I think part of the reason it is undiscussed is because it is illegal. I’m not so sure there’d be as much of a stigma about being honest if there was no threat of it tanking your career and leading to a jail cell. As it is they (especially the influencers) are certainly very disingenuous about it.
TIL, I figured it was something of a legal gray area. Funnily enough, World’s Strongest Man tests for party drugs but not PEDs, as can be seen when Mariusz Pudzianowski popped for something (either cocaine or cannabis) back in 2004. I think it’d be interesting to see how things would shake out if WSM or strongman in general did start testing for PEDs. It’d have to be a new class like how powerlifting does it though to keep the records straight.
My understanding is that there is still a lot of PED use in tested competitions for a lot of things, and this drives the designer-drug approach of staying ahead of the test panels among other tactics.
Sometimes these “clean” comp people push weird purity ideas - they’re already manipulative enough to dope and say they don’t, and sometimes they’re talking to the more gullible audiences (as people who know they are watching dopers might as well watch the untested competitions). I’ve only dipped my toes in these scenes but from what I’ve seen there is a lot of exploitation going on in some circles.
I’d like to see the drugs decriminalized, the stigmas about them ended, more research done on them, and the top competitions openly acknowledging use. If people realize how “enhanced” their influencers are (including all of Hollywood), I think they would be a lot more supportive on trans health issues and other health initiatives. I think a lot of perceptions would change.
Hell yeah, Arnold 🫱🫲 Carl meme but it’s bodybuilders, strongman, powerlifters, Olympic folks, etc, and pre-transition folks all hoping for decriminalized PEDs. Greg Doucette, even though I’m not sure about him when he talks about trans folks in sports, gave me a rhetorical arrow when he talked about cis hormone replacement and bald therapy as gender affirmation care. I’ve never considered that framing before that.
I think part of the reason it is undiscussed is because it is illegal. I’m not so sure there’d be as much of a stigma about being honest if there was no threat of it tanking your career and leading to a jail cell. As it is they (especially the influencers) are certainly very disingenuous about it.
TIL, I figured it was something of a legal gray area. Funnily enough, World’s Strongest Man tests for party drugs but not PEDs, as can be seen when Mariusz Pudzianowski popped for something (either cocaine or cannabis) back in 2004. I think it’d be interesting to see how things would shake out if WSM or strongman in general did start testing for PEDs. It’d have to be a new class like how powerlifting does it though to keep the records straight.
My understanding is that there is still a lot of PED use in tested competitions for a lot of things, and this drives the designer-drug approach of staying ahead of the test panels among other tactics.
Sometimes these “clean” comp people push weird purity ideas - they’re already manipulative enough to dope and say they don’t, and sometimes they’re talking to the more gullible audiences (as people who know they are watching dopers might as well watch the untested competitions). I’ve only dipped my toes in these scenes but from what I’ve seen there is a lot of exploitation going on in some circles.
I’d like to see the drugs decriminalized, the stigmas about them ended, more research done on them, and the top competitions openly acknowledging use. If people realize how “enhanced” their influencers are (including all of Hollywood), I think they would be a lot more supportive on trans health issues and other health initiatives. I think a lot of perceptions would change.
Hell yeah, Arnold 🫱🫲 Carl meme but it’s bodybuilders, strongman, powerlifters, Olympic folks, etc, and pre-transition folks all hoping for decriminalized PEDs. Greg Doucette, even though I’m not sure about him when he talks about trans folks in sports, gave me a rhetorical arrow when he talked about cis hormone replacement and bald therapy as gender affirmation care. I’ve never considered that framing before that.