Apes and Strippers

             I exhale the last bit of smoke from my after-class cigarette and stomp out the butt with the bottom of my boot. I sit outside the library watching my fellow students scamper off to class. One girl is tottering her way across the grass on four inch heels carrying two purses in one hand and an ice coffee in another. I wonder who in their right mind wears heels to class, as I peer down at the fuzzy boots I wear on a daily basis. My sister, the all knowing hipster that she is, mocks me whenever we run into each other on campus. I schlep from class to class, usually in sweatpants, a hooded sweatshirt and my curly hair piled on top of my head. It is called comfort and getting to class on time, something that would be impossible if I took the usual measures expected from a “young lady” such as myself. Straightening the frizz out of my hair takes at least an hour and I still have no clue what colors go together according to fashion law. Don’t let me give you the wrong idea now; I have plenty of clothes even though I rotate the same three sloppy ensembles every week. My closet is bursting with dresses, skirts, shirts, rompers, vests and jeans which can all be blamed on my mother’s addiction to eBay. She says there is a thrill to the bidding war and it seems stealing some meaningless item from right under some stranger’s nose makes her day. So I end up with more clothes and accessories than the Salvation Army, and I actually wear less than half of them. First world problems right?

            I make my way home after class, loving the warm sun I get to enjoy in the middle of February. I peel off my sweatshirt and sweatpants, always being prepared with some shorts and a T-shirt on underneath. Unfortunately some guy driving by wasn’t as prepared to see me drop my pants in the middle of the sidewalk, as he proceeds to smash into the Acura in front of him. I quickly tie my sweatshirt around my waist and flee the scene, laughing at the curse words I hear before I get a chance to pop my headphones in. Although I hate technology for making humans completely dependent on it, having an iPhone makes you feel invincible. You can’t get lost, you never get bored and you can literally be on facebook all day. With three quick taps I turn on Pandora and make my way home listening to Lil Kim radio. As usual I get home and hit the fridge, chowing down until my stomach stops bothering me. I glance over at my iPhone which has been lighting up and vibrating while I was trying to enjoy my meal. I grab the darned thing only to read a bunch of stupid texts from people I don’t even want to talk to.

What are you doing later?

Did you go out last night?

Say this at the door and get in free to Ladies Night this Thursday.

I grunt and toss my phone somewhere that will be determined later and collapse on my bed. The only thing on my mind right now is whether to start a paper I have due in three days or hit the gym. After poking my squishy stomach for a few seconds the answer is obvious. I start digging through my drawers for my sports bra, grabbing one and then another. One sports bra hasn’t been able to contain me since I was about 13 years old. I throw on a tank top and some yoga pants and head out the door.

People who don’t go to the gym often may find it uncomfortable or intimidating, as I once did, but after realizing I had a beer gut I got over that fear. Now being at the gym is meditative and calming. I stow my backpack in a locker and start warming up with some Zumba moves and stretches. My friends find it hysterical that I dance around by myself looking rather spastic since no one but I can hear the music in my headphones. Honestly though, it is a great way to start sweating and puts me in a great mood. Finally I head to the weight room, which is emptier than usual. I begin my usual routine focusing on biceps, triceps and back muscles, dancing in between reps and losing myself in the moment. As I’m doing some curls this guy I’ve never seen before approaches me and asks, “Hey I was just wondering, do you strip?” I tug out my earphones and with a raised brow ask him to repeat his question, thinking my music made me hear wrong. “I see you dancing around, are you a stripper?” He asks again, his beady little eyes staring at me. In a perfect world I could take the fifteen pound dumbbells I was holding and toss one into his face and the other at his balls, but I restrain myself telling him that I was not and that he should watch what he says to people.

My once peaceful mood is shot to shit. I seethe in the corner trying to find some music to calm my head because the usual techno is making me want to pounce on this kid during his bench press. I go and lift something, and start to wonder if perhaps I had overreacted. Maybe he works at a strip club, and was trying to offer me a job. Who am I to judge stripping as a profession? For some women, it is their only way to get by and in this economy some people really don’t have much choice. Or maybe it was his way of complimenting me and didn’t mean any harm. Everyone knows some guys have zero game and maybe he thought he was being hilarious and flattering. As I run the scenario through my head again and again, my roommate enters the weight room and waves to me. I begin to tell her what had just happened and before I can get more than a couple words out, this guy approaches me again demanding to know why I am talking about him. Any sympathy I had for him dissolves as my fury returns twice as strong and twice as loud. “Just because I like to dance does not mean I am a stripper. Where do you get off saying that to someone?” He defends himself saying that maybe if I put some clothes on he wouldn’t have said it and that my inappropriate behavior has him riled up. I look down at my stretchy pants and tank top and for a second I’m kind of embarrassed, and then I realize this guy is a jerk who deserves to feel my wrath. I storm out of the room and report him to the front desk with him following me. The gym manager asks for his side of the story and he complains that I had been lifting up my shirt and trying to entice everyone around me. After much arguing and discussion of gym policy I finally get back to my workout and the jerk leaves. My mind is replaying the scenario over and over and my anger has turned to confusion.  

Everyday, I see the biggest guys lifting up their T-shirts to look at their bulging six-packs properly. I do it as a reminder to engage my abdominals, as I have been taught by yoga instructors and personal trainers. While a bunch of girls use the weight room frequently, most people would imagine it as a male dominated space. Despite the obvious remnant of patriarchy looming in this space, never at any gym have any boys or men said anything like that or complained about me creating a disturbance. Sure, I dance and wiggle around before doing a dead-lift and maybe this poses a distraction to the heterosexual dudes sharing the space with me, but there are plenty of things the boys do that irritate me. They leave the dumbbells lying on the floor, they grunt loudly, they smell and itch their balls with no regard. As much as this shit pisses me off, the gym is a place where it is okay for gentlemen to act like apes. The same goes for girls who want to get in the zone and lose themselves in the rhythmic therapy that is weight lifting. By definition, sweating and building muscle mass goes against what it means to be a lady in my book, another benefit I find in exercise. Both men and women drop the rules and restrictions of their jobs and daily lives in the gym, and feed into the animalistic solidarity that lives in all of us. For a few hours you don’t have to care about deadlines, politics or relationships because gym time is all about you and your body. So the fact that this guy decided to pass judgment on me and my body ruined my fucking day.

I was boggled by that nonsense he was spewing about how I “was trying to entice everyone around me.” Let us be real. When a grown female is doing a weighted squat she knows it is likely there is a guy looking at her butt during this process. That is not sexism, that’s called sexual reflexes and girls have them too. Watching a guy doing curls, seeing the veins in his arms popping into view while the muscles on his back ripple and protrude is great entertainment for any straight woman. Unless you are Buddhist monk, people have sexual urges and physiological forces that make you feel and think a certain way. This confrontation in the gym was derived from some force going on in this guy’s pants, and he thinking that was my fault or my problem.

Since this incident no guy has ever insulted me, and my gym time continues to be meditative and relaxing. I still dance around to my hearts content and wear my tight gym gear under my baggy sweat clothes. Sometimes I get nervous, thinking I am pissing off the boys around me when I do what comes naturally. The female form is still under strong scrutiny, and not acting like a lady can have negative consequences for females in life and in love. However, discussing this incident with my male work-out buddies has made sexism more visible to them. They check themselves out way more than I do and understand that I was harassed not because of my behavior but for my sex. I have not seen this guy I speak about since, hopefully because he is embarrassed and actually learned something that day about how to talk to people. Or maybe he’s continuing his hunt to find strippers in the gym. I continue living life in my comfy fuzzy boots not as stripper, not as a lady, but as a person.