Mary Lowry and Muscle Beach Bodybuilding Champion Bishoy Hanna.

On my recent trip to L.A., I headed to Muscle Beach to check out the birthplace of American weightlifting culture. I’d like to say the outing was purely voyeuristic, but in truth I looked forward to it with the zealot’s anticipation of a pilgrimage.

Now I’m not all that big, or even particularly strong, but I have the meathead’s love for discussing workouts. I joke often enough about wanting to be as big and fake tanned as the women on the covers of muscle & fitness magazines that my boyfriend has me listed in his cell phone as “Big Orange.” And while I love a run outside as much as the next sporty gal, I can frequently be found inside on a perfectly nice day doing what I like to call “getting huge.”

Bishoy Hanna, King of Muscle Beach.

A 300 hundred square foot space encircled by a waist high fence, Muscle Beach is made up of ancient free weights and machines rusting in the salt air.

Diego and Mary show off the fruits of their pointless exertion.

More on Muscle Beach at the jump…

We nodded at each other, my meathead brethren and I. All of us sensing, I believe, that despite our differences, we were each other’s people. But we didn’t need to chat much, enjoying instead the feel of the sun and the sight of the water as we expended energy for the sake of expending energy. (We weren’t, after all, moving furniture or bringing in the harvest).

Dirty Diego, one of Hollywood's Newest Kings.

Muscle Beach was such a little slice of heaven that I returned the next day with my friend Diego for some more sweat n’ sunshine. “There aren’t any other women here,” I noted.

“Bunch of rusty old weights covered in herpes?” Diego replied. “Not much to offer most women.”

Beachobatics. flickr.

Kate Giroux, a local physical-education teacher, convinced the city of Santa Monica in the mid-1930s to supply the public with a tumbling mat…and some gymnastics equipment, such as a pommel horse and rings. The gear was set up on 200 square yards of sand just south of Santa Monica pier.

And plenty of women (such as Pudgy Stockton, one of the early celebs of the beach) participated in the ensuing Santa Monica fitness craze. The trend involved a type of acrobatics dubbed “beachobatics” in which men and women formed unlikely human pyramids while on-lookers watched with trepidation and glee.

Pudgy Stockton. flickr

Which brings me to consider why it is I like weightlifting and what’s behind my jokes about getting big and orange.

Part of the effort I put into putting on muscle is in defiance of the constant media bombardment telling me that as a women, I should always be trying to lose weight, to shrink myself away.

But there’s also my tomboy desire to be strong and physically capable, able to run fast and far, do a few pushups, and yes, haul furniture when a friend needs help with a move.

Most importantly, for me there’s a calming aspect to the activity. Lifting weights involves counting while focusing on my breathing. It’s a moving meditation. And for someone who has a hard time being quiet and sitting still, it’s vastly better than no meditation at all.

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Franco 'The Hustler of Muscle Beach' Columbu. flickr

One things for certain–during my next visit to the city of angels, I’m making a beeline to my new gym away from home, the one and only Muscle Beach.

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I, on the other hand, headed to Fresno to visit my Puerto Rican aunt and uncle and their three sons, Frankie and Johnnie and Jimmy, their spouses and kids, plus a half dozen Russian speaking Kajikistanis, some Palestinian Muslims from Kuwait, me, the lone Japanese, and an assortment of Anglos and Hispanics. Our family party only had forty, though it was a boisterous forty after the Kajikis passed out vodka shots and the salsa singing and dancing started.

The star of the Puerto Rican clan gathering was the whole pig that roasted for six hours on a huge rotisserie in Frank’s back yard by the pool. The first time I ever saw this cultural tradition was 25 years ago on Epiphany (Jan. 6) in my grandparents back yard in San Juan, which was the first time I ever met my Puerto Rican relatives. Jimmy, a chef, did the honors of carving the lechon. Even the Muslims, who ate turkey, admired it. When I explained this to my massage therapist, he laughed and said, “Lechon is what the Filipinos call a roast pig! We cook it above ground too.” Thanks to the Spaniards who colonized both islands.

The lechon made me think about how practices that have become associated with old traditions of a culture are actually pretty new, as far as the long view of human history is concerned. The hot chilis of Szechuan and Indian cooking were native to the Americas, as were, of course, the tomato of Italian pasta and the potato of Ireland. But once something is done long enough, people start to think it was always that way.

Take marriage. This Monday, a trial starts in California that challenges Proposition 8, the anti-gay marriage legislation that passed last fall. Because a wide swath of the public cares about the trial, anti-Prop 8 folks wanted media and cameras allowed into the trial. The pro-Prop 8 folks wanted no cameras. The judge compromised by saying the proceedings would be taped and posted at YouTube, so if you want to follow this battle, head there. It’s expected to last a few weeks.

The support for Prop 8, largely from conservative religious groups, was based on a definition of traditional marriage that isn’t particularly traditional, at least if the Bible is your guide. The marriages in the Bible are not the more recent monogamous, loving, nuclear, obedient-wife structures conservatives think of as “traditional.” The Bible has levirate marriage, in which a woman is required to marry her husband’s brother if her husband dies. The Bible has levirate marriage, in which a widow is required to marry her husband’s brother. It’s also got some cases of incest to guarantee progeny, lots of polygamy and concubinage—most notably Solomon, and a lot of adultery, including King David who arranged to have Bathsheba’s husband killed after she turned up pregnant—not by her husband Uriah, who is a lot better character than the conniving king.

It’s not that the Bible sanctions these arrangements, but that it hasn’t got much to offer to those looking for a good model of marriage. In fact, Genesis 3:16 views the two main roles of women in marriage, childbearing and her relationship to her husband of desire and subordination,  as curses. This may be why St. Paul didn’t think much of marriage at all, except as way to dodge the sin of fornication. I’ve been to a lot of Christian weddings, even conducted a few myself, and I’ve never heard a biblical passage about marriage read at a wedding. The most commonly read passages are from the book of Ruth “My people shall be your people….” or I Corinthians 13 on spiritual gifts, “the greatest of these is love.” The Ruth passage is about two women pledging love to each other. Corinthians is a plea to a community about group behavior and spiritual practices. A third one that is used is Song of Solomon, “Set me as a seal upon your heart.” It, at least, is a pledge of love between one man and one woman who are enjoying each other sexually—the poetry is passionate and beautiful—but there’s not any mention that they are married or even betrothed. They don’t live in the same household, but seem to visit each other a lot.

Traditional marriage, if the Bible is a guide, sucks for women. Men own wives (the 10th commandment says don’t covet your neighbor’s property, including his wife), have license to beat or kill them (Hosea), and generally behave rather badly, with a few standout exceptions like Joseph, Jesus’ father. The household codes in the later epistles attributed to Paul, but probably not his authorship, reinforce patriarchal marriage.

In fact, Christianity regarded marriage as a civil matter—definitely NOT a sacrament. Priests did not officiate at weddings, and it was not turned into a religious ceremony for over a millennium. When the church finally started conducting marriages, they used, according to the great Yale church historian, John Boswell, the language of holy-union ceremonies earlier developed for same-sex couples in monasteries and convents. These were ceremonies, not of transfers of ownership of the woman to her husband, but of equals who pledged undying love, faithfulness, and life-long care and friendship for each other.

When the legal challenge to Prop 8 was raised, a number of religious groups signed an amicus brief saying it violated the civil rights of gays and lesbians and interfered with our freedom of religious practice. We conduct same-sex marriages, authorize them, and think they are ethical. Prop 8 denies state recognition of their legality. The Reform Jews, the Unitarian Universalists, the Episcopalians, the United Church of Christ, and the California Council of Churches which includes a bunch of mainline Protestants, all opposed Prop 8 during the election, and we support the challenge to it.

When conservatives say same-sex marriage threatens “traditional,” i.e. heterosexual marriage, they are right. Christian same-sex marriage, in its egalitarian, loving values, is actually far older than “opposite” marriage, which is what beauty queen Carrie Prejean called straight marriage. Medieval Christian marriage between a man and woman was based on the love that characterized same-sex relationships—no gender hierarchy. The ancient understandings of same-sex holy unions challenge gender inequality and male dominance because they are not based on marriage on the model of the pater familias and ownership of women, which is what makes traditional marriage unethical.

Maybe, if we can make same-sex marriage legally recognized, we can finally fix “traditional” marriage. The issue is not which is traditional and which is new, but which is morally defensible. If we have to have the institution of marriage at all, let’s at least try to make it ethical.

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