Drug-Taking, ‘Risk Boundaries’ and Social Identity: Bodybuilders’ Talk about Ephedrine and Nubain

The instrumental use of steroids and analogous drugs is a normalised practice in bodybuilding subculture. However, in a society where bodily health and lifestyle are conjoined, such risk-taking carries negative connotations. Bodybuilders using drugs for purposes of physique enhancement are able to resist accusations of opprobrium and maintain competent social identity by drawing a sharp contrast between themselves and ‘junkies’. This self-serving differentiation appears untenable, however, when bodybuilders take Ephedrine and Nubain: drugs that may be compared respectively and unfavourably to amphetamines and heroin. Using qualitative data, this paper considers the variable status of Ephedrine and Nubain as risk boundaries among bodybuilders. In operating as risk boundaries, these drugs signify limits beyond which ‘sensible’ drug-using bodybuilders should not venture. As social constructs, risk boundaries are also contingent. Correspondingly, bodybuilders using Ephedrine and Nubain may redraw lines delimiting (in)appropriate behaviour thereby retaining competent social identity. These ethnographic observations ground theoretical debate about the impact of risk society on body- and identity building in late modernity and highlight some of the limitations of influential cultural theories of risk.