So, you think you can't be manipulated by advertising, eh?

Good! That's exactly what advertisers want you to think! The savviest consumers are aware that they can be manipulated and understand how that is possible.

Everyone knows about the test where the exact same detergent was placed into two different boxes, one a single color and one with two colors, and consumers preferred the one in the two-color box as it was better to look at. But what about novel cover art?

The typical formula for it is something like this: there is usually a monstrous threat in the image for the consumer to fear. There is also something that the threat is threatening, usually, sexistly enough, an attractive woman. The third element is a figure for the reader to project themselves into, usually a muscular, good looking and heroic Tarzan type.

Here's the amazing part: this cover art formula actually is proven to work just as well on women as on men!

A real Clash of the Titans

This incredible photograph came from Clint Walker's own personal website at www.clintwalker.com, featuring Steve Reeves meeting up with Clint Walker. I would kill to know the circumstances and story. There definitely has to be one!

Now for the big question: which would I prefer, Clint Walker or Steve Reeves?

Well, Steve Reeves was the world's most perfectly developed man, but Clint Walker had a deep baritone voice and a masculine chest. Both have startling blue eyes.

I would have to give the prize to Clint Walker at least for right now, because apparently he isn't half-bad a singer. Yes, that sounds silly, but anything to break the tie.

The Original Muscle Growth Lovin' Femme

I love any response or appreciation to this blog that I can get, but the letters I most appreciate are from fellow femmes with a tooth for beefcake. I guess part of the reason I started this blog in the first place was to get in touch with a few and then say, "hey, I'm not crazy!"

I would estimate that any given time, at least 5 to 20 or so regular readers of muscle growth story websites like www.musclegrowth.org at any given time are women. Some of them keep their gender vague and others out-and-out pretend to be gay men, which has a libidinous element in and of itself for some, I suppose, the "yaoi" factor at work.


I speak from personal experience here because I used to do that very thing! Come to think of it (and this sounds like such a silly thing to be proud of) I was much, much better at pretending to be a guy than anything, as opposed to the usual "chick with a dick" gaypersonator. I suppose it's my brassy personality, or the little bit of the male brain in me thanks to my bisexuality.

At any rate, I really don't have much in the way of a right to call myself the Muscle Lovin' Femme. Why, compared to Jayne Mansfield, I'm a downright poser!

At any rate, in terms of femmes with a tooth for beefcake, the greatest has to be Jayne Mansfield, the only person that in real life that already looks like a zaftig drag queen version of herself.


Supposedly she had an IQ of 163, but our only source on that is Jayne herself. In showbiz, the most misleading of all statistics are the kind provided by stars themselves.

(I'm a little shy on giving any kind of statistic for myself, but I personally was a MENSA member for a few months. At least until I realized that I was basically paying dues to allow socially awkward older men to hit on me.)

After seeing a few of her movies and interviews, I find it a little ridiculous Jayne is that smart, which means one of two things: she either exaggerated her intelligence to be taken seriously...or she's so darn good at playing the ditzy blonde that a genius level intelligence would actually be underestimating her!

Incidentally, I was in fact a fifties blond bombshell for Halloween a few years ago, and the shade of blonde haircolor necessary to get the Jayne Mansfield/van Doren/Marylin look is actually called (I swear I am not making this up) "Playful Minx."


Anyway, Jayne Mansfield made it no secret that she was crazy for muscle guys. She always purred that she loved "big, strong men" and in real life was a regular at Mae West's bump n' grind physique revues. It was at one of these that she met and married former Mr. Universe and Mr. America Mickey Hargitay. Here was one of the trio of 50s blonde Bombshells that had the world at their feet, and she could have gone with any guy in the world, and she went with a good looking former Mr. Universe.

Ha ha! You go, Jayne!

It's no wonder Jayne found him irresistable. He was tall, good looking, and had that craaazy Danny Kaye style wavy hair.

Their offspring is Mariska Hargitay, of Law and Order: SVU fame. She became neither a sex symbol or a bodybuilder, so I guess that's one big strike against nature over nurture right there.