It came to me while watching Ron Howard's "NIght Shift". For those of you who haven't seen this flick, Micheal Keaton and Henry Winkler see the snails-pace workload at their city morgue overnight shift as an opportunity to operate a prostitution service. The kind-hearted Winkler organizes the hookers and uses their revenue to set up a business partnership among the "employees". The ladies of the evening are given standard benefits (medical/life insurance, retirement, etc.) and salaries, affordable because all the profits go to the ladies, not the pimp!

I'm not sure how I made the connection...other than the fact that I'm always thinking about femuscle!...but the pimping service got me to thinking about the current financial position of female bodybuilders in the muscle/wrestling session market. Though many, perhaps most of the ladies are individual entepreneurs, it appears men are often atop the financial pyramid of the significant revenue-producing ventures the world of femuscle currently offers.

The most obvious example of male domination ist der Weider fuhrers--Joe, et al control the image and finances of female bodybuilding via contests and "Muscle and Fitness". Almost equally as powerful, Bill Jentz and WPW exist on services rendered by fbbs. There is no question Joe and Bill promote the individual ladies to a wider audience than anyone else. Yet the REAL questions are: What percentage of the gross profits trickle down to the fbb?...How much control do fbbs have of their own sport?...and related business ventures? I say they deserve a bigger share of da pie!

Following in the steps of Weider and Jentz, many internet ventures are headed up by the "stronger sex" as well. Littleman, Davemeister, Siggi, Begen, Leon, Amafan, JMP Management, Gene X, Iron-Tim, Guran, Andy, Lucas, Premier Productions, Ray Martin, Mainman, Tre', the male triumvirate of Femsport, Dobbins, Hover, Diana?, Boxingman, Frenchman, Armfan...the list of male dominated femuscle websites goes on and on. In fairness, not all of the above sites profit seriously from their internet endeavors...but some profit greatly!

A la "Night Shift", I began to wonder why fbbs don't garner a bigger share of the revenue generated by THEIR hard work! I wondered what would happen if they organize themselves...Could they create a union of fbbs that would control their own image to the masses a la professional male sports unions?...Could fbbs develop their own organization that would exclusively control their pic, session, and video work?

A players union in the NBA, for instance, makes sure the players get their "fair" share of the revenue generated by the image and performance of NBA players in the general marketplace. Perhaps a similar union of fbbs, wrasslers, etc. could control revenues in the same way. Is one fbb-controlled outlet for the vast majority off fbb modeling and session work possible? Could such a union control the internet images of these ladies? Is it possible for one fbb-owned & operated organization to control ALL fbb-sessions?...control their photo and video images?

Why haven't these ladies organized before? Lack of expertise? Greed? I'm unable to answer that question to my own satisfaction! Certainly, bodybuilding is an individual sport, one which is not conducive to a team spirit. A lack of strong, united female leadership is another likely culprit. If one prominent lady or group of ladies can unite her sisters, I say an effective union is possible!

It would seem many obstacles stand in the way of the development of such an organization...not the least of which is pure capitalistic greed. However, fbbs organizing effectively seems to only have an upside to the vast majority of fbbs, wrasslers...any session-lady!...But this admitted non-expert can easily envision fbb-control of many things...:-)

I'd like to hear what y'all thank of my ideer...email me @ TexBB@aol.com!