不識未來的肌肉：健身的殘酷樂觀

Muscles That Know No Future: The Cruel Optimism of Bodybuilding

過往學術界對於健身文化之考察，往往受到女性主義單一性別閱讀框架範限，將參與此實踐者視為陽物中心主義的共謀者，「霸權男性特質」成為一種過度氾濫使用之標籤，用以評判肌肉鍛鍊者具有自厭自毀意味之自體崇拜，而自毀與自戀之中蘊含之情感基底，則往往受到漠視。本文擬透過晚近酷兒理論家柏蘭特提出之殘酷樂觀論點與德勒茲的情動觀，分別剖析健身文化中自虐訓練的殘酷與惘惘然只有現下沒有明日的情動，如何成就一種逸脫人道主義限制的（反）修復可能，同時亦重新改寫樂觀與希望的時間性，使得健身的情感／情動面不再綁死在對於達致完美體態的美好未來想像，而可以是對於肉身鍛鍊所佔據的每個現今的分分秒秒的懵懂執著；因此，快樂可不再依附於任何存在於未來的明確客體與標的，而僅僅是每次自虐地將自身肉體摧折至酸痛不能自已而萌生的惘惘滿足。

Constricted by a unilateral feminist framework which deploys only gender as its axis of analysis, past critical literatures on bodybuilding often construe the subculture's participants as implicated in phallocentrism. ＂Hegemonic masculinity＂ has since become an overused label to criticize bodybuilders' narcissistic investment in the worship of their own flesh, which is frequently accompanied by a self-debasing, masochistic overtone. The affective implications of the above masochism and narcissism, meanwhile, have been largely overlooked. Drawing upon Lauren Berlant's notion of ＂cruel optimism＂ and Gilles Deleuze's concept of affect, the present paper will address the cruelty and optimism of bodybuilding respectively. I will examine how its masochistic mode of training and inchoate affect unbound from the future onto the present may constitute an (anti-)reparative possibility that falls outside the limited purview of humanism while rewriting the temporality of optimism and hope. This particular affective aspect of bodybuilding is no longer confined to an imagination of a future in which one finally reaches a stage of bodily perfection; rather, it could be an indescribable fixation upon the present moment in which the training takes place. Thus understood, happiness can be seen not as something that attaches itself to the future, but as an unnamable contentment brought about by the masochistic physical exertion that tortures the body to the point of pain and fatigue.