Perfect Gym Body

February 2020

The thick band of my tights comes up all the way to my waist, hugging me, containing me. The giving fabric skims over the curves and contours of my legs, stretching over the expanse of my thighs. They’re close-fitting, holding in not just my dimpled flesh but also the emotions that quiver and jump and threaten to spill over. Straps bite into my shoulders and the softness under my arms. Even the acts of putting these things on, of pushing my legs through tunnels of nylon, layering a tank over my sports bra to conceal the paleness of my middle, fill me with fear. Blood rushes to my head as I lean down to slip my socked feet into my running shoes and my stomach clenches in on itself.

I don’t want to do this.

Ever since I’ve been aware of the way people see me, I’ve been self-conscious of my body. And ever since I realised the ways my body was wrong, I’ve been afraid of the gym. I’m not afraid of exercise, necessarily. I love swimming and running in the rain, I can hold my own in a game of tennis, and I cherish the feeling of my muscles stretching, extending, straining in the milky morning light. I’m not afraid of my body. I’m afraid of my body through the eyes of others. I’m afraid of being overly-sexualised; of not being sexualised enough; of people thinking my body is disgusting; of people thinking I don’t know what I’m doing; of people thinking anything at all, really, without me knowing about it. I’ve been thoroughly primed by the male gaze. I’m constantly critiquing myself as an image to be consumed, worrying over how I can make myself more desirable even as I fear the consequences of being desired.

I’m aware that people think things without my consent all the time. I’m not an idiot. But in everyday spaces, I have more control. I can control who I surround myself with, or how my body moves, or what I’m wearing. I can make sure I don’t jiggle or shake. I can hold my flesh close and tight and conceal. At the gym, none of that is fully possible. I can’t decide who’s in there with me, who sees me. The clothes I wear to fit in are also revealing and tight. I can’t stop my body from quaking when I run or my thighs from sighing where they kiss. I can’t control any of that, and that terrifies me.

I am not alone in my fear. According to a survey by Fitrated, 65% of women in the U.S avoid going to the gym out of fear of being judged. 55% of these women are afraid of being judged for not looking fit enough, 49% are self-conscious about their clothing choices, and 25% are anxious about being stereotyped. That’s a large percentage, but can you really blame us?

The gym culture today is, frankly, terrifying. I know exactly what the ideal gym girl body looks like; slim yet muscular, a large, rounded ass that tapers into a tiny waist all held up by toned legs and a thigh gap. A smooth, flat stomach below perky yet generous breasts, and all of this tightly encased in flattering sportswear. Picture any of the women on the Gymshark Instagram page, women like Nikki Blackketter or Whitney Simmons; picture Jen Selter’s girl squad; the top posts under the #fitspo hashtag. Gorgeous, definitely, and an amazing feat for the women who worked hard to get there or a blessing to the women who just so happened to be born with it. Nevertheless, this body remains decidedly different from mine.

I step into the gym, and I can feel my heart thudding against the inside of my ribcage so hard I feel the aftershocks in my fingertips.  As I move away from the front desk and into the main workout area, I make eye contact with a man lifting weights. I drop my gaze down immediately, dread dripping down my neck, but I can feel the eyes crawling over my skin. My face tenses and my shoulders lock, and it’s a conscious effort not to allow myself to droop between my shoulder blades. I can feel the solid unease settling low in my stomach, resting between my hips. My face floods with creeping heat as it turns red, the judgement branding angry flushes against my cheeks. Quickly, quickly, I walk to the locker rooms, find an empty toilet stall, and lock myself inside.

When I tell people about my fear, their responses are usually the same: a sort of baffled, amused look as they scrunch their brows and shake their heads. But why would you be afraid? They typically ask, a semblance of condescension creeping into their tone. Everyone else is too busy focusing on themselves. This is said with an almost affronted air, a who-do-you-think-you-are air, a no-body-cares-about-you air. And although I honestly do wish this were true, it’s simply not the case.

I remember scrolling down my Instagram feed and pausing at a photo of an old classmate at the gym. He was standing in the foreground facing away from the camera, his own phone held up as he snapped a photo of a girl squatting to lift some weights across the room. She didn’t see him.

The caption glared up at me from beneath the photo, some half-hearted excuse, then --

            fuck it she has a nice 🍑 I couldn’t resist 😂

and I gritted my teeth.

In a survey by ExerciseBike of over 1000 gym-goers, 19% of women reported having been sexually harassed while at the gym, and that’s a modest estimate considering the study defined harassment as involving physical touch, leaving out inappropriate looks or verbal harassment. Another study by Fitrated, which simply asked whether women had ever been made to feel uncomfortable due to an interaction at the gym, resulted in a massive – yet unsurprising – 71%.  Many of these women changed their habits to avoid this harassment; they wore baggier clothing, or listened to music, or stopped going to that gym entirely. But, of the women that experienced more serious physical groping or harassment, nearly 40% did nothing at all.

There’s something about the gym that creates a false sense of intimacy. It’s something about sweating together, moving together, working, though separately, towards the same end-goal, that blurs the boundaries typically found between strangers. Particularly for men. Perhaps it has something to do with testosterone, or power in numbers, or some sort of tangible reminder of physical dominance, but the gym always made me aware of a power imbalance. And assault is all about power. This environment, I think, encourages the growth of the masculine culture that allows these types of interactions to occur over and over (and over) again.

But this culture doesn’t only exist at the gym. In a patriarchal society, women and non-men of all kinds are always on the lower end of a culturally enforced power imbalance. I’m always aware of my body, and the way it looks. I’m always aware of the eyes of the men around me, the desire, the way in a single glance their opinion of me determines my worth. I’m always looking around to see if any eyes are following me, lowering my head so my hair blocks the view of the man masturbating on the tram, holding my breath as I walk home at night until the streetlights flicker on, praying that someone else gets off at my stop with us so I won’t be alone with him- But in day to day life, this pressure is subtle. It’s always there, but it lingers beneath the surface. I feel safer in groups of people, or when it’s light out; I’m comfortable calling a man out for staring at my chest. It’s like a secret no-one wants to own up to. At the gym, all bets are off.

I’ve walked out of the locker rooms and I’m heading towards the treadmill when I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror from an angle I’m not used to. I stare into my own eyes, caught unaware. I can’t help but stare at this new person, this newly-revealed body that had been hidden inside my own. Surely that isn’t me; surely that isn’t the way people see me. Surely that doesn’t bulge like that, surely it doesn’t dimple, surely it doesn’t fold, surely- and I look away.

Whereas bodies that are considered desirable to men often face sexual harassment, comparatively undesirable bodies don’t have it any better. Fat bodies, gender-nonconforming bodies, any bodies that don’t prescribe to patriarchal, conventional beauty norms that make for easy consumption are considered undesirable. Any bodies that dare to present in a way that makes it difficult for men to sexualise them are considered undesirable. These bodies are different; therefore, these bodies are wrong. You don’t need intensive research to be aware of gym-shaming, where people mock other individuals at the gym, typically those who appear physically unfit. These are paired with sneak photos or text descriptions, or just done verbally. Either way, gym-shaming is meant to embarrass, shame, and harass people who may not fit into these conventional ideas of fitness or beauty. You’ve seen the posts, I’m sure: a figure, on the treadmill perhaps, running through thick syrup-air, cheeks blossoming red, gasps like thunderclaps. It’s not funny on paper; there’s no joke here. The punchline is the body.

The first time I wore shorts, after the development of self-awareness that is, I was 17 years old. For years, I had worn only jeans and long trousers no matter the heat, the thick fabric stifling against my legs in the tropical humidity. I have a fat friend that wore shorts, it was so embarrassing, a girl I was friends with said to me as we walked to our fifth-grade class. Oh, that’s gross, I’d never do that, I responded, trying so hard, above all else, to be liked. I remember standing in front of my full-length mirror seven years later, wearing those denim shorts that fell conservatively to mid-thigh, and thinking yeah, okay. I remember wearing them out and feeling the breeze against my legs and thinking maybe this is the start of something.

Just a few months ago, Nike released photos of one of its new plus-sized mannequins for its sportswear, which resulted in an extremely controversial debate on the visibility of fat bodies. While many people applauded Nike’s progressive move towards inclusivity, the voices that seemed louder to me were those that called the mannequin disgusting or obese, those that claimed a woman of that size should not be represented. One journalist for the Telegraph described the mannequin as “heaving with fat”, that she couldn’t possibly run at that size anyway.

What this says to me is that although we are, slowly, moving towards a world where size inclusivity is welcomed, even if not expected, there are still many people who do not think that way. People who have yet to question the value systems built in to our patriarchal society. People who have strong opinions about the way other bodies look, and potentially, the way mine looks. Because of this, and because of the masculine culture that lives within it, and because of unrealistic body ideals, the gym still feels like a threatening amalgamation of all these fears of mine. Like a place where my body is put on display for opinions of all shades to flood in. Like an invitation for comments and criticism. Like a place where my body is no longer all my own. And what little self-confidence I’ve pieced together isn’t strong enough to handle that tough of a battering.

I run on the treadmill for a total of 15 minutes, but the sweat that forms on the top of my forehead dries cold. I can’t focus, can’t pry my thoughts away from the needle-pricks the imaginary eyes leave on the back of my neck. I’m having a bad day. The weight in my chest feels too heavy, now, and all I want to do is hide. After a total of 30 minutes at the gym, I stop my treadmill and head home.

I’ve begun the slow journey of learning to love myself. I’m still trying to twist in the mirror and find beauty in all my reflections. To trace a finger over a curve and think gorgeous, soft, loved, enough instead of the thorny words that have been embedded into me my whole life. To appreciate my silhouette as its own landscape. And until I can do that I’ll continue to run in the rain and learn the way my body moves – alone. Without unwanted opinions and, for now at least, without the gym.