Haters Gonna Hate (But If They Are Gonna Hate Melissa Wee, They Should Learn to Spell)

True story. Recently made a very cool female muscle lovin’ contact through a forum which is not a female muscle forum. He started up a thread called ‘Girls with Muscle’ which we have both been adding to, posting pics of Zsuzsanna Toldi, Chelsea Hagan, Cindy Landolt, Megan Avalon etc. Busty types. Not the hugest most shocking kind of muscle women by any means. And guess what? Thousands of views, but only the odd comment of support/suggestion, although two other guys have posted some muscle. By far the most popular type of comment bemoans the “horrific” amount of muscle on these women that “cross into butch”, whose “faces look weird”.

Now, if you are reading this blog you probably don’t agree that Chelsea Hagan has a “weird” face, and nor would you use a word like “butch” if you were describing Cindy Landolt. However, if by the off chance you are reading this blog and you actually do think that Zsuzsanna Toldi‘s body is “horrific”, then my question to you is this:

WHY ARE YOU HERE?

I don’t mean “Why are you here?” in the philosophical, cosmic sense. I’m not asking for an explanation of your existence. What I mean is “Why, if you don’t like female muscle, are you here, at a blog about female muscle?” Why visit a forum thread clearly labelled “Girls with Muscle” if you don’t like girls with muscle? And why look at pictures of Melissa Wee on her Instagram or Facebook pages if you find her repulsive?

Melissa says: And this is why I deadlift.

Yes, Singapore’s sexiest gets her fair share of abuse, possibly more than her fair share, and these haters are all very keen to spell out exactly why they find her so abhorrent. And that’s another thing I don’t understand about these types, why do they bother commenting? Why do they feel so compelled to spend their precious time sharing their negative opinions with people who quite obviously have another point of view?

It seems to me that you must really have a lot of time on your hands if you can afford to pass your time being so totally and uselessly negative. Really a LOT of time.

Posting a bigger picture because I LUB the rainbow bandage skirt!

Melissa doesn’t have much time to waste. And she is certainly not going to be wasting any precious free time she does have on answering her critics, but occasionally it is satisfying to see her hit back at a particularly nasty hater. She hits back and in the process mobilises those of us who do appreciate her to send her more messages of support. The net result of Melissa being hated is Melissa getting some love.

Perhaps the negativity isn’t completely useless after all!

I have about 3 and a half months to go before I step on stage. The closer I get to the date, the more excited and nervous I get. I just got home from a chesticles/ bicepraptors session followed by a 6km run. I’m pretty much too damn tired now to say anything inspiring. In fact I don’t even feel very motivated today but I know that I got to do what I got to do if I want to present my very best physique come September 6th. So guess what princess, even if I don’t feel like training or sticking to my diet, I still gotta suck it up and do it. Because if I don’t, I can’t expect to get the results that I want. I have no one to blame but myself.

Melissa’s most recent response to some pointless hating was a little bit different though. You may recall that Melissa was (or is?) a primary school teacher. Well, once a teacher, always a teacher is, I believe, how the saying goes, and the poor fool who wasted his time insulting Melissa on this occasion fell foul of that teacher within her.

Someone spammed my Instagram account on more than 30 photos telling me my muscles are “descussting” and “you loose your boobs”. Omg. The horror! Melissa wrote. Can you see where this is going yet, where the teacher in Melissa is taking us?

Because sometimes we need a midweek night out.

Of course, as Teacher Ms Wee points out, it’s “disgusting”, not “descussting” (unless they meant “discussing” – surely not?!), and although you might “loosen” something (probably not your boobs, but anyway), you don’t “loose” anything, you “lose” it.

With all that time on their hands – I mean, scrawling your borderline illiterate views all over thirty pictures must take a good hour at least – you’d think that they could spend just a moment of that time checking how to spell the odd difficult or confusing word.

Spamming your feed with more progress pictures I took today. 14 weeks out. 3 and a half months. I think I’m going to freak out. I HAVE to bring a much tighter package to stage in 14 weeks. It’s not a matter of whether I can but rather I MUST.

Help is at hand, however. Female Muscle Slave, in association with Melissa Wee, is delighted to invite entries for the first annual HATERS ONLY SPELLING BWEE.

Rounds will include straight up spelling, homophones and homonyms, and a freestyle round where contestants are given a microphone and get sixty seconds to score points with some grammatical, well-structured, and witty abuse while Melissa (bikini-clad, ripped and oiled) flexes her descussting muscles right in front of their faces.

GunShow

Contact 6ft1swell@gmail.com for an entry form. What have you got to loose?

Oh, and I nearly forgot. If, and only if, the idea of Melissa Wee doing a few topless pull-ups (because you make the most gains doing pull ups topless, according to Melissa) appeals to you, then make yourself comfortable before clicking here.

Please, enjoy!

Around the World: Singapore

Around the World will be an occasional series celebrating the female bodybuilders of a particular country, and examining any issues peculiar to muscle women there.

FMS is only aware of two female bodybuilders from the city-state of Singapore,
Joan Liew and Melissa Wee. Today, we bring you recent news of both.

Firstly, congratulations are due to Joan, who won the Tall Physique class at the Arnold Amateur in March. I went there with the intention to win, she said. I came in second last year [as a heavyweight bodybuilder] by one point, so I changed my training and fine-tuned my weaknesses. As an athlete, you have to improve every year.

Bodybuilding: Pumping up at the Arnold 2013

For “the first lady of Singapore bodybuilding” – and the only Asian competitor at the Arnold Amateur – the win is the high point of a journey that has included four Asian bodybuilding titles. During the competition I was very calm and did not feel nervous at all. After the win, I must say I was very happy and also rather emotional, because this award is truly special to me. I have worked 20 years to get it.

Physique: Posing at the Arnold 2014

As far as we know here at FMS, Joan Liew is Singapore’s most successful ever athlete, in any sport. But despite that success, she recently told Yahoo Sports Singapore of the total indifference of her country’s sporting administrators towards her. I hear about sports excellence all the time. The Singapore Sports Council know who I am, I get a fair share of coverage. I’m not even asking for money. I’d appreciate some form of congratulatory message. I’m putting Singapore’s name on the international scene, at the highest level of competition. A simple message would do, she says.

On the one hand, that’s hardly surprising. Where in the world do national sporting bodies give recognition to successful female bodybuilders? Certainly not here in the UK, and probably not in your country either, dear reader. On the other hand, you’d expect a small nation where so few sportsmen and women achieve international success to celebrate every international champion they have.

Nevertheless, the lack of official acknowledgement from within Singapore is not going to stop a woman like Joan. She was already so dedicated to the sport as a teenager that she actually chose which junior college to attend based on their gym facilities – and once there she trained daily and, at the school’s request, also spent time whipping into shape some of the more obese students before they started their National Service (so she had already served her country in one sense before she’d even competed!)

These days the clients at the gym she co-owns with her bodybuilding mentor of those 20 years pay her to whip them into shape, though male clients do sometimes have what she calls weird requests for a bit of muscle worship. Not her thing, apparently.

Nor is settling down and getting married like her mother says she should. It almost beggars belief, but the very gorgeous Joan remains single, despite having plenty of admirers from all over the world. Her focus remains very much on spreading the weight training gospel. Women should take control of their own bodies, keep it healthy with bodybuilding, exercising regularly and a good nutrition plan, she says. When you look good, you feel good, and that is a great boost to a woman’s self-confidence. Imagine the self-confidence of a woman who looks as good as Joan does!

And in another part of Singapore, Melissa Wee (FMS readers’ favourite Singaporean – see Hot and Hard 100 #66) has been preparing to compete overseas for the first time.

Melissa’s been having some relationship stuff to deal with in recent weeks (I’m not going into any details, but it’s all out there on her Instagram and Facebook pages) so the contest prep has been something of a blessing to take her mind off her problems. It has been a pretty rough week for me. I kept myself distracted by making a lot of plans for my trip to California. I have taken a few big steps forward. 1) I signed up and paid for my competition in LA. 2) I booked & paid for my photo shoot with Natalie Minh for post contest. 3) I booked and paid for my apartment in LA where I’ll be staying for 18 days before driving to Vegas. I’m really excited and I can’t wait to be in the US. I really need the time to get away and this is the perfect opportunity!

That Melissa already enjoys a sizeable fan base despite never having ventured overseas to compete suggests that she won’t be short of offers (either professional or personal) in the next couple of months. The Singapore Sports Council may soon find they have another internationally successful amateur female bodybuilder to ignore!

Enjoy!