[filoleg]

>Did you mean to imply that effeminate -- showing characteristics more associated with females than males -- was at the other end of a spectrum from athletic?

Agreed, the terminology used by the parent comment was a bit strange, but I got the idea of what they meant.

They were talking about an effeminate skinny type of a male compared to a very masculine athletic "macho man"-looking type. In terms of celebrities and purely their appearances, think of young David Bowie vs. Arnold Swarzenegger.

I guess the parent comment simply conflated athleticism with masculinity, but that's just an aspect of it, and not all kinds of athleticism are inherently "masculine" (think yoga or acrobatics or figure skating).