormones, has commonly been understood as either a concern for formally governed competitions in (elite) sports (i.e., āsport dopingā) or a public health issueāthus, as a social/societal problem (Dimeo, 2007; Waddington, 2000). Tremendous investments have been made in researching drug use practices in relation to organized elite sports and how doping can be prevented to ensure the maintenance of highly held ideals concerning fair play (Waddington & Smith, 2009). In recent decades, however, scholars have increasingly recognized doping as both a societal problem and a public health issue (Brennan, Wells & van Hout, 2017; Christiansen, 2018; Van Hout & Hearne, 2016), and it has primarily been associated with strength training at various gyms, and within gym, and fitness culture per se.
It has often been suggested that the social impact of the gym and fitness environment, that is, the kind of mentality nourished and the socialization process occurring there, is key to understanding drug use outside the sphere of formally governed sports. In the late 1970s and early 1980s when gym and fitness culture expanded significantly (Andreasson & Johansson, 2014), reports also began to surface that recreational fitness doping had gained popularity among young people, as a means of increasing muscle size and improving physical appearance, among other things (Parkinson & Evans, 2006; Sas-Nowosielski, 2006). Initial discussions in the research and in the public discourse came to focus on male bodybuilders, their risk behavior, and their willingness to experiment with all sorts of substances in their pursuit of muscles and masculinity (Gaines & Butler, 1974; Klein, 1993; Monaghan, 2001). The cultural studies literature largely described the development of an underground phenomenon and culture, in which bodybuilding men (and some women) used doping to create extraordinary bodies, which were displayed in front of cheering audiences at bodybuilding competitions, or for that matter in front of mirrors at the gym.
Gradually acquiring the status of a mass leisure activity, however, gym and fitness culture has changed, as has the image of the gym since the 1970s (Smith Maguire, 2008). Today, all around the world, people are using these facilities to exercise their bodies and achieve success and health in everyday life (Andreasson & Johansson, 2014). In this ānewā culture, the highest goals and aspirations are commercialized and framed in terms of youth and health, and the modern fitness center is seen or displayed as a health clinic for āthe massesā (Sassatelli, 2010). Paradoxically, concurrently with cultural fitness trends and the idealization of an active and healthy life, the emphasis placed on the body and its appearance has contributed to persistent doping problems.
Although it is still the case that doping practices in this context are mainly connected to the art and sport of bodybuilding, the fitness geography is changing, and so is the doping demography. With little hope of fame or financial gain, non-competitive bodybuilders as well as āregularā gym-goers are increasingly engaging in drug use practices (Locks & Richardson, 2012). Little by little, women have also entered the realm of fitness doping (Jespersen, 2012; McGrath & Chananie-Hill, 2009; Van Hout & Hearne, 2016). Thus, boosted by an increasing focus on and preoccupation with body image issues among both men and women (Andreasson & Johansson, 2014; Cash & Pruzinsky, 2002), the widespread availability of doping, and the growing prevalence among mainstream fitness groups internationally, the use of doping is still considered a growing public health issue in many Western societies (Christiansen, 2018; Van Hout & Hearne, 2016).
The global development of gym and fitness culture (which we will return to in Chapter 2) has been remarkable and parallels even more widespread processes of medialization and medicalization in Western societies. Extreme and muscular bodies are visualized in popular media, and bodies are trained and molded with the help of high-tech machines, or through franchised and commercially driven training programs. Different products (licit and illicit) have been developed to further boost performance and efforts to achieve fame. Largely, but not exclusively, all these processes boil down to one thing, the body, and how it is to be understood as a contemporary modern phenomenon. Thus, we live in an era of bodies in motion, of performance, muscles, swelling veins, and dreams of the right bodily proportions. Within gym and fitness culture, there has been a revolution of technologies of the self, and extending beyond this cultural context, peopleās ways of relating to and understanding the body in contemporary society have changed noticeably during a relatively short period of time. This is not only a story about the development of tools and techniques to shape and show human flesh through exercise. Rather, it is about bodies that are in constant transformation through training, diets, plastic surgery, and the use of licit and sometimes illicit drugs. It is a story about the gradual emergence of a new gaze and way to relate to the human body. Fueled by the development of gym and fitness culture, among other things, the body has come to be perceived as plastic and ever transgressive. Largely, at the core of gym and fitness culture, we thus find a story about a body in becoming.
The development within gym and fitness culture originated from a subcultural and masculine phenomenon. Icons such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, and earlier Eugen Sandow, exemplified how muscles, masculinity, and extreme bodies were made. Today, however, gym and fitness culture have transformed and become an arena for transforming bodies and gender transgressions. The 1990s is something of a dividing line, when female bodybuilders started to challenge public conceptions of binary gender configurations. Bodies are made at the gym, but so is gender. Consequently, womenās gradual integration has helped rewrite the gender of fitness culture, and from being an almost exclusively masculine culture, this arena for working out has diversified in relation to gender, age, and ethnicity. Like a hub in this development of a particular body culture, the fitness revolution (Andreasson & Johansson, 2014), we find the promotion of an interest in developing the body, cherishing its abilities and performance, and its beauty. The question of health and balance is clearly present, but so is the negotiable line that is sometimes drawn between health, on the one hand, and excessive training, bodily disorders, and unhealthy lifestyles, including the use of doping, on the other.
Aims and Methodological Point of Departure
Within the context of recent developments in gym and fitness culture, the aim of this book is twofold. First, we aim to investigate and identify different processes through which a person becomes a āfitness doper,ā that is, the trajectories leading to doping. There is currently surprisingly little scholarship available that involves qualitative research on young peopleās doping trajectories in this cultural context. To prevent doping, we need to understand the norms, ideas, and networks of people who engage in it, even though they (at least to some extent) are aware that there are risks and potential health costs associated with the practice. To develop effective prevention methods, we also need to understand the longitudinal processes through which the practice gradually becomes an option for the individual.
In the book, we will address these issues and try to move forward our understanding of and the debate on fitness doping trajectories. We will not only focus on doping use in relation to strength-training activities, traditionally dominated by young men, but also analyze how it is understood by people who belong to other demographic fitness groups or who specialize in other kinds of exercise within this culture, such as group training activities. Therefore, and second, we also aim to problematize and possibly challenge the gender politics that have traditionally been attached to fitness doping. Analytically, we will pay attention to processes through which distinctions between masculinity/femininity, criminal/legal, and healthy/unhealthy bodies are negotiated and destabilized by users, both online and away from the keyboard. The overall aims will be addressed by posing the following research questions:
- In what ways can different fitness doping trajectories and the processes of becoming and unbecoming a fitness doper be understood?
- In what ways are the processes and cultural patterns of socialization and learning regarding fitness doping affected by demographic variables, such as gender, lifestyle, and age?
- In what ways is fitness doping discussed, negotiated, and legitimized/normalized in the context of online communication and communities?
- What kinds of perspectives on health, physical training, the body, and lifestyles do fitness dopers adopt, and how are drug use practices related ...