| Summary: | Part of a special issue on sports, exercise, and recreation. The bodies of athletes and bodies that appear athletic are often presented as innocuous and attractive ideals to admire, desire, and emulate. The endorsement of these bodies concurrently divests them from political and normative overtones that might question their docility at the hands of the powers that be. This artificially reduces the range of acceptable somatotypes at people's disposal, both conceptually and physically. The writer discusses these bodies and the conventional postures that support them from a critical perspective, focusing on two of the allegedly most conspicuous meanings that first meet the observer's gaze: their power and beauty.
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