One Utah

Over at Hugo’s place, he published a letter from a friend about an incident at his gym:

. . . a new woman approached and made her way over to the floor mats.

Attractive….and with ginormous breasts.

Now, this is Los Angeles, and large breasts are not in short supply. But these stood out, mainly because they were already 25% “out” of this leotard type top she had on.

Allow me to be even more precise: Not only was I seeing “top cleavage”, but I was also getting a glimpse of the coveted “side hang”, and the TINIEST view of some of the lower cleavage . . . I have seen breasts before. I felt no need to stare.

She took to the mat and began her stretching. Mostly back stretch stuff. Mind you, I’m not really paying that much attention.

But then… here comes those “down stretches”. And I ventured that I sensed their arrival before even she did. She stretched down, bending towards me…… and voilà…

Christmas in October!

They were “out”. For me to see. And for anyone and everyone to see, within a miles distance.

Alas, as she was pulling back up, we momentarily locked eyes!! And the jig was up.

I got “the look”.

Hugo took his friend to task saying, in essence, if you’re looking and someone is uncomfortable, it’s your fault.  I get what Hugo is saying, but at the same time, I’m not totally convinced.  The gym (as I’ve blogged before) is a complicated hybrid public/private space.  We engage in behaviors in the gym that we normally reserve for private spaces - we wear more revealing clothing at the gym than we normally wear in public.  The gym is likely to see us at our worst (sweaty, disheveled, hair messed up) - a look we normally reserve for private spaces.  The gym is not a normal public space and it is not a normal private space.  There are no set rules about behavior or attire at the gym.

At my gym, the free weights are directly in front of the bank of cardio machines.  As a result, if you’re doing cardio you’re basically staring the TV’s, trying to read, or staring blankly ahead the folks lifting weights.  Although most folks dress in the standard shorts and t-shirts, in the last week, I’ve seen women in skintight spandex, women in long sleeved sweat shirts and pants, a guy in shorts so tight you could tell if he was Jewish (mazel tov!), shirts so tight every muscle rippled for all to see and some men in muscle tanks so miniscule they might as well be shirtless.  And like Hugo’s friend, I’ve seen a few women in tops so revealing I’m surprised they were about to corral their breasts with them.  I tend not to notice bouncing boobs, but I’m the minority.

Hugo’s correspondent asked the question:  Is it wrong to look if something is on display? 

 Hugo answered: Yes, if it makes someone uncomfortable.

Which is where I struggle.  Just as you can’t know why someone dresses as they dress, you cannot know if looking at them will make them uncomfortable.  More than once, I’ve seen people on the treadmills or ellipticals staring blankly ahead while exercising.  Someone could easily construe that as an inappropriate stare when in fact the person wasn’t staring at them - the person probably wasn’t even registering the people in front of them.  I’ve seen men drooling over an attractive woman who literally didn’t notice them - the guys’ behavior is clearly inappropriate, and yet . . . the object of their desire didn’t notice.  I’ve seen women check out the guys in an manner that would’ve earned a man a slap across the face - and some guys blush and get uncomfortable, while other guys don’t notice.  People aren’t wired the same and don’t react to the same stimuli in uniform ways. 

Pondering Hugo’s friend and “Christmas in October” I guess I’m not terribly sympathetic with the woman in question nor am I with Hugo’s friend.  The gym isn’t a private space and when we step into it, we must do so aware that what we wear, how we act, will be noticed by other people.  In in the broadest sense, if you put it on display, I think you lose the right to complain if other people see it and yet, I also think people need to behave appropriately - drooling all over someone isn’t appropriate behavior.  You shouldn’t have to cover from head to toe at the gym, and you shouldn’t have to deal with people treating the gym like a meat market; I can’t imagine “Christmas in October” woman’s outfit was all that comfortable, which makes me wonder why she was wearing it.  (FWIW, I’ve never understood why some people treat the gym as a pickup joint.  We usually look our worst at the gym.)

I’m unsympathetic with the complaints of some devout persons that men and women should not be “forced” to share workout space. For instance, a while back a Muslim woman got her gym to set up partitions around her while she exercised so that men could not see her and she could not see men; rather than seeing such a standard as some sort of virtuous stance, I can’t help but wonder exactly what psychological issues were affecting her.  I feel much the same way toward Christians who complain about popular culture having swear words or sex - the public square accommodates all of us, and should not limit itself to only the portrayals that are inoffensive.

I tend to believe the public square, by its very nature, should be expansive and accommodating - clearly violence and assault are inappropriate but a wide variety of behaviors are appropriate to some and not others.  The public square must accommodate more rather than fewer opinions, attitudes and behaviors.  Absent real and measurable harm, I’m reluctant to ban behaviors, words, or opinions from the public square.  The gym, then, is a place in which a wide array of acceptable behaviors must be tolerated.  The woman whose breasts are out for all to see has a right to wear what she wants, but I think she’s naive or foolish to think people won’t have a good look - the same goes for the guy in tight shorts or the muscle tank.

The American obsession with the body comes into play - we revel in and yet condemn displays of the body.  We criticize those who show their bodies while we pruriently peer at them.  We are scandalized and stimulated and uncomfortable with both responses - even as we know in our hearts that those things declared taboo are instantly more appealing, we can’t bring ourselves to reject the taboo of the body.  Americans love to look and then love to hate ourselves for looking.

Taught to feel shame about our bodies - about maturation, about sexuality, about the physical self -  we cope badly with our own bodies and the bodies of those around us.  Obsession with youth and thinness seem to me expressions of our discomfort.  Depictions of the adult body - physically mature, with body hair and secondary sex characteristics, reminds us of our own discomfort with our bodies.  Many of us fetishize those secondary sex characteristics (breasts, beards, chest hair, whatnot) in response to the taboos around the body.  A great many people seem to overcompensate - to prove we’re comfortable we put our bodies on display - then react negatively when people take a good look.  The gym - complicate public private space that it is - becomes an arena in which conflicting attitudes toward the body play themselves out in an endless human drama.

Spencer Tunick and his photos of large groups of nudes create controversy precisely because he forces us to deal with our discomfort with the body.

This entry was posted Wednesday, October 17th, 2007 at 10:33 am and is filed under People Are Nuts, Sex, Society, This Blog. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.