Workin' it at the Gym

The gym. Like the toilet, it has something to offer just about everybody. Cholesterol hit the roof? Haggling with a pesky mood disorder? Yearning to squeeze a size-two ass into tomorrow's it jeans? Your neighborhood sports club holds the key, promising arterial amity, a tranquil mind and come-hither hindquarters.

It's Friday, 5:00 p.m. I tackle the tricep pushdown machine before flexing through three sets each of bicep curls, shoulder raises, leg extensions, and calf presses. I'm almost done. The only thing standing between me and the exit door is the Roman Chair. A piece of equipment beautiful in its simplicity, it asks nothing of levers or pulleys. It demands considerable effort and draws a few tears, but I'm on my way to washboard abs, so hell.

The metal apparatus beckons from its post, rising up between the popular lat pull and rotary delt machines. Predictably, it's not in use.

Dodging a few pools of sweat and several bulging bicep veins en route, I arrive. I press my forearms and back firmly against vinyl padding, legs hanging down, hands clutching two upright grips. Idling momentarily, I swing my legs upward, pausing when they're parallel to the floor. Return to start position, repeat sequence. I fight momentum, moving slowly, deliberately. Visions of midriff baring tops carry me through my first set of ten repetitions, and I come to a rest. Seconds later I'm at it again, raising and lowering my legs to Pink's "Feel Good Time."

I'm somewhere near the seventh repetition in my third and final set when I become aware of something. My abdominal region is sore and tiring rapidly, yes, but there's something else, a sensation yet unfamiliar in the gym setting. It's happening in my crotch. Recognizing the distinctly pleasurable nature of what is pending, I decide to keep going, to continue raising and lowering beyond the usual ten counts.

The mild tingle intensifies and I glance around the room anxiously, convinced my enjoyment is plastered like bad makeup across my face. But no one appears to be watching. The quiet non-offenders are minding their own business, solemnly manipulating their machines while the beefcake constituent consorts with wall-length mirrors and women who've mistaken the gym for the beach.

Around rep fifteen, it happens. The mounting sensation spreads throughout my entire body, rocking me, filling me with an incredible sense of urgency. Raise, lower, raise, lower, raise, faster... Throwing a final, fleeting look around me, I submit, allowing all that energy to explode in a series of hot, pulsing waves, coursing through my veins, blocking all peripheral activity, its potential finally realized.

I've had an orgasm, square in the middle of the gym. As I scan my surroundings through a serotonin-laced fog, it seems not a single person has noticed.

And what if someone had? What if I'd delivered a bolder production? I might have wriggled around, screwed up my mouth a little more, allowed a moan or twelve to escape... I would've fit right in. Because day in and day out, facial features rearrange to form unnatural and alarming combinations, impassioned grunts bring to mind childbirth and/or Paleolithic discourse. Diehard gymrats, those whose weight belts have permanently fused with the drenched cotton of their stretched-taut tank tops, they get off every 10 reps.

Where these musclemen are concerned, the gym functions as a sexual playground. Sure, they're out there working their bodies in an effort to hone their physiques, endlessly pumping and straining toward their prescribed ideal. But process is every bit as important as product. The bodybuilder squats low, gripping the steel rod at his feet, his eyes squeezed tight in anticipation of the grueling task ahead. He explodes upward, taking the bulked-out bar with him. He holds it squarely against his chest. Seconds later he's back down. He explodes again, again, and so on, until he's reached nine counts.

Now for the last rep, the grand finale. Does he have it in him? In this moment, nothing else matters. Must. Finish. And finish he does. With one violent tug, the circle closes, and now, the release: bam goes the heft! As the laden rod bounces down on the rubber mat, the bodybuilder, his pecs extra puffed, pans the room. A few affirming nods is all he requires, and this he gets. Spent and happy, he saunters toward the squat cage — toward his next conquest.

I, for one, prefer to come in peace: internal fireworks over external, yin over yang. The shameless flexing, the writhing, the grunting... Most days it's enough to make a dumbbell to the head sound pretty good. But who am I to judge another's technique? If the orgasm is the great equalizer, there are a million and one ways to get there.

Work it out.

— Kristen Elde (kje7@myuw.net)