My gay gym

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’m not going to lie, and I’m not going to plead ignorance. I knew I was joining a gym with a clientele that was primarily gay. I did so willingly. The equipment was great, the place was spotless and the the decor was…well…more thought went into the decor than your average gym.

Now, I LIKE my gym. The people are friendly, despite the average muscularity of one of the gym members being most accurately described as “garagantuan”. But, why, oh, why, can’t there be doors on the showers? There are partitions, so obviously we aren’t completely opposed to shower privacy, but why no doors?

Ok, so I accept that I’m the hetero in the gay gym. My needs and wants are therefore secondary. So, I propose a compromise: a hetero-friendly shower stall.

Now, I don’t want to take over the whole shower area. I just want one stall. It could be like a training stall. You know how when you buy a new fish, you’re supposed to keep it in the bag you bring it home in, and put that bag into the new tank? It would be sort of like that.

Heck, I don’t even mind if people are watching me shower. I just don’t know if I can handle KNOWING about it. Not yet. So, in that regard, the hetero-shower could even have one way glass; you could see in, and I can’t see out.

I’m not so vain that I think I’m worth looking at in the gym, especially considering the size of these other guys. Did I mention that these guys are HUGE? And, I’ll TRY to get into the spirit of things, but I need training wheels. I can’t go gay full monty on the first day.

Please consider the hetero training stall.

2

I’ve never been in a gym with individual stalls. Ever.

Relax.

Whistlepig

3

I read the title as "My Gay Gum.
It got me curious enough that I had to open the thread.

That’s all.

4

I marvel sometimes as how different being gay must be from my hetero existence. For example, there’s no gym I can go to where I get a good workout, and can also see people of my sexually preferred sex naked and lathering up. If there were, maybe I’d still be in shape and wouldn’t have this steadily worsening case of fatbastarditis.

5

On that note (and in answer to whistlepig), I live in an area where people expect gyms to be somewhat high class, which means seperate shower stalls.

My gay brother in law informs me that the lack of shower stalls in my gym is part of the “gay gym culture”, I’m guessing for the reason noted, Revtim.

6

Ya know, I have a friend who had a weirdly reversed situation recently. She and a group from her church went to Jerusalem for winter break from college. They were kinda bumming around, so they used a public bathhouse to wash up in, where there were also no curtains or stalls. She, being the only lesbian of the crew, was actually really embarrassed and definitely worried that the others would think she had roving eyes. She ended up showering in the corner, partially clothed, while everyone else was buck nekkid and laughing it up.

Just goes to show, us queerbies tend to be a lot more sensitive in same-sex bathroom situations than a lot of people think we are. S’all I’m sayin’.

7

Well, for what it’s worth, I wouldn’t be comfortable in open showers in a predominantly gay gym, either. But then, I solve that by never going to the gym.

The showers are part of the gym’s facilities. So if it makes you that uncomfortable to use a shower without doors, then maybe it’s time to find one that days. (And it should go without staying that that’s not a gay vs. straight thing – even in a predominantly straight gym, there could very well be homos watching your every move! We walk among you!!)

If you don’t want to change gyms, then just re-think it. I don’t know what you look like, and I don’t mean this in a bad way, but it’s highly unlikely that you’re that much of a “draw.” Think about it – if these guys are gay, then they’ve most likely seen other nude men before. And if they’re gym types, they’ve most likely seen good-looking nude men before. Unless you’re unfathomably better-built than the usual type that hangs out on internet message boards, you’re no competition for what these guys are used to.

And on top of that, if it’s a gym and not some bathhouse, they’re there to work out, just like you are. Not to ogle. Again, no offense, but I’m highly skeptical that they’ve all got raging boners as soon as you drop trou.

8

Hmmm. Could you shower while wearing a black scarf over your eyes while singing “You ca—ant seee me, youuuuuuuuuuu caaaaaaa-nt seeeeee me.”

9

Sorry if it didn’t come across, but I meant the OP to be tongue in cheek.

I think I’m much less affected than I let on in the OP, and I also acknowledge that:

a) The clientele is, on average, better built than myself.
b) The problem is with me, not everyone else.

Sorry.

10

Doors are a bitch to clean? Doors would mask something really nasty going on, which they don’t want to encourage?

11

Aaaaaaaagh! Night of the Living Homos!!!

12

Yup. I’m on a swim team at my high school. Im the only one who changes and showers in a stall and Im bi, and I lean towards the ladies.

13

Well yes, we **are **bigger than you guys, statistically. Even those of us who don’t work out.

14

My high school (boarding school) had open showers – not even partitioned – the four years I attended. Freshmen always found this terrifying because everyone’s dangly bits were more and less dangly, hairy, robust, wrinkly, pointed, and so forth than theirs, and different is scary. Seniors would solve this (and the stinky roommate) problem by enforcing an “everyone showers” policy during the first week of school. I was a senior (dorm big brother) on the same hall I’d been a freshman on, and I helped them get used to the weirdness of gym showers. Freshmen adapted, overcame, became seniors, and enforced the policy. Everyone was happy.

A homophobic parent donated stall partitions the year after I graduated, and one of my former freshmen called to tell me. Apparently my freshmen (now sophomores) went down to check the partitions out, and found the freshmen all gathered around measuring the screw heads. The freshmen had been showering together for a month, and decided they liked it. So they tore down the walls and hid them all over campus.

A week later new partitions went up with the special irreversible screws holding them together and the freshmen immediately set about vandalizing them so they’d rust out faster.

So, the moral of the story is, partitionless showers promote high morale and bonding and community spirit. Just some perspective for you.

p.s. the best way to get the freshmen to laugh at their own insecurities is to wait until they’re all in line for the showers naked and a few of them are soaping up near a senior. The senior would drop a bar of soap on purpose, bend over, and mutter loudly, “ah, F**K me.” :eek:

15

Make your own jokes here.

16

Eh, I don’t know what you have to be sorry for. It’s not like you said anything remotely offensive.

Still, just keep using point a) as your mantra to get over point b). “They’re not looking at me. They’re not looking at me… Wait a second, why the hell aren’t they looking at me? What gay guy wouldn’t want to hit this?” And then you can get all obsessive! That’s what a gym is for, right?

17

So lemme get this right (sure as hell not straight;)):

  1. I can see in, you can’t see out.
  2. You’re naked.
  3. You’re physically attractive (to me).
  4. I don’t know for sure that you’re straight (unless we’re going to screw in a “Straight Shower” sign onto the thing).

You, ah, live where again?

18

Ditto, even the partitions you speak of are an undreamed of luxury that I’ve never seen.

I thought communal showers at the YMCA were part of a larger program to humiliate chub visitors (myself definitely included) onto working harder. Noe that I’ve heard all the stories about Catholic priests, I’ve come to a different interpretation. :stuck_out_tongue:

19

I work out in a regular gym (one of a chain here in DC). My gym has individual stalls with curtains, so those who wish to advertise can, and those who don’t, don’t.

There’s a certian amount of cruising that goes on in even the “straightest” of gyms, but if one has high standards for oneself ignores it. Besides, most of thatgoes on in the steam room anyway, so if you avoid he steam room, you can remain happily oblivious to it.

20

Ever since reading the title of the thread, all I can think of is how funny the following scenario would be…

That a patron of the said health-club that caters primarily to homosexuals; should be named James. And that he would also be homosexual.

You know…

Gay Jim / Gay Gym

Well, it was funny in my mind, anyway.