Lived Through This
Contemplating My Bisexuality While Gettin’ Swole
My internal struggle as men at the gym keep trying to adopt me
I fit in at the gym about as well as a Disney Princess in a BDSM studio. I don’t get the culture: running, lifting, grunting, groaning, flexing. I’ve never understood the axioms of “power through” or “feel the burn” or “do three more.” The only times that “power through,” “do three more,” or “feel the burn” apply to my life is over a plate of chicken wings. I don’t feel a need to get stronger or run faster. Who do I have to run from? Who is trying to hurt me? I asked my friend this one time, a gym nut since we were 15, and he said, “Everyone.”
Despite this, gym culture has always been a part of my life. My mother was an aerobics instructor in the ’90s, and then a Body Pump instructor into the 2000s. I spent my days at the SIM’s Club, our hometown rec center, first in the daycare center and later, roaming through the treadmills in a secondhand suit coat, drunk on a cocktail of horny anxiety, marveling at all of the beautiful people. This was before beauty was on the inside, so I asked my mother, “Exactly how much would I have to work out to look like that?” She looked at me, folded up in my angst, and decided to let her personal trainer friend, Jared, break the news.
