Nathalie
By Wessex Man
French writer Vignale reissues his appraisal of muscular Nathalie Gassel, Belgium's androgynous Medusa

       LONDON -- It's interesting that Frederic Vignale has decided to
reissue his candid interview with Nathalie Gassel which is now running in
French on Le Mague Journal's website. Few writers have explored her
heroically liberated personality more frankly. I've tried myself several
years ago.
        Vignale's piece coincides with the [publication of Nathalie's
latest book, "Construction d'Un Corps Pornographique", her fourth volume
since 2000 on the erotic and cerebral world of the androgynous female
bodybuilder. ("Construction" is not in fact pornographic, in case
anyone's going to be disappointed).
         Vignale kicks off by asking Nathalie, now aged 40, how she
reconciles the two sides of her life as an intellectual and a weight
lifting bruiser with long years in her salle de musculation. "My
experiences were first physical....I needed the strength, the sculpture
and the drive. I saw an ideal for my body. My intellect wasn't enough to
satisfy me. And then my temperament, nervous and chaotic....threw me into
intense physical exercise. The s[port became an integral part of
eroticism."
          "I couldn't be myself without androgyny.  I sought it out
because it was in my spirit....This all goes back a long way. I had huge
problems when I was growing up, especially as a small child. This is one
of the reasons that I understand gays instinctively. We experience the
same social traumas because our sexuality doesn't conform with the
majority."
           Discussing her bodybuilding goals she comments: "One creates
oneself, always, continuously -- striving not to be too large, too thin,
too shapeless....I've achieved a powerful physique because that's what I
wanted... This is outside the norm but it's how I am....I need a strong
looking aura.  But I'm not happy with myself because there are things I
can't change -- I'm small, I'd like to be even more robust. I push my
training hard but I'd love another genetic dispensation for my physique."
           Vignale takes Nathalie into private discussion. Asked about
her interest in fellatio she says: "When someone's sex is very pretty my
lips are attracted. It's like a wine....An exquisitite moment sanctified
by desire. To feast like this is one of life's extreme pleasures, and the
closest and most intimate."
           Vignale suggests it's a pity that Nathalie's books are
classified in the bookshops as erotic.  "Your books, for instance
"Musculatures", are magnificent epics on the sexuality of mankind". He
notes the many passages on fellatio which, he says, are expressed with
unprecedented beauty. "Are you," he asks her, "an evangelist for  oral
carnality ?"
            Nathalie Gassel's background details, photos and how to order
her books can be found on her website.