“
But I think the first real change in women’s body image came when JLo turned it butt-style. That was the first time that having a large-scale situation in the back was part of mainstream American beauty. Girls wanted butts now. Men were free to admit that they had always enjoyed them. And then, what felt like moments later, boom—Beyoncé brought the leg meat. A back porch and thick muscular legs were now widely admired. And from that day forward, women embraced their diversity and realized that all shapes and sizes are beautiful. Ah ha ha. No. I’m totally messing with you. All Beyonce and JLo have done is add to the laundry list of attributes women must have to qualify as beautiful. Now every girl is expected to have Caucasian blue eyes, full Spanish lips, a classic button nose, hairless Asian skin with a California tan, a Jamaican dance hall ass, long Swedish legs, small Japanese feet, the abs of a lesbian gym owner, the hips of a nine-year-old boy, the arms of Michelle Obama, and doll tits. The person closest to actually achieving this look is Kim Kardashian, who, as we know, was made by Russian scientists to sabotage our athletes.
”
”
Tina Fey (Bossypants)
“
Don’t tell thin women to eat a cheeseburger. Don’t tell fat women to put down the fork. Don’t tell underweight men to bulk up. Don’t tell women with facial hair to wax, don’t tell uncircumcised men they’re gross, don’t tell muscular women to go easy on the dead-lift, don’t tell dark-skinned women to bleach their vagina, don’t tell black women to relax their hair, don’t tell flat-chested women to get breast implants, don’t tell “apple-shaped” women what’s “flattering,” don’t tell mothers to hide their stretch marks, and don’t tell people whose toes you don’t approve of not to wear flip-flops. And so on, etc, etc, in every iteration until the mountains crumble to the sea. Basically, just go ahead and CEASE telling other human beings what they “should” and “shouldn't” do with their bodies unless a) you are their doctor, or b) SOMEBODY GODDAMN ASKED YOU.
”
”
Lindy West
“
Screw guys in backward ball caps and gray sweatpants. Men in hard hats and work boots are my new kink, thanks to Construction Ken standing in front of me with muscular arms and killer cheekbones.
”
”
Lauren Asher (Love Redesigned (Lakefront Billionaires, #1))
“
What is it that constitutes virtue, Mrs. Graham? Is it the circumstance of being able and willing to resist temptation; or that of having no temptations to resist? - Is he a strong man that overcomes great obstacles and performs surprising achievements, though by dint of great muscular exertion, and at the risk of some subsequent fatigue, or he that sits in his chair all day, with nothing to do more laborious than stirring the fire, and carrying his food to his mouth? If you would have your son to walk honourably through the world, you must not attempt to clear the stones from his path, but teach him to walk firmly over them - not insist upon leading him by the hand, but let him learn to go alone.'
'I will lead him by the hand, Mr. Markham, till he has strength to go alone; and I will clear as many stones from his path as I can, and teach him to avoid the rest - or walk firmly over them, as you say; - for when I have done my utmost, in the way of clearance, there will still be plenty left to exercise all the agility, steadiness, and circumspection he will ever have. - It is all very well to talk about noble resistance, and trials of virtue; but for fifty - or five hundred men that have yielded to temptation, show me one that has had virtue to resist. And why should I take it for granted that my son will be one in a thousand? - and not rather prepare for the worst, and suppose he will be like his - like the rest of mankind, unless I take care to prevent it?
”
”
Anne Brontë (The Tenant of Wildfell Hall)
“
What is it about tall, muscular men who are good with their hands that makes me weak?
”
”
Hannah Grace (Wildfire (Maple Hills, #2))
“
I stood in front of him, frustratedly imagining his naked muscular chest, and wanting his hot cock to spear me. My nipples were aroused, feeling as hard and long as coat hooks. They prodded fiercely through the thin blue material at him, like little calling signs of how horny and ready for sex I was.
The best advertisement of all: erect nipples!
”
”
Fiona Thrust (Naked and Sexual (Fiona Thrust, #1))
“
He was built like a mountain. Tall, dark haired ,silver eyed , muscular and rugged. Nathaniel Hawkins was a man that most men wouldn’t want to tangle with and most women fantasized about.
”
”
Grace Willows (The Ultimate Prize)
“
He squinted up at the straining muscular backs of the stone men supporing the dome. "You'll have to take me to some museums," he said. He was being the young man on the road, following the sun because gray weather made him suicidal, writing his poetry in his mind in diners and gas station men's rooms across the country. "But I did see a show of Hopper once. And I like his light. It was kind of lonely or something.
Or, "The world's a mess, it's in my kiss,' like John and Exene say," he mumbled. We were in a leather store on Market Street being punks on acid with skunk-striped hair and steel-toed boots.
”
”
Francesca Lia Block (Echo)
“
You would never know by looking at them, but Hope’s lips are the softest, juiciest, most kissable lips ever. She thinks there’s nothing special, just like she thinks that most of her outstanding features are standard operating equipment, but someday, Doug will tell her—hers are the lips men kill for. Hope’s smell and her body are familiar and unfamiliar at once—like a whisper or a dream. Her back is more muscular, her arms thinner than he remembers. None of it matters. He loved her then and he loves her now.
”
”
Joan Gelfand (Extreme)
“
The theme of entitlement to space that emerges in many of my recollections of men, and in my own masculine development, is colonial code for claiming someone else's space. Whether it's through an emphasis on being large and muscular, or asserting power by an extended or intimidating stride on sidewalks, being loud in bars, manspreading on public transit, or enacting harm of violence on others, taking up space is a form of misogyny because so often the space that men try to seize and dominate belongs to women and gender-nonconforming people.
”
”
Vivek Shraya (I'm Afraid of Men)
“
The huge difficulty that so many women and men have in seeing femininity and masculinity as socially constructed rather than natural, attests to the strength and force of culture. Women are, of course, understood to be ``different'' from men in many ways, ``delicate, pretty, intuitive, unreasonable, maternal, non-muscular, lacking an organizing character''. Feminist theorists have shown that what is understood as ``feminine'' behaviour is not simply socially constructed, but politically constructed, as the behaviour of a subordinate social group. Feminist social constructionists understand the task of feminism to be the destruction and elimination of what have been called ``sex roles'' and are now more usually called ``gender''.
”
”
Sheila Jeffreys (Beauty and Misogyny: Harmful Cultural Practices in the West)
“
Men need as many expressions of love as women do. They are still young boys in a strong, muscular body.
”
”
Linda Alfiori
“
Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions--and you'll learn that man's mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.
”
”
Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged)
“
Train that bitch to love you, a bitch like that, she's the type you have to train, and even then, she'll still try to fuck around on you and test the boundaries, unless you have something no other man has, but to her you're a dick, and her she likes big dicks and muscular men, I can tell.
”
”
Stephen Demone (Pathetic Pussy)
“
Even if I gathered up the courage to wear something gayer, Boring, my body would still be wrong. The beautiful people who wore these extravagant looks were thin, lithe gazelles. Then there were the men who wore next to nothing, who could just show up in jockstraps and eye shadow. They were muscular and impossibly fit.
”
”
John Paul Brammer (¡Hola Papi!: How to Come Out in a Walmart Parking Lot and Other Life Lessons)
“
Spiderman and Superman were closeted bodybuilders: they wore bodysuits that decently covered their flesh and masks that disguised their identity; their lives were rigidly divided between body-less bourgeois respectability and muscular super-hero fantasy; they led a 'double-life' that no one knew about and were never to be seen at the gym.
”
”
Mark Simpson (Male Impersonators: Men Performing Masculinity)
“
He’s one of these short men that compensates by being extremely muscular.
”
”
Eliza Clark (Boy Parts)
“
He went back to snapping pictures, this time getting close-ups of each SWAT member. “The ones who’re only interested in muscular men who kick in doors and shoot things.” Her lips twitched. “Versus men who do what? Take pictures and eavesdrop on police scanners?” “And program their own phone apps,” he told her. “Trust me. That skill is in high demand these days.
”
”
Paige Tyler (Hungry Like the Wolf (SWAT: Special Wolf Alpha Team, #1))
“
He grabs a white hard hat from behind the barrier and places it on my head. My nose scrunches. “Seriously?” “Safety first.” He turns my headlamp on before setting up his own. Screw guys in backward ball caps and gray sweatpants. Men in hard hats and work boots are my new kink, thanks to Construction Ken standing in front of me with muscular arms and killer cheekbones.
”
”
Lauren Asher (Love Redesigned (Lakefront Billionaires, #1))
“
This equation is very accurate for all but the extremely muscular and extremely obese, where it may overestimate caloric needs. Men: BMR = 66 + (13.7 × weight in kilograms) + (5 × height in centimeters) − (6.8 × age in years) Women: BMR = 655 + (9.6 × weight in kilograms) + (1.8 × height in centimeters) − (4.7 × age in years) Conversions: 1 inch = 2.54 centimeters 1 kilogram = 2.2 pounds
”
”
Tom Venuto (Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle: Transform Your Body Forever Using the Secrets of the Leanest People in the World)
“
The man’s mouth fell open in shock and hurt. He slowly shook his head. “So the stories are true. You really are a brat! You smug bastard. You need someone to throw you over a knee --!”
“How dare you!” Mycaela snarled. He lifted his hand to strike the man and couldn’t believe it when the juggler caught his wrist, holding it aloft. They glared at each other, and Mycaela felt small, like a twig caught in the branches of a tree. But now he was forced to really look at the juggler, whose brown muscular chest was in his face, and he grew distracted. The man was wearing nothing except a pair of very colorful, very tight leggings. They clung to his bulge and his buttocks, and he was built like a stallion, lean and taunt and powerful. Mycaela bit his lip, willing himself not to awaken and silently cursing himself for smoking a drug that was sometimes used as an aphrodisiac.
”
”
Ash Gray (Tales of Talithia)
“
Coconut trees were fireworks that arced into the sky and exploded in green. Pandanus trees, angular and mop-headed, seemed cut from the pages of a Dr. Seuss book. Breadfruit trees cast generous shadows. The lagoon, never more than twenty feet away, fulfilled every postcard cliché of tropical paradise. On the beach, muscular island men were beaching their wooden sailing canoe after a morning on the water, strings sagging with the weight of colorful reef fish.
”
”
Peter Rudiak-Gould (Surviving Paradise: One Year On A Disappearing Island)
“
From the outset of the program to solve the Jewish question there had arisen certain psychological problems for the executioners. Once the classic method of the firing squad had been dismissed as inappropriate, it had been replaced by a single bullet in the back of the neck. The victim would kneel before a ditch that he himself had dug, the pistol would be fired, and he would fall into his grave. Simple and quick. This had been tried for a few months in some marshy fields outside Warsaw, but the SS soldiers who did the job began to complain of lack of sleep. “They had bad dreams,” Vogl said. “They truly suffered.” It was the necks. The muscular necks of the men—the slender white necks of the young women. The wrinkled necks of the old that reminded a man of his parents… the frail necks of children, even the fleshy little necks of babies. The memory of the necks began to haunt the executioners. The soldiers began to miss the targets at point-blank range. A bullet would plow into a shoulder, or slice off an ear, or even strike the earth. “Then
”
”
Clifford Irving (The Angel of Zin)
“
Since his back was to her front Chloe had to practically plaster herself against his wide back in order to unbutton his crisp dress shirt, but somehow she didn’t mind. From his low, masculine groan that her action had elicited, she assumed Mark didn’t mind either. His spicy, dangerous scent filled her head as she spread the shirt to find a smooth, muscular chest leading down to powerfully sculpted abs. She wondered what line of work Mark was in. Whatever it was, he certainly kept himself in shape.
“Are you enjoying yourself, Mistress?” His smart-ass tone threw her, breaking her concentration on his muscled chest.
“I’ll ask the questions,” Chloe snapped, deciding abruptly that it was time to move on. She still felt a definite lack of control in this situation and it made her nervous, shattering the fragile self-confidence she’d managed to build. But she couldn’t stop searching him now or he’d be the winner of this little confrontation.
She let her hands slide lower, past the waistband of his pants to the bulging crotch. Oh my God, is he for real? She hadn’t been with very many men—okay, two. She’d only been with two other men. But Mark more than measured up to any other guy in her experience. In fact, she could barely believe what she was feeling was real. It was a damn good thing rule number two was “never have sex with the client”. She was pretty sure she wouldn’t have been able to handle what Mark was packing.
“Uh, Mistress, that’s all me, not a toy.” Mark’s deep voice still held a hint of amusement though it was sounding rather strained now. “And you might want to think of it less as a ‘toy’ than a loaded gun. One that’s going to go off if you’re not careful.
”
”
Evangeline Anderson (Masks)
“
In this way, Jesus might be seen by the faithful as the ultimate “Gentleman Barbarian” — he had the power and capacity to destroy all of his enemies with a wave of the hand, but chose to lay down his life — making the sacrifice not an act of weakness but of perfect and complete will.
”
”
Brett McKay (Muscular Christianity: The Relationship Between Men and Faith)
“
Once there was and once there was not a devout, God-fearing man who lived his entire life according to stoic principles. He died on his fortieth birthday and woke up floating in nothing. Now, mind you, floating in nothing was comforting, light-less, airless, like a mother’s womb. This man was grateful.
But then he decided he would love to have sturdy ground beneath his feet, so he would feel more solid himself. Lo and behold, he was standing on earth. He knew it to be earth, for he knew the feel of it.
Yet he wanted to see. I desire light, he thought, and light appeared. I want sunlight, not any light, and at night it shall be moonlight. His desires were granted. Let there be grass. I love the feel of grass beneath my feet. And so it was. I no longer wish to be naked. Only robes of the finest silk must touch my skin. And shelter, I need a grand palace whose entrance has double-sided stairs, and the floors must be marble and the carpets Persian. And food, the finest of food. His breakfast was English; his midmorning snack French. His lunch was Chinese. His afternoon tea was Indian. His supper was Italian, and his late-night snack was Lebanese. Libation? He had the best of wines, of course, and champagne. And company, the finest of company. He demanded poets and writers, thinkers and philosophers, hakawatis and musicians, fools and clowns.
And then he desired sex.
He asked for light-skinned women and dark-skinned, blondes and brunettes, Chinese, South Asian, African, Scandinavian. He asked for them singly and two at a time, and in the evenings he had orgies. He asked for younger girls, after which he asked for older women, just to try. The he tried men, muscular men, skinny men. Then boys. Then boys and girls together.
Then he got bored. He tried sex with food. Boys with Chinese, girls with Indian. Redheads with ice cream. Then he tried sex with company. He fucked the poet. Everybody fucked the poet.
But again he got bored. The days were endless. Coming up with new ideas became tiring and tiresome. Every desire he could ever think of was satisfied.
He had had enough. He walked out of his house, looked up at the glorious sky, and said, “Dear God. I thank You for Your abundance, but I cannot stand it here anymore. I would rather be anywhere else. I would rather be in hell.”
And the booming voice from above replied, “And where do you think you are?
”
”
Rabih Alameddine
“
If the body is no longer a site of otherness but of identification, then we have urgently to become reconciled with it, repair it, perfect it, turn it into an ideal object. Everyone treats their bodies the way men treat women in projective identification: they invest them as a fetish, making an autistic cult of them, subjecting them to a quasi-incestuous manipulation. And it is the body's resemblance to its model which becomes a source of eroticism and 'white' seduction -- in the sense that it effects a kind of white magic of identity, as opposed to the black magic of otherness.
This is how it is with body-building: you get into your body as you would into a suit of nerve and muscle. The body is not muscular, but muscled. It is the same with the brain and with social relations or exchanges: body-building, brainstorming, word-processing. Madonna is the ideal specimen of this, our muscled Immaculate Conception, our muscular angel who delivers us from the weaknesses of the body (pity the poor shade of Marilyn!).
The sheath of muscles is the equivalent of character armour. In the past, women merely wrapped themselves in their image and their finery -- Freud speaks of those people who live with a kind of inner mirror, in a fleshly, happy self-reference. That narcissistic ideal is past and gone; body-building has wiped it out and replaced it with a gymnastic Ego-Ideal -- cold, hard, stressed, artificial self-reference. The construction of a double, of a physical and mental identity shell. Thus, in `body simulation', where you can animate your body remotely at any moment, the phantasy of being present in more than one body becomes an operational reality. An extension of the human being. And not a metaphorical or poetic extension, as in Pessoa's heteronyms, but quite simply a technical one.
”
”
Jean Baudrillard (The Perfect Crime)
“
Along the shores of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean I went through fishing ports where the elegant poverty of the fishermen wounded my own. Without their seeing me, I would brush against men and women standing in a patch of shade, against boys plying on a square. The love that human beings seem to feel for one another tortured me at the time. If two men exchanged a greeting or a smile in passing, I would retreat to the farthest edges of the world. The glances exchanged by the two friends—and sometimes their words—were the subtlest emanation of a ray of love from the heart of each. A ray of very soft light, delicately coiled: a spun ray of love. I was amazed that such delicacy, so fine a thread and of so precious, and so chaste, a substance as love could be fashioned in so dark a smithy as the muscular bodies of those males, though they themselves always emitted that gentle ray in which there sometimes sparkled the droplets of a mysterious dew. I would fancy hearing the elder say to the other, who was no longer I, speaking of that part of the body which he must have loved dearly: "I'm going to dent your halo for you again tonight!" I could not take lightly the idea that people made love without me.
”
”
Jean Genet (The Thief's Journal)
“
The savage knows nothing of 'the law of Christ.' He will bear no other's burden. The sick must die; the wounded must perish; the feeble must go to the wall. Only the mightiest and most muscular survive and produce another generation. 'The law of Christ' ends all that. The luggage of life must be distributed. The sick must be nursed; the wounded must be tended; the frail must be cherished. These, too, must be permitted to play their part in the shaping of human destiny. They also may love and wed, and become fathers and mothers. The weaknesses of each are taken back into the blood of the race. The frailty of each becomes part of the common heritage. And, in the last result, if our men are not all Apollos, and if our women do not all resemble Venus de Medici, it is largely because we have millions with us who, but for 'the law of Christ/ operating on rational ideals, would have had no existence at all. In a Christian land, under Christian laws, we bear each other's burdens, we carry each other's luggage. It is the law of Christ, the law of the cross, a sacrificial law. The difference between savagery and civilization is simply this, that we have learned, in our very flesh and blood, to bear each other's burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ.
”
”
F.W. Boreham (The Luggage of Life......Plus .....George Augustus Selwyn, Bishop of New Zealand (Illustrated))
“
Te Rau Tauwhare was not quite thirty years of age. He was handsomely muscular, and carried himself with assurance and the tightly wound energy of youth; though not openly prideful, he never showed that he was impressed or intimidated by any other man. He possessed a deeply private arrogance, a bedrock of self-certainty that needed neither proof nor explication—for although he had a warrior’s reputation, and an honorable standing within his tribe, his self-conception had not been shaped by his achievements. He simply knew that his beauty and his strength were without compare; he simply knew that he was better than most other men.
”
”
Eleanor Catton (The Luminaries)
“
This is a subject I've given a lot of thought to, and I think I have the answer. I've tried to encompass in my theory all the sociological, mythological, religious, philosophical, muscular, economic, cultural, musical, physical, ethical, intellectual, metaphysical, anthropological, gynecological, historical, hormonal, environmental, judicial, legal, moral, ethnic, governmental, linguistic, psychological, schizophrenic, glottal, racial, poetic, dental [this was the logical link] artistic, military, and urinary considerations from prehistoric times to the present.I have been able to synthesize these considerations into one inescapable formulation: men can knock the shit out of women.
”
”
Fran Ross (Oreo)
“
They were all fine, handsome fellows; Fritz, now twenty-four, was of moderate height, uncommonly strong, active, muscular, and high-spirited. Ernest, two years younger, was tall and slight; in disposition, mild, calm, and studious; his early faults of indolence and selfishness were almost entirely overcome. He possessed refined tastes and great intellectual power. Jack, at twenty, strongly resembled Fritz, being about his height, though more lightly built, and remarkable rather for active grace and agility than for muscular strength. Franz, a lively youth of seventeen, had some of the qualities of each of his brothers; he possessed wit and shrewdness, but not the arch drollery of Jack. All were honorable, God-fearing young men, dutiful and affectionate to their mother and myself, and warmly attached to each other. Although
”
”
Johann David Wyss (The Swiss Family Robinson)
“
Is kissing me so bad, then, lass?”
“It’s not the kissing that’s bad …” Her words were lost in a soft moan as she tipped her head back for more kisses.
“What’s bad, my heart?” Hawk nipped her neck, gently.
“Oooh! … you!”
“Me? I’m bad?” He wouldn’t let her answer for a long moment while he nibbled at her lower lip, teased it, sucked it into his mouth, then slowly released it.
Adrienne drew a shaky breath. “Well … I mean … you are a man …”
“Yes,” he encouraged.
“And very beautiful at that….”
“Mmm … yes?”
“And I hate beautiful men….” Her hands moved over his shoulders, his broad muscled back, and tapered down over his tight waist to his muscular buttocks. She was shocked at her own daring, thrilled by the groan of pleasure she coaxed from him.
“I can tell. Hate me just like that, lass. Hate me like that again. Hate me all you need to hate me.
”
”
Karen Marie Moning (Beyond the Highland Mist (Highlander, #1))
“
[John C.] Calhoun was a minority spokesman in a democracy, a particularist in an age of nationalism, a slaveholder in an age of advancing liberties, and an agrarian in a furiously capitalistic country. His weakness was to be inhumanly schematic and logical, which is only to say that he thought as he lived. His mind, in a sense, was too masterful - it imposed itself upon realities. The great human, emotional, moral complexities of the world escaped him because he had no private training for them, had not even the talent for friendship, in which he might have been schooled. It was easier for him to imagine, for example, that the South had produced upon its slave base a better culture than the North because he had no culture himself, only a quick and muscular mode of thought. It may stand as a token of Calhoun's place in the South's history that when he did find culture there, at Charleston, he wished a plague upon it.
”
”
Richard Hofstadter (The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It)
“
Were men's knees supposed to be sexy? Their calves? One sight of Lucian's bony knee, delineated muscled thigh, and hard calf, lightly dusted with dark curling hair, made me want to reach out and stroke his leg, creep my hand under those shorts to cup what I knew would be firm and meaty and... damn.
Keeping my hands to myself and my mind out of his pants was going to be difficult. Which was weird; I loved men and sex, but I'd never been preoccupied by either. Until him.
”
”
Kristen Callihan (Make It Sweet)
“
Back in the twentieth century, American girls had used baseball terminology. “First base” referred to embracing and kissing; “second base” referred to groping and fondling and deep, or “French,” kissing, commonly known as “heavy petting”; “third base” referred to fellatio, usually known in polite conversation by the ambiguous term “oral sex”; and “home plate” meant conception-mode intercourse, known familiarly as “going all the way.” In the year 2000, in the era of hooking up, “first base” meant deep kissing (“tonsil hockey”), groping, and fondling; “second base” meant oral sex; “third base” meant going all the way; and “home plate” meant learning each other’s names. Getting to home plate was relatively rare, however. The typical Filofax entry in the year 2000 by a girl who had hooked up the night before would be: “Boy with black Wu-Tang T-shirt and cargo pants: O, A, 6.” Or “Stupid cock diesel”—slang for a boy who was muscular from lifting weights—“who kept saying, ‘This is a cool deal’: TTC, 3.” The letters referred to the sexual acts performed (e.g., TTC for “that thing with the cup”), and the Arabic number indicated the degree of satisfaction on a scale of 1 to 10. In the year 2000, girls used “score” as an active verb indicating sexual conquest, as in: “The whole thing was like very sketchy, but I scored that diesel who said he was gonna go home and caff up [drink coffee in order to stay awake and study] for the psych test.” In the twentieth century, only boys had used “score” in that fashion, as in: “I finally scored with Susan last night.” That girls were using such a locution points up one of the ironies of the relations between the sexes in the year 2000. The continuing vogue of feminism had made sexual life easier, even insouciant, for men. Women had been persuaded that they should be just as active as men when it came to sexual advances. Men were only too happy to accede to the new order, since it absolved them of all sense of responsibility
”
”
Tom Wolfe (Hooking Up (Ceramic Transactions Book 104))
“
Leaders are not leaders because they’re smarter, more talented, or more organized than those around them. Nor because they’re tall or wealthy or more muscular. Leaders are the ones who take courage. Regardless of what is going on around them, they repeatedly exercise the courage to step up and use their influence to move others in the right direction. People will follow a leader even if he doesn’t have it all together. But they won’t follow a man without courage, because a man without courage won’t lead.
”
”
Stephen Kendrick (The Resolution for Men)
“
They’re just as muscular here, just as tramplingly extraverted, as they are with you. So why don’t they turn into Stalins or Dipas, or at the least into domestic tyrants? First of all, our social arrangements offer them very few opportunities for bullying their families, and our political arrangements make it practically impossible for them to domineer on any larger scale. Second, we train the Muscle Men to be aware and sensitive, we teach them to enjoy the commonplaces of everyday existence. This means that they always have an alternative—innumerable alternatives—to the pleasure of being the boss. And finally we work directly on the love of power and domination that goes with this kind of physique in almost all its variations. We canalize this love of power and we deflect it—turn it away from people and on to things. We give them all kinds of difficult tasks to perform—strenuous and violent tasks that exercise their muscles and satisfy their craving for domination—but satisfy it at nobody’s expense and in ways that are either harmless or positively useful.
”
”
Aldous Huxley (Island)
“
In the absence of any precise idea as to what railways were, public opinion in Frick was against them; for the human mind in that grassy corner had not the proverbial tendency to admire the unknown, holding rather that it was likely to be against the poor man, and that suspicion was the only wise attitude with regard to it. Even the rumor of Reform had not yet excited any millennial expectations in Frick, there being no definite promise in it, as of gratuitous grains to fatten Hiram Ford’s pig, or of a publican at the “Weights and Scales” who would brew beer for nothing, or of an offer on the part of the three neighboring farmers to raise wages during winter. And without distinct good of this kind in its promises, Reform seemed on a footing with the bragging of peddlers, which was a hint for distrust to every knowing person. The men of Frick were not ill-fed, and were less given to fanaticism than to a strong muscular suspicion; less inclined to believe that they were peculiarly cared for by heaven, than to regard heaven itself as rather disposed to take them in—a disposition observable in the weather.
”
”
George Eliot (Middlemarch)
“
Baseball may be called the national pastime, but it survives on the sentimentality of middle-age men who wistfully dream of playing catch with their fathers and sons. Football, with its dull stoppages, lost its military-industrial relevance with the end of the Cold War, and has become as tired and predictable in performance as it is in political metaphor. The professional game floats on an ocean of gambling, the players' steroid-laced bodies having outgrown their muscular and skeletal carriages. Biceps rip from their moorings, ankles break on simple pivots. Achilles' tendons shrivel like slugs doused with salt. Soccer and basketball are the only mainstream sports that truly plug into the modem-pulse of a dot-com society. Soccer is perfectly suited for a country of the hamster-treadmill pace, the remote-control zap and the national attention deficit—two 45-minute halves, the clock never stops, no commercial interruptions, the final whistle blows in less than two hours. It is a fluid game of systemized chaos that, no matter how tightly scripted by coaches, cannot be regulated any more than information can be truly controlled on the Internet.
”
”
Jere Longman (The Girls of Summer: The U.S. Women's Soccer Team and How It Changed the World)
“
Ian saw only that the beautiful girl who had daringly come to his defense in a roomful of men, who had kissed him with tender passion, now seemed to be passionately attached not to any man, but to a pile of stones instead. Two years ago he’d been furious when he discovered she was a countess, a shallow little debutante already betrothed-to some bloodless fop, no doubt-and merely looking about for someone more exciting to warm her bed. Now, however, he felt oddly uneasy that she hadn’t married her fop. It was on the tip of his tongue to bluntly ask her why she had never married when she spoke again. “Scotland is different than I imagined it would be.”
“In what way?”
“More wild, more primitive. I know gentlemen keep hunting boxes here, but I rather thought they’d have the usual conveniences and servants. What was your hoe like?”
“Wild and primitive,” Ian replied. While Elizabeth looked on in surprised confusion, he gathered up the remains of their snack and rolled to his feet with lithe agility. “You’re in it,” he added in a mocking voice.
“In what?” Elizabeth automatically stood up, too.
“My home.”
Hot, embarrassed color stained Elizabeth’s smooth cheeks as they faced each other. He stood there with his dark hair blowing in the breeze, his sternly handsome face stamped with nobility and pride, his muscular body emanating raw power, and she thought he seemed as rugged and invulnerable as the cliffs of his homeland. She opened her mouth, intending to apologize; instead, she inadvertently spoke her private thoughts: “It suits you,” she said softly.
Beneath his impassive gaze Elizabeth stood perfectly still, refusing to blush or look away, her delicately beautiful face framed by a halo of golden hair tossing in the restless breeze-a dainty image of fragility standing before a man who dwarfed her. Light and darkness, fragility and strength, stubborn pride and iron resolve-two opposites in almost every way. Once their differences had drawn them together; now they separated them. They were both older, wiser-and convinced they were strong enough to withstand and ignore the slow heat building between them on that grassy ledge. “It doesn’t suit you, however,” he remarked mildly.
His words pulled Elizabeth from the strange spell that had seemed to enclose them. “No,” she agreed without rancor, knowing what a hothouse flower she must seem with her impractical gown and fragile slippers.
”
”
Judith McNaught (Almost Heaven (Sequels, #3))
“
I suggest you stand slowly and walk out with my men,” Zrakovi said, tapping a napkin against his lying, two-faced mouth and putting a twenty on the table to cover the drinks. “If you make a scene, innocent humans will be injured. I have a Blue Congress cleanup team in place, however, so if you want to fight in public and damage a few humans, knock yourself out. It will only add to your list of crimes.”
I stood slowly, gritting my teeth when Squirrel Chin patted me down while feeling me up and making it look like a romantic moment. He’d been so busy feeling the naughty bits that he missed both Charlie, sitting in my bag next to my foot, and the dagger attached to my inner forearm.
Idiot. Alex would never have been so sloppy. If Alex had patted me down, he’d have found not only the weapons but also the portable magic kit.
From the corner of my eye, I saw a tourist taking mobile phone shots of us. He’d no doubt email them to all his friends back home with stories of those crazy New Orleanians and their public displays of affection.
I considered pretending to faint, but I was too badly outnumbered for it to work. Like my friend Jean
Lafitte, whose help I could use about now, I didn’t want to try something unless it had a reasonable chance at succeeding. I also didn’t want to pull Charlie out and risk humans getting hurt.
“Walk out the door onto Chartres and turn straight toward the cathedral.” Zrakovi pulled his jacket aside enough for me to see a shoulder holster. I hadn’t even known the man could hold a gun, although for all I knew about guns it could be a water pistol.
The walk to the cathedral transport was three very long city blocks. My best escape opportunity would be near Jackson Square. When the muscular goons tried to turn me left toward the cathedral, I’d try to break and run right toward the river, where I could get lost among the wharves and docks long enough to draw and power a transport. Of course in order to run, I’d have to get away from the clinch of Dreadlocks and Squirrel Chin. Charlie could take care of that.
I slipped the messenger bag over my head slowly, and not even Zrakovi noticed the stick of wood protruding from the top by a couple of inches.
Not to be redundant, but . . . idiots.
None of us spoke as we proceeded down Chartres Street, where, to our south, the clouds continued to build. The wind had grown stronger and drier. The hurricane was sucking all the humidity out of the air, all the better to gain intensity. I hoped Zrakovi, a Bostonian, would enjoy his first storm. I hoped a live oak landed on his head.
”
”
Suzanne Johnson (Belle Chasse (Sentinels of New Orleans #5))
“
Nikolay Anastasyevitch Ananyev, the engineer, was a broad-shouldered, thick-set man, and, judging from his appearance, he had, like Othello, begun the "descent into the vale of years," and was growing rather too stout. He was just at that stage which old match-making women mean when they speak of "a man in the prime of his age," that is, he was neither young nor old, was fond of good fare, good liquor, and praising the past, panted a little as he walked, snored loudly when he was asleep, and in his manner with those surrounding him displayed that calm imperturbable good humour which is always acquired by decent people by the time they have reached the grade of a staff officer and begun to grow stout. His hair and beard were far from being grey, but already, with a condescension of which he was unconscious, he addressed young men as "my dear boy" and felt himself entitled to lecture them good-humouredly about their way of thinking. His movements and his voice were calm, smooth, and self-confident, as they are in a man who is thoroughly well aware that he has got his feet firmly planted on the right road, that he has definite work, a secure living, a settled outlook. . . . His sunburnt, thicknosed face and muscular neck seemed to say: "I am well fed, healthy, satisfied with myself, and the time will come when you young people too, will be wellfed, healthy, and satisfied with yourselves. . . ." He was dressed in a cotton shirt with the collar awry and in full linen trousers thrust into his high boots. From certain trifles, as for instance, from his coloured worsted girdle, his embroidered collar, and the patch on his elbow, I was able to guess that he was married and in all probability tenderly loved by his wife.
”
”
Anton Chekhov (Love)
“
Studentdom, he felt, must pass its own Examinations and define its own Commencement--a slow, most painful process, made the more anguishing by bloody intelligences like the Bonifacists of Siegfrieder College. Yet however it seemed at times that men got nowhere, but only repeated class by class the mistakes of their predecessors, two crucial facts about them were at once their hope and the limitation of their possibility, so he believed. One was their historicity: the campus was young, the student race even younger, and by contrast with the whole of past time, the great collegiate cultures had been born only yesterday. The other had to do with comparative cyclology, a field of systematic speculation he could not review for me just then, but whose present relevance lay in the correspondency he held to obtain between the life-history of individuals and the history of studentdom in general. As the embryologists maintained that ontogeny repeats phylogeny, so, Max claimed, the race itself--and on a smaller scale, West-Campus culture--followed demonstrably--in capital letters, as it were, or slow motion--the life-pattern of its least new freshman. This was the basis of Spielman's Law--ontogeny repeats cosmogeny--and there was much more to it and to the science of cyclology whereof it was first principle. The important thing for now was that, by his calculations, West-Campus as a whole was in mid-adolescence...
'Look how we been acting,' he invited me, referring to intercollegiate political squabbles; 'the colleges are spoilt kids, and the whole University a mindless baby, ja? Okay: so weren't we all once, Enos Enoch too? And we got to admit that the University's a precocious kid. If the history of life on campus hadn't been so childish, we couldn't hope it'll reach maturity.' Studentdom had passed already, he asserted, from a disorganized, pre-literate infancy (of which Croaker was a modern representative, nothing ever being entirely lost) through a rather brilliant early childhood ('...ancient Lykeion, Remus, T'ang...') which formed its basic and somewhat contradictory character; it had undergone a period of naive general faith in parental authority (by which he meant early Founderism) and survived critical spells of disillusionment, skepticism, rationalism, willfulness, self-criticism, violence, disorientation, despair, and the like--all characteristic of pre-adolescence and adolescence, at least in their West-Campus form. I even recognized some of those stages in my own recent past; indeed, Max's description of the present state of West-Campus studentdom reminded me uncomfortably of my behavior in the Lady-Creamhair period: capricious, at odds with itself, perverse, hard to live with. Its schisms, as manifested in the Quiet Riot, had been aggravated and rendered dangerous by the access of unwonted power--as when, in the space of a few semesters, a boy finds himself suddenly muscular, deep-voiced, aware of his failings, proud of his strengths, capable of truly potent love and hatred--and on his own. What hope there was that such an adolescent would reach maturity (not to say Commencement) without destroying himself was precisely the hope of the University.
”
”
John Barth (Giles Goat-Boy)
“
I don’t…believe you,” she lied, her blood running wild through her veins.
His gleaming gaze impaled her. “Then believe this.” And suddenly his mouth was on hers.
This was not what she’d set out to get from him.
But oh, the joy of it. The heat of it. His mouth covered hers, seeking, coaxing. Without breaking the kiss, he pushed her back against the wall, and she grabbed for his shoulders, his surprisingly broad and muscular shoulders. As he sent her plummeting into unfamiliar territory, she held on for dear life.
Time rewound to when they were in her uncle’s garden, sneaking a moment alone. But this time there was no hesitation, no fear of being caught.
Glorying in that, she slid her hands about his neck to bring him closer. He groaned, and his kiss turned intimate. He used lips and tongue, delving inside her mouth in a tender exploration that stunned her. Enchanted her. Confused her.
Something both sweet and alien pooled in her belly, a kind of yearning she’d never felt with Edwin. With any man but Dom.
As if he sensed it, he pulled back to look at her, his eyes searching hers, full of surprise. “My God, Jane,” he said hoarsely, turning her name into a prayer.
Or a curse? She had no time to figure out which before he clasped her head to hold her for another darkly ravishing kiss. Only this one was greedier, needier. His mouth consumed hers with all the boldness of Viking raiders of yore. His tongue drove repeatedly inside in a rhythm that made her feel all trembly and hot, and his thumbs caressed her throat, rousing the pulse there.
Thank heaven there was a wall to hold her up, or she was quite sure she would dissolve into a puddle at his feet. Because after all these years apart, he was riding roughshod over her life again. And she was letting him.
How could she not? His scent of leather and bergamot engulfed her, made her dizzy with the pleasure of it. He roused urges she’d never known she had, sparked fires in places she’d thought were frozen. Then his hands swept down her possessively as if to memorize her body…or mark it as belonging to him.
Belonging to him. Oh, Lord!
She shoved him away. How could she have fallen for his kisses after what he’d done? How could she have let him slip that far under her guard?
Never again, curse him! Never!
For a moment, he looked as stunned by what had flared between them as she. Then he reached for her, and she slipped from between him and the wall, panic rising in her chest.
“You do not have the right to kiss me anymore,” she hissed. “I’m engaged, for pity’s sake!”
As soon as her words registered, his eyes went cold. “It certainly took you long enough to remember it.”
She gaped at him. “You have the audacity to…to…” She stabbed his shoulder with one finger. “You have no business criticizing me! You threw me away years ago, and now you want to just…just take me up again, as if nothing ever happened between us?”
A shadow crossed his face. “I did not throw you away. You jilted me, remember?”
That was the last straw. “Right. I jilted you.” Turning on her heel, she stalked back toward the road. “Just keep telling yourself that, since you’re obviously determined to believe your own fiction.”
“Fiction?” He hurried after her. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh, why can’t you just admit what you really did and be done with it?”
Grabbing her by the arm, he forced her to stop just short of the street. He stared into her face, and she could see when awareness dawned in his eyes. “Good God. You know the truth. You know what really happened in the library that night.”
“That you manufactured that dalliance between you and Nancy to force me into jilting you?” She snatched her arm free. “Yes, I know.”
Then she strode out of the alley, leaving him to stew in his own juices.
”
”
Sabrina Jeffries (If the Viscount Falls (The Duke's Men, #4))
“
If you’d convinced Nancy to marry you, you might not have had to go off to be a Bow Street runner. You could have had an easier life, a better life in high society than you could have had with me if you’d married me. Without being able to access my fortune, I could only have dragged you down.”
“You don’t really believe that I wanted to marry her for her money,” he gritted out.
“It’s either that or assume that you fell madly in love with her in the few weeks we were apart.” They were nearly to the inn now, so she added a plaintive note to her voice. “Or perhaps it was her you wanted all along. You knew my uncle would never accept a second son as a husband for his rich heiress of a daughter, so you courted me to get close to her. Nancy was always so beautiful, so--”
“Enough!”
Without warning, he dragged her into one of the many alleyways that crisscrossed York. This one was deeply shadowed, the houses leaning into each other overhead, and as he pulled her around to face him, the brilliance of his eyes shone starkly in the dim light.
“I never cared one whit about Nancy.”
She tamped down her triumph--he hadn’t admitted the whole truth yet. “It certainly didn’t look that way to me. It looked like you had already forgotten me, forgotten what we meant to each--”
“The hell I had.” He shoved his face close to hers. “I never forgot you for one day, one hour, one moment. It was you--always you. Everything I did was for you, damn it. No one else.”
The passionate profession threw her off course. Dom had never been the sort to say such sweet things. But the fervent look in his eyes roused memories of how he used to look at her. And his hands gripping her arms, his body angling in closer, were so painfully familiar...
“I don’t…believe you,” she lied, her blood running wild through her veins.
His gleaming gaze impaled her. “Then believe this.” And suddenly his mouth was on hers.
This was not what she’d set out to get from him.
But oh, the joy of it. The heat of it. His mouth covered hers, seeking, coaxing. Without breaking the kiss, he pushed her back against the wall, and she grabbed for his shoulders, his surprisingly broad and muscular shoulders. As he sent her plummeting into unfamiliar territory, she held on for dear life.
Time rewound to when they were in her uncle’s garden, sneaking a moment alone. But this time there was no hesitation, no fear of being caught.
Glorying in that, she slid her hands about his neck to bring him closer. He groaned, and his kiss turned intimate. He used lips and tongue, delving inside her mouth in a tender exploration that stunned her. Enchanted her. Confused her.
Something both sweet and alien pooled in her belly, a kind of yearning she’d never felt with Edwin. With any man but Dom.
As if he sensed it, he pulled back to look at her, his eyes searching hers, full of surprise. “My God, Jane,” he said hoarsely, turning her name into a prayer.
Or a curse? She had no time to figure out which before he clasped her head to hold her for another darkly ravishing kiss. Only this one was greedier, needier. His mouth consumed hers with all the boldness of Viking raiders of yore. His tongue drove repeatedly inside in a rhythm that made her feel all trembly and hot, and his thumbs caressed her throat, rousing the pulse there.
Thank heaven there was a wall to hold her up, or she was quite sure she would dissolve into a puddle at his feet. Because after all these years apart, he was riding roughshod over her life again. And she was letting him.
How could she not? His scent of leather and bergamot engulfed her, made her dizzy with the pleasure of it. He roused urges she’d never known she had, sparked fires in places she’d thought were frozen. Then his hands swept down her possessively as if to memorize her body…or mark it as belonging to him.
Belonging to him.
”
”
Sabrina Jeffries (If the Viscount Falls (The Duke's Men, #4))
“
Train that bitch to love you, a bitch like that, she's the type, you have to train, and even then, she'll still try to fuck around on you and test the boundaries, unless you have something no other man has, but to her you're a dick, and her she likes big dicks and muscular men, I can tell.
”
”
Stephen Demone (Pathetic Pussy)
“
The great significance of the facts that we all eat, grow, reproduce, react alike to pleasure and pain, and are linked together in the marvelous interdependencies of physical nature is all too often stifled and buried under the less fundamental observations that we do not all think or feel or worship in exactly the same ways. And, lost in our thoughts, we often omit to do those things that would turn our best ideas into physical realities, because we can easily forget that “the activities of the nervous system can have no external significance until they are expressed to our fellow men by muscular activity, be it action, writing, or speech”12. Helping to correct the solipsistic tendencies of abstract contemplation is one of the most important roles of bodywork.
”
”
Deane Juhan (Job's Body: A Handbook for Bodywork)
“
Bears. We come in all shapes and varieties. Besides your “typical” bear (a hairy, stocky to heavyset man), there are chubs (heavyset men who aren’t necessarily hairy), cubs (young bears or bears who are very young at heart), daddy bears (older guys, sometimes looking for a “daddy/son” relationship with a younger guy or cub—definitely not talking pederasty here), leather bears (bears who like to wear leather), muscle bears (can be very muscular, but they tend not to worry about abs in favor of some nice padding), polar bears (bears whose hair has gone gray/white), panda bears (bears of Asian descent), black bears (bears of African descent), pocket bears (short bears), Ewoks (very short bears), ginger bears (redheaded bears), and grizzly bears (usually much shaggier and taller and sometimes dominant). And then there are otters (hairy guys who are slim)!
”
”
Dreamspinner Press
“
To the west, the sinking sun was a red orb, streaking the evening sky with wisps of dark gray and pink. Loretta no longer sat erect on the horse to keep her breasts from touching the Comanche’s naked back. She slumped against him, her lolling head pillowed by the muscular cleavage of his spine. Pain shot up her cramped legs from the bonds of coarse wool braid. The rawhide around her wrists had cinched tight, cutting into her skin. Her tongue was a parched lump. One more mile, and she felt sure she would die.
She imagined herself sinking into blackness, escaping. It would be cool and dark in heaven. The water there would flow sparkling and icy. There would be no Comanche with cruel, midnight blue eyes.
Hunter’s voice rumbled inside him, vibrating against her cheek. Loretta felt the stallion slowing down. Angry words in a language she couldn’t understand ricocheted around her, high, low, growling, shrill. She fluttered her lashes, too miserable to care why the men argued, just thankful for the reprieve. She felt Hunter shift his weight backward, felt his hard hands fumbling with the tight band of leather that bound her wrists. The next second her arms were freed and fell like dead weights to her sides. Hunter’s strong back disappeared. She slumped forward on the horse, not caring about anything as long as she could rest.
Something cold touched her left ankle. In some distant part of her mind, she realized that someone was cutting the wool braid that bound her feet. She kept her eyes closed, her cheek pressed against the horse’s sweaty neck, her arms hanging. A moment later her right ankle was freed as well.
And then came a new kind of pain. Not fire, but thousands of needles pricking her legs, the agony shooting to her hips. She gasped and bolted upright. When she did, she pitched sideways. The world turned upside down. Arms caught her. The sky spun above her. Someone yelled.
Torture. She was being carried, but the arms that cradled her were made of white-hot fire, singeing her wherever they touched. She didn’t think there could be any pain more excruciating. Then cruel hands lowered her to a soft mat of grass, but the blades of the grass turned to sharp spikes, piercing her flesh.
Loretta closed her eyes and gave herself up to the pain. Someone held her and rocked her--someone strong with a deep voice that whispered like silk through her mind. The words were sometimes strange, but the few she understood made the meaning of the others absolutely clear. She was safe where she was, sure enough safe--forever.
”
”
Catherine Anderson (Comanche Moon (Comanche, #1))
“
Sexual differentiation begins approximately six weeks after conception, when in male children the gonads are formed and begin to manufacture male hormone, which has a profound effect on the future development of the embryo. In the female, on the other hand, the ovaries are not formed until the sixth month, by which time the greater size, weight, and muscular strength of the male is already established. This is the biological basis of the sexual dimorphism apparent in the great majority of societies known to anthropology, where child-rearing is almost invariably the responsibility of women, and hunting and warfare the responsibility of men. These differences have less to do with cultural `stereotypes' than some fashionable contemporary notions would have us believe. While it is true that at all ages males and females have far more in common than they have differences between them, there can be no doubt that some differences exist which have their roots in the biology of our species. Jung was quite clear about this. Again and again, he refers to the masculine and the feminine as two great archetypal principles, coexisting as equal and complementary parts of a balanced cosmic system, as expressed in the interplay of yin and yang in Taoist philosophy. These archetypal principles provide the foundations on which masculine and feminine stereotypes begin to do their work, providing an awareness of gender. Gender is the psychic recognition and social expression of the sex to which nature has assigned us, and a child's awareness of its gender is established by as early as eighteen months of age.
”
”
Anthony Stevens (Jung: A Very Short Introduction)
“
He had dark eyes that seemed to latch on to hers when he entered the elevator. His nose was a bit crooked, but it gave his face character. He was muscular, and had a larger build than the other two men with him. He wasn’t only taller than them, he was bigger in every sense of the word. He made her think of late nights and cuddling on the couch.
”
”
Susan Stoker (Securing Caite (SEAL of Protection: Legacy, #1))
“
If the human race survives, a group of archeologists will someday discover a circle of the tools I’ve launched into the air in frustration. They’ll conclude that a small cult called "the Tool Hurlers" once occupied this ground. I've learned to leave skilled work to young men. Muscular types with tool belts and tattoos, and a barely concealed disdain for the tottering old fool who doesn't realize a simple clockwise twist of an 11/16ths deep socket wrench would have fixed the problem. I do actually own that wrench, but I use it for slide guitar.
”
”
Garnet Rogers (6 Crows Gold)
“
Aside from evidence for proactive violence among contemporary hunter-gatherers, two thorny facts don’t entirely square with the view that we stopped fighting ever since we became hunter-gatherers. The first fact is muscle. The average adult man today is 12 to 15 percent heavier than the average adult woman, but women have much higher percentages of body fat masking underlying differences in muscle mass. Whole-body scans show that males average 61 percent more muscle mass then females, with most of that difference in the upper body.30 Men’s extra brawn, moreover, is added during puberty, when testosterone levels shoot up, accelerating muscle growth in the arms, shoulders, and neck.31 In this regard, human men resemble male kangaroos, whose upper bodies also enlarge during adolescence to help them fight.32 Enhanced upper-body muscularity in male humans might also have been selected for hunting, but we cannot rule out aggression. The second fact is literally staring us in the face. Consider the faces of assorted males in the genus Homo lined up for you in figure 16. Note that until about 100,000 years ago, even in some of the earliest Homo sapiens, males tend to have massive, heavily built faces and menacingly large browridges. The earliest H. sapiens males have smaller, less robust faces than Neanderthals and other non-modern humans, but truly lightly built, “feminized” faces don’t appear until less than 100,000 years ago.33 It is intriguing to hypothesize that these big faces reflect higher levels of testosterone during adolescence. In males today, elevated testosterone contributes to not only higher libidos, more impulsivity, and more reactive aggression but also bigger browridges and larger faces.34 Another molecule that possibly affects facial masculinization is the neurotransmitter serotonin, which reduces aggression; less masculinized faces are associated with higher levels of serotonin.35
”
”
Daniel E. Lieberman (Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding)
“
He’s one of these short men that compensates by being extremely muscular. He’s got this big thick neck, and this teeny tiny pea head; thinning hair, bleached teeth, weak chin. Grotesque.
”
”
Eliza Clark (Boy Parts)
“
Two months went by without running, yet the pain persisted. It was suggested that I explore some proactive therapy options, but such therapies seemed like a false promise. I just need more time off, I told myself. But my friend Greg Anzalone insisted I see Dr. Shay Shani, a chiropractor in Westlake Village, near my home, who was known for working miracles. I was very reluctant to allow anyone to touch my spine. I’d never suffered back pain, and the idea of someone twisting my neck and back until it cracked just seemed like a bad idea. Besides, why would someone go to a chiropractor for a calf injury? Ultimately, though, I yielded to Greg’s urging. And X-rays of my spine proved immediately revealing. A close look at my pelvic area showed why every time I suffered any kind of pain, ache, throb, or injury—be it passing, mild, or severe—it always appeared on the left side of my body. Due to scar-tissue buildup, a mild spinal displacement known as spondylolisthesis, and slight muscular asymmetry, my left leg was actually four millimeters longer than my right.
”
”
Rich Roll (Finding Ultra: Rejecting Middle Age, Becoming One of the World's Fittest Men, and Discovering Myself)
“
It was no surprise that upper-class and upper-middle-class young men thronged the recruitment halls. They had been primed for war on the playing fields, in their self-regulated peer societies, through the ethos of muscular Christianity.
”
”
Jon Savage (Teenage)
“
Well, at least it wraps up with designer underwear. I'm not very interested in clothes, but I'm quite interested in watching muscular young men walk up and down in tight pants."
"That's our national sport, darling.
”
”
Alexis Hall (Glitterland (Spires, #1))
“
Don’t you own any jeans?” “I do.” “You should wear them.” “Why? Is the sight of my legs disturbing you, Derek?” She stopped Peanut and stuck her left leg out in front of him. “Is there something wrong with my legs?” There was nothing wrong with her legs. They were pale and muscular, and men who should know better noticed them. He was not going to notice them for a list of reasons a mile long, starting with the fact that she was sixteen, and he was twenty. He sidestepped her leg.
”
”
Ilona Andrews (Magic Stars (Kate Daniels, #8.5, Grey Wolf, #1))
“
Mark, at dinner, said he’d been re-reading “Anna Karenina”. Found it good, as novels go. But complained of the profound untruthfulness of even the best imaginative literature. And he began to catalogue its omissions. Almost total neglect of those small physiological events that decide whether day-to-day living shall have a pleasant or unpleasant tone. Excretion, for example, with its power to make or mar the day. Digestion. And, for the heroines of novel and drama, menstruation. Then the small illnesses—catarrh, rheumatism, headache, eyestrain. The chronic physical disabilities—ramifying out (as in the case of deformity or impotence) into luxuriant insanities. And conversely the sudden accessions, from unknown visceral and muscular sources, of more than ordinary health. No mention, next, of the part played by mere sensations in producing happiness. Hot bath, for example, taste of bacon, feel of fur, smell of freesias. In life, an empty cigarette-case may cause more distress than the absence of a lover; never in books. Almost equally complete omission of the small distractions that fill the greater part of human lives. Reading the papers; looking into shops; exchanging gossip; with all the varieties of day-dreaming, from lying in bed, imagining what one would do if one had the right lover, income, face, social position, to sitting at the picture palace passively accepting ready-made day-dreams from Hollywood
Lying by omission turns inevitably into positive lying. The implications of literature are that human beings are controlled, if not by reason, at least by comprehensible, well-organized, avowable sentiments. Whereas the facts are quite different. Sometimes the sentiments come in, sometimes they don’t. All for love, or the world well lost; but love may be the title of nobility given to an inordinate liking for a particular person’s smell or texture, a lunatic desire for the repetition of a sensation produced by some particular dexterity. Or consider those cases (seldom published, but how numerous, as anyone in a position to know can tell!), those cases of the eminent statesmen, churchmen, lawyers, captains of industry—seemingly so sane, demonstrably so intelligent, publicly so high-principled; but, in private, under irresistible compulsion towards brandy, towards young men, towards little girls in trains, towards exhibitionism, towards gambling or hoarding, towards bullying, towards being whipped, towards all the innumerable, crazy perversions of the lust for money and power and position on the one hand, for sexual pleasure on the other. Mere tics and tropisms, lunatic and unavowable cravings—these play as much part in human life as the organized and recognized sentiments. And imaginative literature suppresses the fact. Propagates an enormous lie about the nature of men and women.
”
”
Aldous Huxley (Eyeless in Gaza)
“
They touched their faces, put their fingers in their mouths, tugged on their ears and stomped the ground, their bodies moving and creating a new rhythm that the men had to change their claps to fit, the claps now being determined by the dancers moving, while the men got to stomping and shouting joyfully, syncopating their palms to the women and children and if the men got off beat they fixed that by paying close attention to the feet blurring and kicking and stomping near the fire so they laid down their instruments and played a song with their bodies and their heads got to nodding and hips to rocking to gyrating to the claps pulsating around them changing changing changing and their mouths open and the funk of the body let loose the sweat the stink all in the hair until somebody hollered something beyond a word and they kept on hollering it the sound leading into another sound into a new sound loud from the mouth like a spirit trying to answer the bodies or the bodies trying to answer the spirit that wouldn’t be contained as their legs kicked and their heads rolled until their movements spoke in Tongues and the throat got to letting out a moan here and a groan there and the sound of pain left their flesh while their muscular bodies and their thin bodies and their fat bodies and their sickly bodies glistened in the fire and every child screamed as they jumped and spun and every man clapped moaned and testified with their feet to what sounded like it hurt so bad must have hurt them so bad coming up out the body out the burning well of the throat out the wet of their spit wailing lifting up from the bodies now contortion-flexed and contracting on the ground eyes fluttering in their heads the body creating a new way of being a new way of thinking creating a new knowledge that belonged to them—then Saint stopped moving and stood up; her body shook and shined.
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Phillip B. Williams (Ours)
“
I suppose some people would be horrified if they saw this place. They would think it was wrong to try and bring a girl here. But I don’t think it’s wrong. Here’s my reasoning: Women are shallow. They only care about appearances. They want men who are muscular and tall and good-looking and rich. But it’s all superficial. They don’t actually care about what the man is like as a person. That’s why guys like me can never find women, no matter how nice we are. Girls don’t even give us a chance to get to know them.
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Lily Gold (Triple-Duty Bodyguards)
“
great qualities that allow young athletes to discover their bodies and explore the limits of their movements. They need to have room to grow and discover through movement. Bring in the play element early and keep it there! A positive trend is the continued opportunities for women to compete in sport. Unfortunately the training and preparation have not kept pace with the opportunities to compete. Biologically and socioculturally, women are different from men. These differences must be accounted for in training and preparation. Women are certainly more susceptible to certain injuries, specifically ACL tears; this demands that prevention programs be incorporated in daily training. To do otherwise would be remiss. There is still much misunderstanding about the role of strength training with female athletes. Some athletes and coaches just do not recognize its importance. Culturally in many circles it is not acceptable for women to be muscular and fit. For female athletes to receive proper training, these barriers need to be broken down. There is no doubt about the need for more qualified women in coaching. The time commitment and lifestyle dissuade
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Vern Gambetta (Athletic Development: The Art & Science of Functional Sports Conditioning)
“
Naomi stretched as she woke with an exaggerated yawn in her own bed.
How the hell did I get here?
Recollection of the dirty trick the two men played on her the previous night made her sit up abruptly.
The sheet fell away and she noticed her clothing of the previous eve gone, replaced with a t-shirt and shorts.
“Those dirty, rotten pigs,” she cursed as she swung her legs out of bed and sat on the edge.
“You called?” A head topped with tousled hair poked out from around the door frame of the bathroom.
Number sixty-nine’s dark eyes twinkled and his lips curled in a sensual smile.
Despite her irritation, her body flooded with warmth.
“You!” She pointed at him and shot him a dark glare.
He grinned wider. “What about me, darling?”
“I’m going to kick your balls so hard you’re going to choke on them. How dare you drug me and then do despicable things to my body while I was unconscious?”
Stepping forward from the bathroom, he raised his arms in surrender and her eyes couldn’t help drinking in the sight of him.
No one should look that delicious, especially in the morning, was her disgruntled thought. Shirtless, Javier’s tight and toned muscles beckoned. Encased in smooth, tanned skin, his muscular torso tapered down to lean hips where his jeans hung, partially unbuttoned and displayed a bulge that grew as she watched. Unbidden heat flooded her cleft and her nipples shriveled so tight she could have drilled holes with them.
She forced herself to swallow and look away before she did something stupid— say, like, licking her way down from his flat nipples to the dark vee of hair that disappeared into his pants.
“It would take a braver man than me to disobey your mother’s orders. Besides, you needed the sleep,” he added in a placating tone.
Scowling, Naomi mentally planned a loud diatribe for her mother.
“Let me ask you, how does your head feel now?” His question derailed her for a second, and she paused to realize she actually felt pretty damned good— but now I’m horny and it’s all his friggin’ fault.
She dove off the bed and stalked toward him, five foot four feet of annoyed woman craving coffee, a Danish, and him— naked inside her body.
The first two she’d handle shortly, the third, she’d make him pay for.
He stood his ground as she approached, the idiot.
“What did you do to me while I was out?” she growled as she patted her neck looking for a mating mark.
“Nothing. Contrary to your belief, snoring women with black and blue faces just don’t do it for me.”
His jibe hurt, but not as much as her foot when it connected with his undefended man parts.
He ended up bent over, wheezing while Naomi smirked in satisfaction.
“That’s for knocking me out. But, if I find out you did anything to me other than dress me, like cop a feel or take nudie pictures, I’m going hurt you a lot worse.”
“Has anyone ever told you you’re hot when you’re mad?” said the man with an obvious death wish.
Only his speed saved him from her swinging fist as she screeched at him. “Go away. Can’t you tell I’m not interested?”
“Liar.” He threw that comment at her from the other side of her bed. “I can smell your arousal, sweetheart. And might I say, I can’t wait to taste it.
”
”
Eve Langlais (Delicate Freakn' Flower (Freakn' Shifters, #1))
“
Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions – and you’ll learn that man’s mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.
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Sharath Komarraju (Money Wise: Aam Aadmi's Guide to Wealth and Financial Freedom)
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There is also the less-well-known double standard of testing for steroids and other strength-enhancing drugs. “Because they think women can’t get hard and muscular without drugs—which is wrong, some women can—” Bev said, “they started by testing all the contestants at every Olympia. Then they substituted random testing, which means you can be tested at any time during the year, without warning. But it’s only for the women. The men, they don’t test. They did it one year, and everyone looked so crappy they stopped it.
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Gloria Steinem (Moving Beyond Words: Essays on Age, Rage, Sex, Power, Money, Muscles: Breaking the Boundaries of Gender)
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Michaels was built just like all the men in their family. Duty fit. Good height, just enough to tower over the average man. Broad, defined back and thick arms. Thighs that were muscular, but lean enough to chase and catch a suspect. Michaels
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A.E. Via (Don't Judge (Nothing Special, #4))
“
When Jon finally, impatiently, took his place between Tom’s legs, he felt like a wanton beast. His hands closed exactly over the tattoos that curled over Tom’s hips, like they were guides. He groaned and slid his whole length smoothly in one motion inside Tom. Under him, Tom moaned and shuddered, pushing back on Jon. Unlike the last time he shared a lover with Baltsaros, this body was the right one beneath him. When he turned to look at the captain, Jon saw that the man’s eyes were half-lidded with lust, his top lip curled on one side in a wicked sneer of desire as he stroked himself while watching Jon and Tom. Bolstered by the captain’s reaction, Jon started thrusting hard into Tom, his breath heaving and groaning out of him from the glorious sensation of the man’s slick muscles enveloping and sliding over his cock. Tom met every plunge with a low moan, one hand frantically twisting the coverlet in his fist while the other worked his own hard shaft beneath him. The sound of Jon’s pelvis slamming hard against Tom’s muscular ass competed with the bestial sounds coming from the two men’s throats.
”
”
Bey Deckard (Caged: Love and Treachery on the High Seas (Baal's Heart, #1))
“
I kiss Orion deeply, one last time. “Are you sure you don’t want to come in with me?” I ask. “I don’t think it’s going to help your case,” the raptor replies. “I mean, some people just don’t understand that love is real. You’ve gotta put yourself in there position. They’re so used to everything working a certain way, women kissing men, men kissing men… not men kissing dinosaurs.” I want to protest but I know that he’s right. Even the most liberal of juries is going to have a hard time with this muscular dinosaur sitting there in the courtroom while I argue my case. It’s better if we part ways here. “I’ll see you soon.” I tell him, my voice quaking. We both know that’s not going to happen, but we’re trying our best to pretend. “I love you,” Orion says to me one last time. “I love you, too” I assure him. We kiss again and then I finally muster up the discipline to pull away and push out through the car’s door. I stand up on the sidewalk before the courthouse as flash bulbs burst with blinding luminescence. I shield my eyes, stunned for a moment as I struggle to collect my bearings. “Mr. Tanner!” someone interjects, shoving a microphone in my face. “Is it true you hate unicorns?” “What?” I stammer. “We understand that your mission was funded off the profits of illegally traded unicorn tears, do you have anything to say to that?” “I mean…” I’m still trying to collect my bearings, struggling to sort through her words. “No, wait, yeah I do. That’s really bad, I didn’t know anything about it.” The reporter nods and repeats my words back to me. “Really bad… so you’re saying it’s not awful? Is that what you’re saying?” “No, I just…” I start. “Because it sounds like you’re not really coming out against the illegal trade of unicorn tears,” the reporter continues. “I literally heard about it five seconds ago,” I counter. “That sounds terrible, I don’t really know anything about it but it sounds really bad and I don’t support that.” The reporter nods. “Okay it’s really hard to understand you when you speak in code like this. Can you just answer the question? Do you or don’t you support bad guys doing bad things? Because you haven’t really come out against them.” “I don’t support bad guys,” I try to say as clearly as I possibly can. The reporter just stares at me blankly. “So you’re not going to come out against them?” Suddenly, someone from the mob pushes me from behind and I stumble forward. The entire gang of hungry journalists and newscasters has reached a tipping point and I realize now that if I don’t continue onward there is going to be a problem. I
”
”
Chuck Tingle (Space Raptor Butt Trilogy)
“
I ventured into the dimly lit darkness towards the blaring disco music and crowded dance floor. The enclosure reeked of poppers (alkyl nitrites), a recreational drug often used by gay men to heighten their sexual arousal. The club was hopping with the latest disco hits from the popular disco queen of 70s, Donna Summer. Half-naked and almost naked men were crowding the dance floor, grinding their perspiring bodies against each other in a sensual and sexual trancelike state. Men in various stages of foreplay were gyrating their muscular and sinewy bodies against each other in preparation for impulsive back-room romps. After taking to the dance floor for a couple of songs, I embarked on an exploration journey towards the back of the house. It was difficult to make out the abundance of naked bodies loathering in the dark in various stages of copulation. When I ventured into a large room with a sling in the middle, I heard a familiar, high-pitched groaning voice. It was a voice I had heard several years ago in class at the Bahriji School. It was a soprano voice that I could never get out of my head. Surrounding the voice was a queue of mesomorphically built men, waiting their turn to satisfy their sexual desires on an equally muscular hunk lying on the suspended, swinging sling. The man’s legs were spread above his torso. They were strapped to either sides of the hanging chains and so were his wrists, tied securely above his head. Although the ‘bottom’ was blindfolded with a black kerchief, I instantly recognized him as none other than the famous supermodel, Rick Samuels.
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Young (Unbridled (A Harem Boy's Saga, #2))
“
It is not the men who are in command of the bulldozers. It is the bulldozer who invented men, and then, since they failed to interest it, obliterated them with its muscular arm.
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J.M.G. Le Clézio (The Giants)
“
But maybe she’d have herself a little adventure in there somewhere. Maybe on her cruise, on one of her trips. Not with this kind of man, of course. He was too mature, for one thing. One look convinced her—he knew everything about men and women, while she knew very little. He looked a little dangerous and very, very physical. Scary. He had that warrior appearance, complete with tattoos. The sight of him bare-chested had rattled her, but the big horse beneath her had given her plenty of confidence. His shoulders were so large, strong and muscular, and he had a barbed-wire armband tattooed on his rippling left biceps. His belly was flat and hard with a trail of chest hair that disappeared into his jeans. The stubble along his jaw made his grin a little taunting and definitely naughty; it had made her shiver. And he had an aura of carelessness. He would take a bite of her, then pitch her out, forgetting her before morning. But while Shelby had looked him over, everything inside her had grown warm. Something about him, a forbidden quality, was absolutely delicious. Even the damn dirt looked good on him. Despite her common sense, she wondered, wouldn’t that be interesting? And her very next thought was, no, no, no, not him! My adventure will come in a polo shirt, cheeks as smooth as a baby’s butt, styled hair, no tattoos and hopefully an advanced degree. Not some scary Black Hawk pilot who has a Ph.D. in one-night stands! *
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Robyn Carr (Temptation Ridge)
“
In the Sultan Suite Andy was eagerly awaiting my reappearance. He had nailed as many engaging pictures as he could, and he had done superbly – but I didn’t know that yet. When I regained position, Lihaar had straddled Aziz’s firmness, and Jabril’s thickness was gyrating within her derriere. The men rocked into her in rhythmic synchronicity while moans of zealous fervencies rose in crescendo from the singer’s throat. Coraline seized the opportunity and plunged her tilting pelvis onto the actress’s face. As if executing a perfect dance the Indian twirled her lecherous tongue into the big sister’s blossoming crevice. Afraid the dark-haired female would evade her pleasure vault, Coraline’s tenacious hands gripped her tightly. Aziz drove his slithering tongue into Narnia’s wetness, teasing her nether region to groans of rapturous ecstasy. His probing fingers buried deep in her rousing bottom, driving her to bouts of climactic liberations. She shuttered unquenchably to each heaving motion of intimate deliverance. Waves of euphoric ecstasies filled her girlishness. She delivered her youthful exuberance again and again until her heaving breasts laid heavy against the Arab’s muscular chest. After all, I had been taught by great masters of the day – and I was the sorcerer’s apprentice. Therefore, no encouragements were required for me to capture affectionate kisses and private embraces from every bewitching angle. But my task was by no means over. Exotic shots of erotic discharges arrived in the shapely form of Ms. Lihaar riding both phalluses with abandon. Like her little sister Narnia, Coraline had delivered curls of billowing euphoria onto the actress’s face, coating the flawless beauty with dribbling wetness before lapping at her deliverance with sensual jubilations. The men could no longer withhold their deposits. Sprays of masculinity filled the actress as she milked their pounding manliness to blissful nirvana. Together, my chaperone and I had garnered superlative shots for our patron when we left the Sultan cavern quietly, returning to the Maharajah in pursuit of a saturnalia of unbridled revelry.
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Young (Turpitude (A Harem Boy's Saga Book 4))
“
Baltsaros’s arm quickly came around Jon’s waist, and he was hauled up and pushed forwards onto hands and knees and entered again so that he could be fucked slowly from behind. Groaning softly, Jon fell thankfully into the shallow rhythm that the captain liked to use on him to make him cum from within. Tom sat back a moment just watching the two with an amused look on his face as his rough hand squeezed and pulled at his own cock. Then, with an impish grin, the muscular first mate pushed under Jon headfirst to continue using his mouth while Baltsaros’s thick cock thrust into the dark-haired young man. Jon let out a deep moan; it was a feverish, exquisite feeling, and he let himself ride on the wave of it, panting and moving his hips wantonly as both men worked at him. When he lowered himself to his elbows to rest against Tom’s hard stomach, he felt the first mate’s cock touch his lips. With a pulse of desire, he quickly opened his mouth and sucked softly at the head of it, working along the flared edge of the glans and dipping the tip of his tongue into the salty slit while Tom’s hand stroked the shaft, his hard fist bumping up against Jon’s wet lips. Beneath him, Tom let out a low moan and shifted his head back so that Jon’s cock slid more easily between his lips. A moment later, the first mate’s big hands came up to hold Jon’s waist as the three of them moved slowly together.
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Bey Deckard (Sacrificed: Heart Beyond the Spires (Baal's Heart, #2))
“
HEROPANTI MOVIE REVIEW & RATING
Movie Name: Heropanti
Director: Sabbir Khan
Producer: Sajid Nadiadwala
Music Director: Sajid-Wajid, Manj Musik
Cast: Tiger Shroff, Kirti Sanon, Sandeepa Dhar
‘Heropanti’, a love story is directed by Sabbir Khan and produced by Sajid Nadiadwala. It is the debut movie of Tiger Shroff (son of superstar Jackie Shroff) and Kirti Sanon, both starring in lead roles alongside Sandeepa Dhar featuring in a pivotal role. Overall it is a remake of Telugu movie ‘Parugu’ starring Allu Arjun.
‘Heropanti’ is all about another new gem in Bollywood industry. Big launch with hit songs. New faces- heroine as well as hero. Does it work? Let’s go through to know it…
‘Heropanti’ borrows half of its title from Sr. Shroff’s breakout film and is also having the signature tune from ‘Hero’ (1983) which is being played in the background repeatedly. The action movie is not as terrible as Salman and Akshay films. The newcomer Tiger Shroff has done amazing stunts in the film.
The story is set in the land of Jattland in Harayana where Chaudhary (Prakash Raj), the Haryanvi goon is completely against love marriages. He has two daughters- Renu (Sandeepa Dhar) and Dimpi (Kirti Sanon). Chaudharyji’s elder daughter Renu’s marriage is held, but on the wedding night she elopes with her boyfriend Rakesh. Her step results in a frantic search for her across the village. Chaudharyji launches a manhunt to track them down and eliminate them. Now Haryanvi goon’s men suspects Rakesh’s friends and thinks that they may know where Renu is. So the goon decides to kidnap the buddies of his daughter’s lover.
Bablu (Tiger Shroff) turns to be one of the buddies with ultra muscular head and shoulders model who falls in love with Chaudharyji’s younger daughter Dimpy (Kirti Sanon). The goons manage to trace Bablu who has actually helped Rakesh and Renu in escaping. Bablu, meanwhile in captivity, shares with his pals about his love interest.
Bablu falls in love at first sight with the pretty younger daughter of Chaudharyji’s, Dimpy. He comes to know quite early that it is none other than the Harynavi goon Chaudharyji’s daughter.
The movie tries to end up in a ‘Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge’ style where Bablu uses his superpowers and figures out to be with his love but without offending her father.
launch pad for Shroff to show his acting and dancing skills. Plan to watch it, if nothing left to do.
Tiger Shoff is a great action hero. When it comes to action, he is a star but comparatively his acting skills are zero. Kirti Sanon requires a little brushing up on her acting skills she reminds us somewhere of young Deepika Padukone who is surely going to have a good run in the industry someday.
Verdict: It’s the most masala-less movie of this year with more action and less drama. But the movie is a perfect
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I Luv Cinems
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The least of the muscular Christians has hold of the old chivalrous and Christian belief, that a man's body is given him to be trained and brought into subjection, and then used for the protection of the weak, the advancement of all righteous causes, and the subduing of the earth which God has given to the children of men. He does not hold that mere strength or activity are in themselves worthy of any respect or worship, or that one man is a bit better than another because he can knock him down, or carry a bigger sack of potatoes than he.
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Thomas Hughes (Tom Brown at Oxford (Tom Brown, #2))
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I suggest you stand slowly and walk out with my men,” Zrakovi said, tapping a napkin against his lying, two-faced mouth and putting a twenty on the table to cover the drinks. “If you make a scene, innocent humans will be injured. I have a Blue Congress cleanup team in place, however, so if you want to fight in public and damage a few humans, knock yourself out. It will only add to your list of crimes.”
I stood slowly, gritting my teeth when Squirrel Chin patted me down while feeling me up and making it look like a romantic moment. He’d been so busy feeling the naughty bits that he missed both Charlie, sitting in my bag next to my foot, and the dagger attached to my inner forearm.
Idiot. Alex would never have been so sloppy. If Alex had patted me down, he’d have found not only the weapons but also the portable magic kit.
From the corner of my eye, I saw a tourist taking mobile phone shots of us. He’d no doubt email them to all his friends back home with stories of those crazy New Orleanians and their public displays of affection.
I considered pretending to faint, but I was too badly outnumbered for it to work. Like my friend Jean
Lafitte, whose help I could use about now, I didn’t want to try something unless it had a reasonable chance at succeeding. I also didn’t want to pull Charlie out and risk humans getting hurt.
“Walk out the door onto Chartres and turn straight toward the cathedral.” Zrakovi pulled his jacket aside enough for me to see a shoulder holster. I hadn’t even known the man could hold a gun, although for all I knew about guns it could be a water pistol.
The walk to the cathedral transport was three very long city blocks. My best escape opportunity would be near Jackson Square. When the muscular goons tried to turn me left toward the cathedral, I’d try to break and run right toward the river, where I could get lost among the wharves and docks long enough to draw and power a transport. Of course in order to run, I’d have to get away from the clinch of Dreadlocks and Squirrel Chin. Charlie could take care of that.
I slipped the messenger bag over my head slowly, and not even Zrakovi noticed the stick of wood protruding from the top by a couple of inches.
Not to be redundant, but . . . idiots.
None of us spoke as we proceeded down Chartres Street, where, to our south, the clouds continued to build. The wind had grown stronger and drier. The hurricane was sucking all the humidity out of the air, all the better to gain intensity. I hoped Zrakovi, a Bostonian, would enjoy his first storm. I hoped a live oak landed on his head.
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Suzanne Johnson
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Do as many sets as you need to complete at least 25 repetitions for a muscle group. So
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Adam Campbell (The Men's Health Big Book of Exercises: Four Weeks to a Leaner, Stronger, More Muscular YOU!)
“
Dom?” she asked, her cheeks flaming as she stood naked before him. She’d never stood naked before anyone, even a maid.
But the way Dom was scouring her with his rough gaze felt like a caress. A very carnal caress, which loosed a bevy of butterflies in her belly.
“I’ve spent years dreaming of you like this, sweeting,” he rasped. “Give me a moment to take it all in.”
“If you wish,” she whispered. And that would give her a moment to take him in.
Although, sweet Lord in heaven, it might require more than a moment. She’d seen men half-dressed in paintings and even less-dressed in sculptures. But those smooth-skinned bodies were insipid compared to Dom’s hard contours and scarred male beauty.
How could she have guessed that such sheer virility lay beneath his subdued clothes? His deliciously muscular chest gleamed with sweat in the warm stable, and his powerful arms lay tense at his sides. Then there was his lean waist, which gave way to rangy hips sporting quite a bulge beneath his drawers.
Lord help her. She couldn’t take her eyes from that impressive thickness. And the more she stared, the more it seemed to grow.
“This is what you do to me, Jane,” he said in a voice raw with hunger. He grabbed her hand to press it against him there. “I’ve desired you from the day we first met.”
As his flesh moved beneath the stockinette, she swallowed. “I don’t recall ever seeing you like this back then--all…big and thrusting. I think I would have noticed.”
He choked back a laugh. “It’s the sort of thing a gentleman generally takes great pains to keep his lady from seeing. But tonight you’re making it difficult for me to behave.”
“Good! I don’t want you to behave. I want you to be wicked.” She fondled him shamelessly. “With me.”
A harsh breath escaped him. “You have no idea what being wicked entails.”
“Then perhaps you should show me.”
His eyes glinted in the lantern light and he growled, “Perhaps I should.
”
”
Sabrina Jeffries (If the Viscount Falls (The Duke's Men, #4))
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She spotted him about twenty yards away at a table that sat among a stand of river birch, its four legs submerged in an inch or two of water. Clustered around the table were ten or so of the most wild-looking, barely clothes, heavily muscled men and women she'd ever seen. And at the head, standing on a branch a foot about them all was Parish. He was barefoot and tanned, and wearing only a pair of faded jeans, which rested just below his hipbones. His hair was wild and the scar near his mouth winked in the sunlight. Julia's gaze moved covetously over every inch of him. His narrow waist and ripped stomach that widened to a broad chest, powerful shoulders and lean, muscular arms. he looked ready to spring. And the muscles in Julia's belly turned to liquid fire as she watched him watch her.
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Alexandra Ivy (Raphael/Parish (Bayou Heat, #1-2))
“
What is it about tall, muscular men who are good with their hands that makes me weak? It’s one of life’s great mysteries. One that half of the women at Maple Hills are trying to figure out.
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Hannah Grace (Wildfire (Maple Hills, #2))
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There are two rooted spiritual realities out of which grow all kinds of democratic conception or sentiment of human equality. There are two things in which all men are manifestly unmistakably equal. They are not equally clever or equally muscular or equally fat, as the sages of the modern reaction (with piercing insight) perceive. But this is a spiritual certainty, that all men are tragic. And this again, is an equally sublime spiritual certainty, that all men are comic. No special and private sorrow can be so dreadful as the fact of having to die. And no freak or deformity can be so funny as the mere fact of having two legs. Every man is important if he loses his life; and every man is funny if he loses his hat, and has to run after it... These, I say, are two roots of democratic reality. But they have in more civilized literature, a more civilized embodiment or form. In literature such as that of the nineteenth century the two elements appear somewhat thus. Tragedy becomes a profound sense of human dignity. The other and jollier element becomes a delighted sense of human variety. The first supports equality by saying that all men are equally sublime. The second supports equality by observing that all men are equally interesting.
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G.K. Chesterton (Charles Dickens: A Critical Study)
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I quite agree that the Christian religion is, in the long run, a thing of unspeakable comfort, but it does not begin in comfort . . . In religion as in war and everything else, comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth — only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair.” –C.S. Lewis
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Brett McKay (Muscular Christianity: The Relationship Between Men and Faith)
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Different scholars have lent a different order, and more or fewer steps to the journey, but its three big stages are separation, initiation, and return, and these are some of the basics contained within those stages: Hero receives a call to adventure Leaves his ordinary life Receives supernatural aid Crosses a threshold that separates him from the world he has known Gathers allies for his quest Faces test, trials, and challenges Undergoes an ordeal Dies a physical or spiritual death Undergoes transformation and apotheosis (becoming godlike) Gains a reward or magic elixir Journeys back home Shares the reward and wisdom he’s gained with others Becomes master of the two worlds he’s passed through Gains greater freedom
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Brett McKay (Muscular Christianity: The Relationship Between Men and Faith)
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This no longer surprised me. I had seen other such cases since Jane had toiled her way upward through hashish and peyote in desperate search of feelings. I even had a rule-of-thumb about it: Frigid women and Marxist men were the ones who required the heaviest doses to turn on. I assumed that this had some connection with the chronic muscular tensions holding back emotions that the Reichian and Gestalt psychologists discuss.
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Robert Anton Wilson (Sex, Drugs & Magick – A Journey Beyond Limits)
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For this reason, it is useless to argue who is the more important, the capitalist who has legal possession of most of the material fruit of dead men's toil, or the laborer who has legal possession of but little of it. In the laborer, we do not now really look for his physical muscular labor alone; for this is replaced by mechanical or animal power as soon as [pg 108] it can be. What we do need from labor, and what we will always need, is his brain—his time-binding power.
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Alfred Korzybski (Manhood of Humanity: Unlocking Human Potential: A Journey Through Language, Symbolism, and Time-Binding)
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So, my program develops the entire spectrum of physical skills: Muscular Strength, Muscular Endurance, Cardiovascular Endurance, Power, Speed, Coordination, Balance, and Flexibility. The degree to which you possess these eight physical qualities defines your level of fitness. It is only by focusing on these seven skills, rather than appearance, that you will make your best gains, in ability, well-being, and in appearance. The washboard stomachs, big chests, round shoulders, and shirt-sleeve-stretching biceps of my men are testament to that, as are the toned legs, tight triceps and abs of the women I’ve trained.
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Mark Lauren (You Are Your Own Gym: The Bible of Bodyweight Exercises)
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The theme of entitlement to space that emerges in many of my recollections of men, and in my own masculine development, is colonial code for claiming someone else’s space. Whether it’s through an emphasis on being large and muscular, or asserting power by an extended or intimidating stride on sidewalks, being loud in bars, manspreading on public transit, or enacting harm or violence on others, taking up space is a form of misogyny because so often the space that men try to seize and dominate belongs to women and gender-nonconforming people.
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Vivek Shraya (I'm Afraid of Men)
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There is not, I believe, in the history of this or of the neighbouring countries, an instance of more extensive and perfect organization than the late Catholic Association. Its ramifications were as minute, as general, as connected, as the most complicated portion of the muscular system. In this country, the more prominent results, the more obvious actions only, of the body were conspicuous. An election of Waterford or of Clare alone, evinced to the English people the existence of such a power; but they were for the greater part as ignorant of the principle and process of the movement, as the spectator who gazes on a steam-vessel from shore without inquiring into the properties or power of steam. It was only when the effect of these powerful impulses began to be felt by the entire community, that every class at last awoke to their causes, and commenced comparing them with their effects. But as usual in such abrupt investigations, men judged only after preconceived opinions. They squared every thing to their own creed.
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Thomas Wyse (Historical Sketch of the Late Catholic Association of Ireland Volume 1-2)
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He was convinced that if the attack on Omando had caused such interest in the world it was not so much because of the victim’s importance, but because fear, resentment and repeated disillusion in the age of slavery and radiation death had in the end branded the hearts of millions of human beings with an edge of misanthropy, which made them follow with sympathy, and perhaps some feeling of personal re- venge, the story of '‘the man who had changed species.” He turned toward Laurent with sympathy. It was difficult not to like that generous, slightly sing-song voice, not to like that black giant who spoke so frankly about himself when he thought he was speaking only of the African fauna.
inclined to a gentle skepticism which usually sufficed to protect him both against excessive illusions about human nature and against excessive doubt of it
a sort of Saint Francis of Assisi, only more energetic, more dashing, more muscular
he had the greatest respect for humor, because it was one of the best weapons ever forged by man for the struggle against himself.
devoured by some ravenous dream of hygiene and universal health
who desperately pursue a certain ideal of human decency, call it tolerance, justice or liberty
The idea, too, that people who have suffered too much aren’t any longer capable of ... of complicity with you, for that’s what it amounts to. That they aren’t any longer capable of playing ball with us. The idea that they’ve somehow been spoiled once for all. It was partly on account of this idea that the German theorists of racialism preached the extermination of the Jews; they had been made to suffer too much, and therefore they could not be anything after that but enemies of the human race.
A man can’t spend his life in Africa without acquiring something pretty close to a great affection for the elephants. Those great herds are, after all, the last symbol of liberty left among us. It s something that’s fast disappearing, from more points of view than one. Every time you come upon them in the open, moving their trunks and their great ears, an irresistible smile rises to your lips. I defy anyone to look upon elephants without a sense of wonder. Their very enormity, their, clumsiness, their giant stature, represent a mass of liberty that sets you dreaming. They’re . . . yes, they’re the last individuals.
a trace of superiority, of condescension toward me, as though to point out to me that this was obviously something I could not understand, a private and secret world which I was not permitted to enter.
Yes, there are some among us who are fighting for the independence of Africa. But why? To protect the elephants. To take the protection of African fauna into their own hands. Perhaps for them elephants are only an image of their own liberty. That suits me: liberty always suits me. Personally, I have no patience with nationalism: the new or the old, the white or the black, the red or the yellow.
They aim between the eyes, just because it’s big, free and beautiful. That’s what they call a fine shot. A trophy.
people have been seized by such a need for friendship and company that the dogs can’t manage it. We’ve been asking too much of them. The job has broken them down— they’ve had it. Just think how long they’ve been doing their damnedest for us, wagging their tails and holding out their paws— they’ve had enough . . .’
It’s natural: they’ve seen too much. And the people feel lonely and deserted, and they need something bigger that can really take the strain. Dogs aren’t enough any more; men need elephants.
‘Look here, my friend, for three years I was a bus conductor in Paris. I recommend it during rush hours; it gave me what you might call a knowledge of human nature— a good, solid knowledge which prompted me to change sides and go over to the elephants.
there was around him an air of authenticity impossible to disregard: the authenticity of sheer physical nobility
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Romain Gary
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Sharp of tongue, deft in debate, and unafraid of conflict, challenging the status quo, or causing offense, Jesus was anything but safe and predictable. Far from hiding in private solitude, and playing it small, Jesus was a public figure, a revolutionary who rigorously confronted the establishment, and who preached such a confrontational and audacious message that he was ultimately killed for it.
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Brett McKay (Muscular Christianity: The Relationship Between Men and Faith)
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While Jesus does not directly charge his followers with fighting human foes (though there have been those who have found an implicit justification for such in the name of a righteous cause), many of the faith’s adherents have seen the gospel as a call to continue Christ’s cause by engaging in another kind of warfare — one waged on the spiritual plane. The Bible is full of references both to contest — what the ancient Greeks called agon — and to war. Individuals wrestle with God (both metaphorically and literally), and the apostle Paul refers to believers as “athletes” who must “train” their souls and run the race set before them. Believers are to gird themselves about with spiritual “armor,” and wield the “sword of the spirit” in battling unseen forces and directly confronting the conflict between good and evil.
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Brett McKay (Muscular Christianity: The Relationship Between Men and Faith)
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Though undoubtedly deplorable sexism existed in this movement, astute women supporters picked up the truth behind muscular Christianity and challenged women as much as men. Fitness advocate Helen McKinstry asked what man contemplating marriage would choose a “delicate, anaemic, hothouse plant type of girl” over a “strong, full-blooded, physically courageous woman, a companion for her husband on the golf links and a playmate with her children? “2 Of course, even this sounds sexist to contemporary ears (getting in shape because otherwise men won’t want you), but some, such as YWCA secretary Mary Dunn, called women to fitness for the sake of the spiritual challenge that lay before them: Muscular women wanted, young women. What kind? Those to whom the Lord can say, “Do this or that for me,” and who can respond to the hardest command, the carrying out of which will mean endurance, a knowledge of the principles of the conservation of energy and the putting forth of will power through bodily power. It will mean the clear shining of a flowing soul through a transparent medium, instead of the cloudy glass of an … ill-used body.3
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Gary Thomas (Every Body Matters: Strengthening Your Body to Strengthen Your Soul)
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Perfectly proportioned or not, I’d always been drawn to the kinds of men I wrote about, the impressively muscular, confident Casanovas. Not beautiful men with dimpled smiles who dressed like the old man from Up!
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Rebecca Sharp (Ranger (Reynolds Protective, #4))
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They had nothing in common. In most ways he bored her. Yet when she touched him she felt a sensitivity in his body, a sense of receptivity that she rarely encountered in men. When he held her against his chest, she felt secure and protected in way that had nothing to do with his muscular body. She felt that they were nourishing each other in some important, invisible way. But they could barely hold a conversation.
At times she had thought that this was the only kind of connection you could have with people - intense, inexplicable and ultimately incomplete.
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Mary Gaitskill (Bad Behavior)
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You and I have the most interesting jobs in the universe: We run the Intergalactic Steam Circus, a most outrageous and bizarre affair. Traveling in wildly colorful space clippers, we sail from planet to planet in a huge parade, landing just outside the major population centers, setting up our magnificent and gaudy tents, and selling the people our magic of noise, confusion, bright lights, and trickery. There are, of course, beautiful young women strutting like cats in scanty sequined outfits, and handsome young men with tanned and muscular bodies, their shirts open to the waist. But that’s not what draws the crowds, day after day, planet after planet. They come to see the machinery.
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Kenn Amdahl (There Are No Electrons: Electronics for Earthlings)
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What is it about tall, muscular men who are good with their hands that makes me weak? It’s one of life’s great mysteries.
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Hannah Grace (Wildfire (Maple Hills, #2))
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Jaxson Tuber (Jacked: Muscle Men)
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Tribal feuds only serve to perpetuate old grudges buried deep in the memory. By throwing himself with all his force into the vendetta, the native tries to persuade himself that colonialism does not exist, that everything is going on as before, that history continues. Here on the level of communal organizations we clearly discern the well-known behavior patterns of avoidance. It is as if plunging into a fraternal blood- bath allowed them to ignore the obstacle, and to put off till later the choice, nevertheless inevitable, which opens up the question of armed resistance to colonialism. Thus collective autodestruction in a very concrete form is one of the ways in which the native's muscular tension is set free. All these patterns of conduct are those of the death reflex when faced with danger, a suicidal behavior which proves to the settler (whose existence and domination is by them all the more justified) that these men are not reasonable human beings.
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Frantz Fanon (The Wretched of the Earth)
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When freedom claims to be unconditional, when men deny the value of reason and plunge into the delights of the senses, and when the means of action pile up, then there is no way of preventing collective suicide but a dictatorship. The only things that can prevent the growth of fascisms are reason and the acceptance of strict personal self-control, and a concern for strict and clearcut conduct, for permanent self-criticism, for internal coherence, and for uncompromisingly critical rational discourse. These procedures are by no means the product of a muscular voluntarism of the extreme right, nor defense mechanisms employed by a shifty bourgeoisie in behalf of its selfish interests.
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Jacques Ellul (The Betrayal of the West)