Pledge drives keep this blog alive! Please donate what you can!
There’s apparently a new trend on TikTok in which women film and shame guys who stare at or stalk them in the gym. So naturally, the exquisitely sensitive souls of the Men’s Rights subreddit are convinced this is going to happen to them if they happen to so much as glance at a woman at the gym. In a recent thread on the subreddit, a number of these quietly oppressed men shared their thoughts and fears.
GMD3S1GNS started the discussion by asking if there was “anyone else feeling uncomfortable around the gym lately after that latest tik tok trend where girls film themselves to catch any men that glance at them for a second?”
And, oh boy, yes, there were. Indeed, many commenters said they had started working out at home to avoid false accusations from evil, scantily clad women. According to Largest_Half
me and my friend stopped going to the gym and started working out at home instead because women really ruined the environment tbh. It was full of guys and everyone knew everyones name and helped each other out and spotted anytime – we would have so much banter and talk shit with other guys. Then when women came into the gym it sucked – the atmosphere was so fucking tense – you dare not cross eyes with a women because they think you want to fuck them (i most certainly did not want too)
Women have been going to gyms in large numbers for decades; I’m not sure when exactly this all-male utopia was supposed to have existed.
Mgtowolf claimed that he had personally been accused of reckless eyeballing.
Last time I was at they gym, I was just staring into space, doing a breath exercise to slow my heartrate, and some dumb chick comes up bitching about how I was starting at her. I looked her up and down, then laughed in her face. Told her she would have to do a shitton more squats before she had to worry about me staring at her.
Just because someone is lookin in your general direction don’t mean they even notice you are existing over there. Glad I have since built my own gym, don’t gotta worry about other dumbasses messing with my circuits and distracting me.
Kosflo claimed that he had seen these evil TikTokkers in action, filming men with their phones.
Its become so freaking annoying that i have started ruining their recordings intentionally. I will go talk to them, tell them this is bullshit, i will take my phone and get close to them and record them,make noises,sing loud, basically anything just to piss them off. It worked last couple of times. They packed up their phone and left. No respect for morons like that.
The chance that any of this actually happened is well below zero.
Other commenters flatly defended the right to stare. ThrowAway___0000000 got 93 upvotes after boldly declaring:
Here is my take, you feeling uncomfortable is your problem, see a doctor or stay at home or join a female gym or don’t dress half naked (i know it will piss off f_nist, and before you start typing “we are free to wear whatever we want”, men are free to see whatever they want, freedom works both ways, opportunist)
Still others said they couldn’t help but stare, given what women wear to the gym. According to NickTesla2018, presumably not the famous inventor, it’s “hard not to take a quick look when they wear outfits where you can practically see her kidneys?!”
I was not aware that kidney fetishes are a thing.
Various_Interest6877, meanwhile, asserted that
dressing like that is in fact consent for them to be looked at that way and they know it. They just hate that this gives consent to people that they hate.
Another commenter complained that it was hard to resist the temptations of women in sexy, sweaty sports bras.
More than a few claimed that women love the attention–at least from the right guys. “It Is obvious that they crave attention from hyper-chads, followers and those who are willing to pay for subscription,” wrote NoPast, “but they don’t want normal men peeking at them for free.”
Clearly, every attractive woman is an OnlyFans model.
According to mrmensplights,
women really love it … It’s passive attention and validation without any real imposition, who wouldn’t? Women want to post these videos as a flex and to get more attention but they can’t come out and say that in 2023, so they get to have their cake and eat it too by putting it up under the pretense it’s about bad men or hostile gym culture or whatever.
Kojhcd, clearly angry about something, served up a big bowl of word salad:
“gee sure seems like the gym is more like a dance club everyday” duh…. bc the native women don’t want to go thirst trap at some welcome to the neo-“Old world” ethnic tribal territorial showdown between people who look and act like they are from neighbor rival towns recreating their worn out old country scarface fantasy scenes, So the born local women have to go to coffee shops and the gyms, the last safe places where they can have their empowerment delusion and the safety of local born, freedom deprived defeated men to boss babe at . So it is really just their desperation and the related bully urge that ruins everything, takes every space, traps themself as unbearably self absorbed narcs lacking feminity; aka. that which incites male desire. They aren’t worth fighting for, aren’t worth working for, aren’t worth even looking at. That is a pathetic place for women to be at in society. Worthless even in their own transactional behavor model. I didn’t talk to women at the gym overseas, didn’t need to, you just ask them out in public, and they say yes and you get to talk to a human being, not the feminist NPC’s American women are now.
Uh, duly noted, I guess.
Cherubino95’s rant was at least shorter, if nearly as incoherent:
The world is becoming more distopic every day thanks to femminism but, hey, the problem is sex lol. This is what happens when you give power to people that can’t think well, degradation of culture thanks the culture itself.
One Redditor out of the 197 who commented advised everyone to maybe chill out a little. As booksith noted,
One highly publicized incident doesn’t make a trend. There aren’t hoards of women flooding gyms to pretend men are leering at them. Go to the gym and do your thing, you’ll be fine.
They earned themselves twenty net downvotes for this simple observation because evidently there’s some sort of minimum level of hysteria required for every Men’s Rights subreddit post.
If someones kidneys are visible you need to call an ambulance “Nick”, not oggle them.
Didn’t anyone teach these jerks that staring is rude? Doesn’t matter why they are staring, it is still rude.
There’s a related video going around where MRA’s try to make a revenge point.
Basically it shows a lass get stuck at the bottom of a squat. She looks around and then asks for help a few times, but to no response. Eventually another lass comes over and asks if she needs any help.
The MRAs say this is guys now ignoring women because they don’t want to be accused of ogling; or just to get their own back.
As many gym-goers have pointed out though, it demonstrates nothing of the sort. Just perhaps a bit of lack of knowledge in a beginner.
Had the woman yelled out “Spot” everyone would have rushed over to help her. That’s the specific emergency word. But most decently run gyms have a “no unsolicited advice or help” rule. Unless you see someone about to do something spectacularly dangerous you leave them alone. You might otherwise be distracting someone who’s just doing what they mean to be doing. And in any event, people just zone out in their own space, so you’re not particularly aware of what’s going on around you. You might see someone, but you don’t notice them.
Note that even the woman took a long time to intervene; and even then she did it quite hesitantly and enquiringly.
So no MRAs, gyms aren’t full of guys getting their vengeance on the ladies. Everyone is pretty chill thank you.
More than a few claimed that women love the attention–at least from the right guys.
Um, yeah, those last four words are the most important. If you’re not in that category, then keep your eyes ahead. (Also, “attention” doesn’t just mean staring at boobz.) And maybe learn how to use your peripheral vision…?
And why the fuck does anyone have to ogle anyone else for more than, say, one second? Isn’t that all the time you need to remember whatever features you find attractive? It’s not you can LITERALLY undress someone just by staring at them, so why bother?
Men shouldn’t be creeps. But this whole “Look at This Creep” TikTok trend is exactly why I avoid TikTok, particularly now that some famous dude has taken it upon himself to respond that no actually that guy is not staring, and you can totally tell. Who has time for such minutia?
What happened to the eyes of the people in that image? Somebody stole their irises.
Hello.
> I was not aware that kidney fetishes are a thing.
Ask Jack or Hannibal.
Have a nice day.
One day, a woman will get fed up and create a women-only gym so they can exercise without being stared at.
Wait, I bet some incels will feel oppressed by women-only gyms.
Snowberry:
AI generated image. Check out the leftmost man, he’s just a floating head.
Anyway, I’m actually a cis man who doesn’t like going to the gym due to fear of being stared at. It’s called social anxiety. Well, that, and I hate excercise.
@ happy cat
That has happened.
And so has that.
https://bright-green.org/2013/04/22/feminism-invading-a-gym-near-you/
Just to do my legal nerd bit.
In some US states women only gym sessions have been ruled unlawful. That’s on the basis that two classes of customer pay the same rates but get different service levels.
Arguably a gym that was exclusively single sex; or that charged men and women different rates according to how often they could use the gym, might be lawful.
Over here though single sex gym sessions are lawful as they have a legitimate Equality Act compatible purpose.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/schedule/3/part/7
And by the way, that Act is Equality (singular). Notwithstanding that media, and the actual Government, keep saying ‘Equalities’ Act.
@ Snowberry
Actually if you look close they appear to have them, just tiny. However, looking closely reveals not every man there is looking at the woman, a couple on the left appear to be looking either at another guy or at the supposed camera. Make of that what you will
Curves is a women only gym chain that has been around since the 90s in SoCal. Around that time I was quite the gym rat (you’d never guess that today!). I was always so zoned out that apparently I seemed to stare directly at another woman I grew up next door to a couple of times and never realized it until she finally came over one day and reintroduced herself. I never even noticed her! Because I never noticed anyone.
I always suspected that there was (probably? possibly?) a meet-market thing going on under the surface at the gym but that wasn’t what I was there for; I just wanted to do some lifting and a step aerobics class, get a shower and go home. Gosh, I loved step aerobics!
Edited to add: I belonged to a different gym, not Curves.
I am currently officially the fittest person at my gym.
This is relevant to the discussion as it was filmed; by one of the instructors.
To the outside observer it may have appeared she was trying to suppress laughter at my performance; but that’s just a nervous reaction to how impressed she was.
In my defence I did it in street clothes after just having scarfed a vegan sausage roll; which was definitely not a good idea. But I’d only popped in to say hello and use the loo.
There have been women-only gyms for decades. Curves is still in business. All-male public gyms probably last happened in the 50’s-60’s, I’d guess, before any of these incoherent yahoos were born. I managed to do workouts in my small college weight rooms where I was often the only woman, and not get ogled in the 90s. Welcome to the previous century, boys.
Even by the standards of word salad, that loooong paragraph is WTF.
Rule for everyone in public everywhere: MYOB. Don’t stare at anyone. Simple. Like you should have learned in single digits.
Regarding the image, I think Floating Head and man in green are ogling each other, not the buff woman.
@Alan: I couldn’t lift 12kg unless it was a real emergency, so I say good for you. You’re #1! Maybe now someone will be inspired to best you.
@gss ex-noob
I’d like to think that no one else will bother now as they know they can’t best that.
I’d like to think that; but what I am actually thinking is I could hide the relevant equipment so no-one else can have a go.
What the hell is ThrowAway__0000000 talking about? “See a doctor”?? Am I missing something here? I don’t get it.
I work somewhere with a gym I can use for free. I’ve been meaning to check it out, on the two days a week I don’t telework. It’s just never appealed to me, exercising in public. I’m now too old to attract much attention.
I can walk and wear wrist weights at home.
There is – or there was – a Curves about 25 miles away from where I live.
I heard a story from some co-workers about an older man who was working out, lifting weights while lying down on a bench. He was wearing quite brief shorts, and part of his scrotum was hanging out.
@ dormousing_it
@Alan Robertshaw:
☺️! Those shorts remind me of my middle school days.
You must have a huge library of gifs, videos, etc.
@ dormousing_it
They still do shorts with integral hold your bits in inners. Albeit not mesh now. I’ve got some. But occasionally I manage to get them inside out but with the inner and outer bits still relative to each other. And it’s pretty much impossible to get them the right way round again without access to another dimension.
@Dormousing It: I drove past a Curves last time I went out on a big round of extended area-local errands.
Also in my aforementioned weight room, there was a guy who did that. First off, ain’t nobody wants to see that unexpectedly, and secondly, he was 70 if he was a day, which yeesh. Testicles are generally unlovely, and you can imagine how these hadn’t improved with age. Thankfully I was friendly with a couple of the other older guys who lifted at that hour and asked them to speak to the old flasher. Turns out the other guys were glad to have me as an excuse to get him to cover them up so they didn’t have to see either!
During my brief gym days, I wore a shirt and sports pants. The heck are they even talking about? Why do they sound like rapists? “She really asked for it, with how little she wore!” No. She didn’t, fucker. Also, I highly recommend getting rid of that victim complex. It’s not healthy.
All this gym talk reminds me… didn’t Pat Robertson once brag he could leg press 2000 pounds?
@Alan: I had ‘rugby’ shorts like that in high school. Yes, my Canadian high school actually had a rugby team. And a cricket team. The city of Victoria tends (unsurprisingly given the name) to lean a lot more blatantly ‘British’ than most of the rest of Canada. There’s a lot of cricket played in Toronto as well, but that tends to be more from the fairly large population of immigrants from India. (The original English population in Toronto tended to be more Ulster Unionist than the more aristocratic airs elsewhere.)
Alan, one of the comments from your link;
No demand for male-only sessions but demand for female-only makes sense. For some men part of the reason they join a gym in the first place may be because women are there to oogle. The Manosphere can scream “oppression” at gyms but no doubt for many of them it’s the closest they get to women and that’s why they go, and they know it.
I’m having this problem with this idiot kid at my new job (not the one teaching ballet). I’m this close to putting my phone in my back pocket and recording him so I can report him.
I’m wearing boot cut jeans or joggers on my day at work so these assholes can get stuff before I get accused or wearing leggings.