You betcha. Has been for quite some time, as well.
It’s not as high on the yup-ometer as a BMW or an Audi station wagon, or, hell, an Audi, but it’s there.
Largely, I’m agreeing with the general sentiment in the thread that you’re not. I don’t even think you needed to “stick it out”. You’re a paying customer and you should enjoy the atmosphere, if you don’t like being oogled, whether by men or women, that’s a legitimate gripe and it’s not one the management of the gym can easily fix. At my gym, they have a women’s only section for women that don’t want to be oogled, for the ones that use the main free-weight area, I also see plenty of attractive women who wear baggy clothes precisely because they don’t want to be oogled, and want to get the kind of work out they probably can’t get at a place like Curves.
You might have appeared “homophobic” if your reasoning was along the lines of being scared, disgusted, or whatever by homosexuals, but in my mind that’s no different than the women I’ve seen.
As for the socializing… I can’t really say I understand that. I bring in and listen to an MP3 player, but being one of the regulars, I often take a few minutes and catch up with many of the other guys I know there. If I’m in a rush, or not feeling like chatting, I just give the nod (more like a reverse nod; it’s the universal gym greating), leave my headphones on and go about my business. The only part that DOES bother me about socializing is when a group of people monopolize a piece of equipment with extended breaks between sets to chit-chat. Still, if that’s the case, I ask if I can use it and they either start going faster so I can get on soon or, more often, let me work in.
Based on the scenario you describe, I’d say no, you’re not a homophobe, in the way we use the word these days.
I’d leave in that situation if: (i) I were a straight guy and kept getting hit on (you didn’t say this actually happened); or (ii) the extreme socializing by anyone got in the way of my getting an efficient and effective workout (and the membership price was right).
The “good-looking objects of the desire” wouldn’t affect my decision. As a gay male, yeah, it’d be nice to have some eye-candy around. However, if I was otherwise comfortable and getting a good workout, not having cute visual distractions wouldn’t cause me to leave.
I know one straight guy who, because our gym was 95% straight males, quit working out because there were just too many guys for his taste and not enough woman to look at. (It was a “free” city rec center; he couldn’t afford anything else.)
I can see you (the OP) thinking of having more women around as a perk, but this guy quit working out completely because of it.
As you already know, it’s up to you to figure of if other situations, and attitudes and perceptions you have warrant that label.
I think of it as a yuppie car for someone pretending they’re still in touch with the common man. Like a Subaru.
Volvo’s are funny because they seem to be two things: a yuppie car, and a hippie car.
You’ll see the 1991 Volvo 240 Dls (the boxy things) with Jerry Garcia stickers on them, strapped together with duct tape, and flower stickers on the hood. Then, you’ll see the Volvo C40 which is a yuppie car – and not the kind of yuppie who is trying to stay in touch with the common man.
Subaru, I don’t get. I always thought of Subaru as “the car for practical people”. I have two.
And, to the OP: no homophobe, and funny joke.
Huh. I had no idea. (No really, not a sniff.)
OP I don’t think you were homophobic.
Put me in the no camp.
It’s not that it was a predemoninantly gay gym. It was that the gym was just the locale for the hooking up scene. You wanted to work out, not meet people.
Now, if you go out and demand that no gays can ever be at the gym at the same time as you, and predominantly gay gyms should be burned down and sowed over with salt, then you’re a homophobe.
But you wanted to go to the gym to work out. It seems the first gym most people wanted to go to the gym to meet other people. It wasn’t that it was mostly gay, it’s that it was mostly not exercising.
well, that is funny but obviously you are not limited to just the two options. You like the positive reinforcement of guys (and gals) staring at you. Mybe you don’t want to be hit on, but you do like the attention. Please admit it or by a nice, large, pair of sweats.
Leaving a gym under those circumstances isn’t homophobic. Work out wherever you want.
But i’d be interested to know just how much of a meat market this gym was. Despite the habitual characterization of gay gyms as little more than sex-crazed pick-up joints, i’ve found in the past that, for the most part, people go there to work out, and it’s quite possible to do your workout and leave without getting hassled.
I was a member of a predominantly gay gym when i lived in Sydney. There was certainly a fair bit socializing going on there, and i saw phone numbers exchanged and hookups arranged. But, during my membership period, i was only ever approached once (insert predictable joke about mhendo’s lack of attractiveness), and avoided any problems and embarrassment by simply telling the guy i wasn’t gay. He apologized. I said “no problem.” And that was it. There might be a few gay guys who persist in trying to pick up guys they know are straight, but i’m willing to bet that they constitute a very small minority.
I’m not a huge fan of socializing at the gym, but even in the most socially active gyms, i’ve very rarely felt hindered or inconvenienced by other people’s socializing. What do i care if they want to hang around and talk? The only time it affects me is if they’re sitting on a piece of equipment that i want to use, and if that’s the case i have no trouble saying “Do you mind if i use this?”
Maybe adjust it for the kinds of yuppies I see up here. They dress casually but it’s not the kind of casual the common man around here would wear, but they try. I think of the Volvo and Subaru as the well-off/acting unassuming vehicle.
The reason I left wasn’t because I was constantly being hit on. Sorry if that wasn’t clear. I mean, there were guys occaisonally trying to hit on me (there was one guy stretching next to me who seemed to be going to great lengths, actually, to get my attention), but that doesn’t bother me. Nor does it bother me that I saw two guys give a hello kiss. And, once I found out that this gym had a reputation for being a “pick up” joint, I didn’t run out screaming. I didn’t leave, actually, for about another month.
Instead, as the quote above shows, I left because it wasn’t the culture I want in a gym. One of the reasons I like the gym is because of the *feel * - I enjoy people watching about as much as I enjoy lifting weights. And the gyms I like have a particular mix of people this gym didn’t include - the huge steroid guys, the hot chicks, the weirdo’s who just seem to live there. I once stopped working out at a campus gym at my University because a mixed gender couple were making fun of me for flexing my calves in the mirror. Again, that place didn’t have the “hard core” feel of the gyms I like.
What bothered me about my decision to leave the “gay” gym, though, was that a part of me felt hypocritical - I support gay rights, but I was leaving a gym full of gay people. It felt like I was saying, “it’s okay to be gay, just don’t be gay around me.” That bothered me, as it seemed like I was sort of a gay segregationist. This isn’t the reason I left, but it still created a twinge of guilt. It probably didn’t help, either, that I found myself getting annoyed by the people around me who didn’t conform to my gym expectations - ultimately, I left to find a place that felt right, but I wondered if not finding a homosexual place to be “right” indicated some sort of latent homophobia.
You should see the things I wear to yoga. And the stretches I do. I am begging for it.
Don’t feel bad. I’d feel inadequate at the local grade school gym!
Sweats are not comfortable to work out in unless your workout consists of jogging outside in the cold.
Yes, you are, and until you have gay sex with all the men from that gym I will refuse to believe otherwise.
While singing show tunes.
Funnily enough, I know a gal with a Volvo. It definitely looks like the “hippie box Volvo”–barely any paint, cracked windshields, interior falling apart. It doesn’t like starting in one revv. But she’s neither a hippie nor a yuppy, just a college student buying what was in her budget.
But thanks to the lack of bumper stickers, I wonder now what its previous owner was… 
It’s not that a Volvo is the yuppiest car in the world. It’s that the idea of putting fancy rims on a Volvo is just so damn funny!
Now, can we get back to reassuring the OP?
I agree–not a homophobe. And I’m not sure it’s even a “work out” vs. “socialize” thing. I think he just likes a more heterogenous group. I’m with him.
Black redneck yuppies? Club Onyx, Houston.
I’ve thought seriously about getting the shiny spinning hubcaps for my old Civic.