First, watch this video to get a good idea of the ramifications of grunting in Planet Fitness. The man in the video was not only chastised for grunting while squatting 500 pounds (you squat 500 pounds without grunting), when he became understandably annoyed, a gym worker called the cops on him.
As I wrote yesterday, Amanda Marcotte got her granny panties in a twist over an article written by Luke O’Neil at Slate in which he reported on health club Planet Fitness’ “no lunkhead” strategy which basically shames and marginalizes bodybuilder-types.
As Sofia points out in the comments, it is difficult to figure out exactly what Marcotte is angry about. She flits around from beef to beef covering O’Neil’s failure to consider why Planet Fitness would adopt such a strategy then to lamenting the double standards faced by women in gym culture. At the root of it all is her hatred for big guys lifting big things.
Marcotte characterizes O’Neil’s piece as a snarky, privileged, one-sided dig at a particular gym franchise whose strategy is to distance itself from the masculine norm. But any reading of O’Neil’s piece clearly shows that he is bringing up a legitimate question: why is Planet Fitness so openly hostile to lunkheads? Additionally, O’Neil wonders how healthy it is, socially, to run away from your anxieties – in this case, judgmental lunkheads – instead of dealing with potentially adverse and uncomfortable situations – which seem to be features of the real world. Finally, O’Neil questions how serious a health club can be about health if it offers pizza and candy – things easily obtained elsewhere – at its facilities.
Marcotte tries to extremify O’Neil’s piece by implying that he derogates women by quoting a man on Facebook who wrote, of Planet Fitness, “it’s just a Curves that allows men.” Marcotte develops faux outrage at this but then goes on to point out that Planet Fitness’ strategy is to cater to the marginalized gym-goer – the person with the most baggage when it comes to work-out hang-ups: women. Since Planet Fitness allows men, this makes it a place that caters to women but also allows men – call it Curves Plus Herbs.
Marcotte then makes this illogical point:
“Smart gyms go out of their way to reduce anxieties and pressures for this reason, which is why the “no judgment” trend is so big.”
Interestingly enough, Planet Fitness is premised precisely on judgment. Check out this sign in one of their gyms.
And this one:
One wonders if Marcotte can still stand by her claim that Planet Fitness is a judgment free zone. Marcotte essentially advocates the trade off of what she perceives as silent, tacit, invisible, unspoken, gendered judgment for loud clanging bells, derogatory signage, and the grunt police.
This is really no different than larger feminist arguments which are premised on an invisible force holding women down – the “glass ceiling”, “rape culture”, “patriarchy”, “toxic masculinity” that all require their own heavier, more serious, and better-armed police action to correct.
Marcotte directly states that “lunkheads are a problem” because their grunting and “over-the-top masculine performativity” makes women feel unwelcome and fosters anxiety. She also states that lunkheads often directly stoke the flames of gender anxiety. Since Marcotte provides no evidence to support this claim – empirical or anecdotal – I must take it upon myself to shed some light on her argument.
As Mucius Scaevola and OneSTDV commented yesterday, less-large men face anxiety when entering the den of these lunkheads. This anxiety may be different in nature than that of women, but it is actually more dire if taken to its logical end – if I stare a lunkhead in the eye I might get a barbell to the cranium; if a woman looks a lunkhead in the eye the worst she’ll get is a phone number. So if Marcotte is trying to make the argument that this anxiety is gendered which provides the base for the Planet Fitness business model, she ignores that men face anxiety both in entering this den as well as being feeling pressure to obtain the masculine ideal. Which would speak to why Planet Fitness could be a good strategy if Marcotte weren’t making the gym franchise out to be a vehicle for female empowerment.
Marcotte is somewhat unrealistic and unfair by attributing grunting and bigness and all of the characteristics of lunkheads to some sort of desire to put anxiety in the hearts of women and herbs. If you’re trying to lift heavy weight, you often grunt. You sweat. Your adrenaline and your testosterone are pumped and you might get psyched up a little bit. In that Marcotte is conditioned to think that men are out to get women at every turn and through every tiny behavior, it’s easy to see why she’d take these noises so personally.
Marcotte and others who support the ideology behind Planet Fitness should just admit what this gym stands for. It is no coincidence that the same post-ironic hipsters who prefer certain bands only because other people don’t like them (which, since Marcotte is an Austin-bred and Brooklyn-based scenester kind of connects the dots here) rather than because of any positive philosophy would also turn to a gym that markets itself as an anti-establishment outfit. It remains to be seen, then, if the people who transition to Planet Fitness will go the same way as scenesters who are famously known for their music snobbery and their “True Hipster” mentality. This could very well become a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face. If this Planet Fitness trend gains traction, it’s not hard to imagine that instead of being judged by grunters you become judged by non-grunters. Instead of people judging you for being too puny, you are judged for being too muscular. By setting up a “no lunkhead” gym culture, Planet Fitness is perpetuating the very thing they’re running away from. If you explicitly say “no lunkheads”, people start wondering if you’re actually a lunkhead or if you might turn into a lunkhead or if you have lunkhead tendencies.
The idea that bodybuilders are threatening or unfriendly is pretty silly- ask one and he’d probably be happy to spot you or give you some tips- but it’s a stereotype and Planet Fitness takes advantage of that. The gym industry is pretty sleazy anyway, this is just another version of it.
It’s honestly difficult to follow Marcotte’s point, assuming the weight-lifter’s grunting was natural and not exaggerated or obnoxious. Reading between the lines, the clue may lie with your “Brooklyn scenster” note: she’s instinctively trying to push out the jock culture and replace it with SWPL culture at her gym and create a more girly environment, which includes men who are more into yoga, cardio and tricep kickbacks than squats or pullups.
[Chuck: Don't forget the hip aductor machine. I mean, barring the opportunity it provides for us to get a sneak peak at some poonanny, the hip aductor machine is the most worthless piece of shit machine in the gym.]
That would be psychologically analogous to my going onto an urban basketball court or a college arcade, and lobbying to get the street players and the geek gamers, respectively, to stop being so damn into it and leave so that I can shoot hoops or play games on my own so-so level.
[Chuck: Good point. The thing they're doing in this instance with Planet Fitness is analogous to building a new bball court with pink backboards and 8 foot rims and talking shit about how their court is so much better than the one that they weren't able to compete on. Waaa!]
As to a novice’s intimidation with a gym for the first time… not sure why some guys feel that way. No one pays attention to other patrons. People either lift in their own small groups or alone.
[Chuck: When you're new to working out a lot of it has to do with not wanting to screw anything up or look ridiculous doing exercises the wrong or improper way. When you're new to a gym it has to do with perhaps not doing it the way that things are normally done at a certain gym. I think it's just a natural reaction to being in a foreign situation. As far as physical intimidation, I think that's much less of a factor than feeling like you're just out of place sometimes.]
If you don’t have to drop your weights with certain exercises, you are not lifting enough.
And “lunkheads” are usually nice, knowledgeable people. You arent able to build your body to a great extent without doing some non-trivial research and trial-and-error.
This is all about numbers – making your gym more friendly to the very large group of people out there who know that they need to get into shape and feel guilty about it, but who have found every excuse not to join a gym. This ad suggests that the marketers behind this ad see intimidation and feelings of inadequacy as a part of the equation for these reluctant gym goers who haven’t bought a membership yet.
If a gym is (apparently) going out of its way to deter the bigger, more serious bodybuilders from joining this also shows that there’s not a lot of those said lunk/muscleheads out there. If lunkheads were in abundance and could bring big membership $$ then you’d have gyms advertising stuff like – “please come join our gym, we’ll let you toss as many dumbells as you wish.”
It’s a business strategy to cater to the true growth area – you’ll add a lot more new business catering to the huge pool of people who don’t have current gym memberships than you will by getting 2-3 serious weightlifters per year to switch from another gym to yours…
[Chuck: The strategy definitely seems like it could work. There's no doubting that. They'll get the marginal customer who isn't dedicated enough to fitness to fight through what they perceive as intimidation from all the lunkheads but will feel comfortable enough to work out at a no pressure venue. I think, though, there's a difference between advertising that type of low-stress atmosphere and advertising a type of anti-lunkhead atmosphere. One is more ethical, if I have to put a word on it, than the other.]
I never understood why people would feel intimidated at a gym either. PA is right, no one is really paying attention. Amanda might be one of those people who thinks everyone is always interested in what she is doing, when they really don’t care.
This is crazy… no grunting? WTF yer working out for gods sake. whats next no funny faces when lifting?
“I found the intense and strained look to be very intimidating, he was just staring of into space and turning red”… “thank god he didn’t make any noises! if he did i would have pulled the fire alarm and evacuated the building! including our multicultural G&L bomb making and poetry class next door”
are men faced with these anxieties in front of women, i wonder? as i mentioned in my other comment, working out in front of attractive men can be uncomfortable when you look like shit. what about in front of attractive women?
[Chuck: I think it works about the same for men and women. If you feel like you're not at your peak phyiscally, a man may be anxious about it. But I see both men and women who aren't exactly attractive adopting a fuck it attitude and diving right into the sea of buff bodies without much fear.]
Guys who smell bad, drop weights, and grunt a lot are annoying, and yes I would like them to disappear from my gym. Also annoying: girls who lift with 3 pound weights, rest between sets on machines after daintily doing 22 reps, talk on their phone, girl with their girlfriends, and walk on treadmills.
In my 20 years of gym going the number of giggling clutches of inane girls has seriously risen; can we get them banned too?
When working out I generally tune other people out. But if there is an attractive woman near me (and women rarely use the freeweights room) I’m positive she’s checking out my package as I do my bench dumbell presses and I have no problem with that.
[Chuck: I just got a pretty good idea for Gym Game: Put 5's on a barbell for the bench press and ask the hottest chick nearby to spot you. You *must* do this with a straight face. Chew gum and ask her aloofly. No other small talk. When you're done, tell her "Good spot" and hold up your fist for some dap before walking away.]
The problem at most co-ed gyms is that the really sexy buff guys (Blacks) are such a minority, and sometimes even absent, that I had to switch membership to an all female gym due to lack of eye candy anyway.
[Chuck: So are you saying that there aren't many "really sexy buff black guys" in general since they also aren't working out? I think you should strike up a pen pal relationship with a prisoner. That sounds good for you. You can start with Obsidian. I have his email address.]
The gyms I’ve gone to have essentially no women in the free weight area and the ones that go there aren’t attractive (the attractive one stick to the “pussy” room).
[Chuck: There is a much higher liklihood of slutdom among women who enter the free weight room. I can't prove this but I know it's true.]
But in the rare instances I’ve curled or benched in front of an attractive girl, I can tell you I’ve essentially never felt self-conscious doing so. If anything, one should feel less self-conscious that normal because you’re giving an obvious indicator of at least some alpha-ness. And if you’re doing an exercise like curls and getting a good muscle pop, then that can really show.
[Chuck: To continue with that train of thought, if you're even within their line of sight and you aren't someone who would be their type you should actually be more anxious to be near them and *not* working out. As you say, being a lump but at least moving weight is better than just being a lump and standing there.]
So to answer the question: if I’m self-conscious during working out, it’s around other guys who lift significantly more than I do (though I’m rarely self-conscious when working out to begin with).
[Chuck: My self-consciousness in this regard came when I was in my early 20s. Anymore I just don't care. But from what I remember about being somewhat self-conscious in the past was the guys who were near my size and body type but who could lift, say, 30-50 pounds more than me on the bench or who could squat 2 extra plates more than me. It's like anything where the people who you compete against the most are the ones who are nearest you on the spectrum of whatever it is that you're competing with them on. So to make an analogy, I'm more "insecure" about, say, IQ when around someone who is still relatively close to me in IQ whereas if I'm hanging out with Mencius Moldbug it's not even a contest and I feel no sense of competitiveness or insecurity.]
The best customers for a gym are those who pay and then never come, never use the equipment or make the gym crowded. Real weightlifters come all the time.
Thanks for clarifying the beginner’s intimidation at a gym. OK, I did feel that once. As a college freshman, I went with a buddy who was a student at University of Maryland to a campus gym. Inside, we see a ton of upperclassmen, huge and ripped, all looking at us. They may have been members of the toothless team. We did our thing, fucked around with some equipment without knowing what we’re doing, and felt out of place there.
Now, that was a unique setting, given all parties’ not-quite-adult status, and the explicitly varsity athlete turf thigh. Nevertheless, I can see this intimidation scaling over to “civilian” gyms.
This is why it’s important that the gym offers novice members a free session with a trainer. One, this will put him on a program with defined exercises and goals; no mote fucking around with unfamiliar equipment and feeling overwhelmed, frustrated, and ultimately bored and discouraged. Two, a trainer session will demistify the environment.
Once you know what you’re doing, you welcome the presence of serious guys around you and you find it motivating, whatever your respective levels.
“So are you saying that there aren’t many “really sexy buff black guys” in general since they also aren’t working out? ”
I’m saying black guys don’t have to work out to be buff. They have a natural muscle tone that is sexy. Now, if on top of that they do work out – Holy Moly!
But like Common, I employ a separate strategy for short and longterm mating.
[Chuck: But like Common do you believe that interracial dating is morally wrong? That's the question.]
Sorry Bros, until you get your acts together, that’s just how its gon be. [Chuck: I'm sure they're crying in their Hennessey at this "loss".]
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and state I would patronize Planet Fitness, anytime. My kind of gym. I’m 41, 6’3 180 and just started working out. Never done it before. Right now I have a personal trainer who has converted her basement into a gym. She’s gotta be only about 23 yrs old, but after an hour with her I feel like I’ve just had the shit beat out of me. We do all the SWPL exercises, including tricep kickbacks, but like I say, I always leave feeling like I’ve just had my ass whipped. The last thing I need is a gym full of Lou Ferrigno’s. I think people just like to be around people who are like one another. And why not? The Lou Ferrigno’s and the Sylvester Stallone’s will always places to go to work out, like Gold’s Gym. Why can’t swpl’s have their own gym? In a way, it is an ingenious marketing ploy. Think about it: most people will never get ripped, and there is a burgeoning market for people who exercise, nonetheless. I suspect Planet Fitness has tapped into a gold mine here, and the ripped dudes, the so-called ‘lunkheads’ won’t really suffer. There must be hundreds of other gyms to choose from they can patronize.
” if I’m hanging out with Mencius Moldbug it’s not even a contest and I feel no sense of competitiveness or insecurity.”
you are amazingly ignorant of the fierce 100lb sistas who dish out ass-whoopings to 300lb male gorillas each day, all around on TV channels.
Ms. Marcotte’s concerns(and not insecurities) are rightly justified.
Sorry for the late reply, G.L., but I’m new to your blog.
I care very much about education – the improvement of individuals. One thing I’ve learned is that if you tell someone to NOT think about something, their subconscious will tie itself in knots trying to negate that object (like in the book “Sphere,” where the deep sea scientists’ fears manifested themselves… obviously it was hard for them to simply stop having said fears, even once they understood the problem). Working with guitar students, I must be very careful to not even mention certain f-ups that I know will be naturally corrected if the students simply maintain correct habits. It’s called creating a positive environment, and it comes right down to language. I do not say: “Don’t do this, don’t do that.” I keep them growing.
This “gym” is an anti-gym (or it will become one). It’s designed around a different logic than traditional gyms, where one is supposed to f-in’ grow into a strong person. An honest pursuit of self-improvement requires an admiration of excellence. Those meatheads represent excellence in strength training. Real self-improvement cannot happen in an atmosphere of snark.
I’m a member of a Planet Fitness. (Horrors!!) It’s a five-minutes drive from where I live, their rates are very affordable and they aren’t crowded during non-peak hours. (Even on a weekend afternoon, it’s not crowded) Their policies are stupid and they have some touchy-feely slogans on the wall but I’ve vocally exerted myself in certain exercises and no one has ever called me out on it. Their weights are somewhat limited compared to my previous gym, but it fine for what I use it for considering the price difference.
The idea that bodybuilders are threatening or unfriendly is pretty silly- ask one and he’d probably be happy to spot you or give you some tips- but it’s a stereotype and Planet Fitness takes advantage of that. The gym industry is pretty sleazy anyway, this is just another version of it.
Meatheads be meatheads.
Feminzais be feminazis.
Personally, I hope a meathead drops his dumbbells on two feminazis. One meat head locked up, two dead feminazis.
It’s a win-win.
It’s honestly difficult to follow Marcotte’s point, assuming the weight-lifter’s grunting was natural and not exaggerated or obnoxious. Reading between the lines, the clue may lie with your “Brooklyn scenster” note: she’s instinctively trying to push out the jock culture and replace it with SWPL culture at her gym and create a more girly environment, which includes men who are more into yoga, cardio and tricep kickbacks than squats or pullups.
[Chuck: Don't forget the hip aductor machine. I mean, barring the opportunity it provides for us to get a sneak peak at some poonanny, the hip aductor machine is the most worthless piece of shit machine in the gym.]
That would be psychologically analogous to my going onto an urban basketball court or a college arcade, and lobbying to get the street players and the geek gamers, respectively, to stop being so damn into it and leave so that I can shoot hoops or play games on my own so-so level.
[Chuck: Good point. The thing they're doing in this instance with Planet Fitness is analogous to building a new bball court with pink backboards and 8 foot rims and talking shit about how their court is so much better than the one that they weren't able to compete on. Waaa!]
As to a novice’s intimidation with a gym for the first time… not sure why some guys feel that way. No one pays attention to other patrons. People either lift in their own small groups or alone.
[Chuck: When you're new to working out a lot of it has to do with not wanting to screw anything up or look ridiculous doing exercises the wrong or improper way. When you're new to a gym it has to do with perhaps not doing it the way that things are normally done at a certain gym. I think it's just a natural reaction to being in a foreign situation. As far as physical intimidation, I think that's much less of a factor than feeling like you're just out of place sometimes.]
If you don’t have to drop your weights with certain exercises, you are not lifting enough.
And “lunkheads” are usually nice, knowledgeable people. You arent able to build your body to a great extent without doing some non-trivial research and trial-and-error.
This is all about numbers – making your gym more friendly to the very large group of people out there who know that they need to get into shape and feel guilty about it, but who have found every excuse not to join a gym. This ad suggests that the marketers behind this ad see intimidation and feelings of inadequacy as a part of the equation for these reluctant gym goers who haven’t bought a membership yet.
If a gym is (apparently) going out of its way to deter the bigger, more serious bodybuilders from joining this also shows that there’s not a lot of those said lunk/muscleheads out there. If lunkheads were in abundance and could bring big membership $$ then you’d have gyms advertising stuff like – “please come join our gym, we’ll let you toss as many dumbells as you wish.”
It’s a business strategy to cater to the true growth area – you’ll add a lot more new business catering to the huge pool of people who don’t have current gym memberships than you will by getting 2-3 serious weightlifters per year to switch from another gym to yours…
[Chuck: The strategy definitely seems like it could work. There's no doubting that. They'll get the marginal customer who isn't dedicated enough to fitness to fight through what they perceive as intimidation from all the lunkheads but will feel comfortable enough to work out at a no pressure venue. I think, though, there's a difference between advertising that type of low-stress atmosphere and advertising a type of anti-lunkhead atmosphere. One is more ethical, if I have to put a word on it, than the other.]
I never understood why people would feel intimidated at a gym either. PA is right, no one is really paying attention. Amanda might be one of those people who thinks everyone is always interested in what she is doing, when they really don’t care.
This reads like an Onion headline: “Tiny behavior causes gendered anxiety.”
Only vulgar language would give me sufficient excuse to leave a gym.
This is crazy… no grunting? WTF yer working out for gods sake. whats next no funny faces when lifting?
“I found the intense and strained look to be very intimidating, he was just staring of into space and turning red”… “thank god he didn’t make any noises! if he did i would have pulled the fire alarm and evacuated the building! including our multicultural G&L bomb making and poetry class next door”
Just wait.. it will happen….
are men faced with these anxieties in front of women, i wonder? as i mentioned in my other comment, working out in front of attractive men can be uncomfortable when you look like shit. what about in front of attractive women?
[Chuck: I think it works about the same for men and women. If you feel like you're not at your peak phyiscally, a man may be anxious about it. But I see both men and women who aren't exactly attractive adopting a fuck it attitude and diving right into the sea of buff bodies without much fear.]
Guys who smell bad, drop weights, and grunt a lot are annoying, and yes I would like them to disappear from my gym. Also annoying: girls who lift with 3 pound weights, rest between sets on machines after daintily doing 22 reps, talk on their phone, girl with their girlfriends, and walk on treadmills.
In my 20 years of gym going the number of giggling clutches of inane girls has seriously risen; can we get them banned too?
Who takes a gym leaded by bitches like that seriously?
And business sense my ass. Alienating the more devoted customers is never a smart idea.
Also, a hipster gym is a really retarded idea.
Haiku:
Iron rust spittle,
Sweaty balls in the garage,
Motherfucking huge.
“what about in front of attractive women?”
When working out I generally tune other people out. But if there is an attractive woman near me (and women rarely use the freeweights room) I’m positive she’s checking out my package as I do my bench dumbell presses and I have no problem with that.
[Chuck: I just got a pretty good idea for Gym Game: Put 5's on a barbell for the bench press and ask the hottest chick nearby to spot you. You *must* do this with a straight face. Chew gum and ask her aloofly. No other small talk. When you're done, tell her "Good spot" and hold up your fist for some dap before walking away.]
The problem at most co-ed gyms is that the really sexy buff guys (Blacks) are such a minority, and sometimes even absent, that I had to switch membership to an all female gym due to lack of eye candy anyway.
[Chuck: So are you saying that there aren't many "really sexy buff black guys" in general since they also aren't working out? I think you should strike up a pen pal relationship with a prisoner. That sounds good for you. You can start with Obsidian. I have his email address.]
Q: Did you hear about the hipster gym?
A: No, it’s too obscure, you probably never heard of it.
Q: How many hipsters go to the hipster gym?
A: Trick question, none do, because everyone goes there, so it’s over.
The gyms I’ve gone to have essentially no women in the free weight area and the ones that go there aren’t attractive (the attractive one stick to the “pussy” room).
[Chuck: There is a much higher liklihood of slutdom among women who enter the free weight room. I can't prove this but I know it's true.]
But in the rare instances I’ve curled or benched in front of an attractive girl, I can tell you I’ve essentially never felt self-conscious doing so. If anything, one should feel less self-conscious that normal because you’re giving an obvious indicator of at least some alpha-ness. And if you’re doing an exercise like curls and getting a good muscle pop, then that can really show.
[Chuck: To continue with that train of thought, if you're even within their line of sight and you aren't someone who would be their type you should actually be more anxious to be near them and *not* working out. As you say, being a lump but at least moving weight is better than just being a lump and standing there.]
So to answer the question: if I’m self-conscious during working out, it’s around other guys who lift significantly more than I do (though I’m rarely self-conscious when working out to begin with).
[Chuck: My self-consciousness in this regard came when I was in my early 20s. Anymore I just don't care. But from what I remember about being somewhat self-conscious in the past was the guys who were near my size and body type but who could lift, say, 30-50 pounds more than me on the bench or who could squat 2 extra plates more than me. It's like anything where the people who you compete against the most are the ones who are nearest you on the spectrum of whatever it is that you're competing with them on. So to make an analogy, I'm more "insecure" about, say, IQ when around someone who is still relatively close to me in IQ whereas if I'm hanging out with Mencius Moldbug it's not even a contest and I feel no sense of competitiveness or insecurity.]
The best customers for a gym are those who pay and then never come, never use the equipment or make the gym crowded. Real weightlifters come all the time.
And yet if a man wants to start a male-only gym, these same feminist cunts barge in and demand women be allowed to share the facility or else.
OK Desi / Troll / Bag Lady / Arranged Marriage: is this what you’ve been trying to tell us all this time?
PA, that’s some good shit. Why you a hater?
Thanks for clarifying the beginner’s intimidation at a gym. OK, I did feel that once. As a college freshman, I went with a buddy who was a student at University of Maryland to a campus gym. Inside, we see a ton of upperclassmen, huge and ripped, all looking at us. They may have been members of the toothless team. We did our thing, fucked around with some equipment without knowing what we’re doing, and felt out of place there.
Now, that was a unique setting, given all parties’ not-quite-adult status, and the explicitly varsity athlete turf thigh. Nevertheless, I can see this intimidation scaling over to “civilian” gyms.
This is why it’s important that the gym offers novice members a free session with a trainer. One, this will put him on a program with defined exercises and goals; no mote fucking around with unfamiliar equipment and feeling overwhelmed, frustrated, and ultimately bored and discouraged. Two, a trainer session will demistify the environment.
Once you know what you’re doing, you welcome the presence of serious guys around you and you find it motivating, whatever your respective levels.
Lol at Autocorrect. “toothless” was supposed to say “football”
“So are you saying that there aren’t many “really sexy buff black guys” in general since they also aren’t working out? ”
I’m saying black guys don’t have to work out to be buff. They have a natural muscle tone that is sexy. Now, if on top of that they do work out – Holy Moly!
But like Common, I employ a separate strategy for short and longterm mating.
[Chuck: But like Common do you believe that interracial dating is morally wrong? That's the question.]
Sorry Bros, until you get your acts together, that’s just how its gon be. [Chuck: I'm sure they're crying in their Hennessey at this "loss".]
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and state I would patronize Planet Fitness, anytime. My kind of gym. I’m 41, 6’3 180 and just started working out. Never done it before. Right now I have a personal trainer who has converted her basement into a gym. She’s gotta be only about 23 yrs old, but after an hour with her I feel like I’ve just had the shit beat out of me. We do all the SWPL exercises, including tricep kickbacks, but like I say, I always leave feeling like I’ve just had my ass whipped. The last thing I need is a gym full of Lou Ferrigno’s. I think people just like to be around people who are like one another. And why not? The Lou Ferrigno’s and the Sylvester Stallone’s will always places to go to work out, like Gold’s Gym. Why can’t swpl’s have their own gym? In a way, it is an ingenious marketing ploy. Think about it: most people will never get ripped, and there is a burgeoning market for people who exercise, nonetheless. I suspect Planet Fitness has tapped into a gold mine here, and the ripped dudes, the so-called ‘lunkheads’ won’t really suffer. There must be hundreds of other gyms to choose from they can patronize.
” if I’m hanging out with Mencius Moldbug it’s not even a contest and I feel no sense of competitiveness or insecurity.”
you are amazingly ignorant of the fierce 100lb sistas who dish out ass-whoopings to 300lb male gorillas each day, all around on TV channels.
Ms. Marcotte’s concerns(and not insecurities) are rightly justified.
“I’m sure they’re crying in their Hennessey at this “loss”.
Considering how much both Black and White American males fetisize exotic, doe-eyed, South Asian Kama Sutra queens – I’d say yeah, they are crying.
And can y’all STOP approaching me in night spots with that line, “hey, do you know all the position in Kama Sutra?”….???
Its both racist and orientalist and will get you nowhere with a Desi babe.
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Sorry for the late reply, G.L., but I’m new to your blog.
I care very much about education – the improvement of individuals. One thing I’ve learned is that if you tell someone to NOT think about something, their subconscious will tie itself in knots trying to negate that object (like in the book “Sphere,” where the deep sea scientists’ fears manifested themselves… obviously it was hard for them to simply stop having said fears, even once they understood the problem). Working with guitar students, I must be very careful to not even mention certain f-ups that I know will be naturally corrected if the students simply maintain correct habits. It’s called creating a positive environment, and it comes right down to language. I do not say: “Don’t do this, don’t do that.” I keep them growing.
This “gym” is an anti-gym (or it will become one). It’s designed around a different logic than traditional gyms, where one is supposed to f-in’ grow into a strong person. An honest pursuit of self-improvement requires an admiration of excellence. Those meatheads represent excellence in strength training. Real self-improvement cannot happen in an atmosphere of snark.
I like how the manager of Planet Fatness is fat. What a joke.
I’m a member of a Planet Fitness. (Horrors!!) It’s a five-minutes drive from where I live, their rates are very affordable and they aren’t crowded during non-peak hours. (Even on a weekend afternoon, it’s not crowded) Their policies are stupid and they have some touchy-feely slogans on the wall but I’ve vocally exerted myself in certain exercises and no one has ever called me out on it. Their weights are somewhat limited compared to my previous gym, but it fine for what I use it for considering the price difference.
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