By Austin Cooper
Cleavage, cleavage, cleavage! If you like exposed chests, then come on down to the Student Activities Center gym. Big cleavage, firm cleavage, side cleavage, hairy cleavage – the whole gym is full of scandalous, plump, glistening cleavage. Easy there fellas. These are, of course, man boobs that we’re talking about. And they have taken over the gym.
Workout attire encompasses clothing that is specifically designed to optimize exercising and allegedly works better than normal clothes. For guys, that often means sleeveless shirts to allow for more motion and heat dissipation. Formfitting clothes will also allow for a full range of motion. Men who frequent the gym have apparently decided that the less material they wear, the better. Having observed exercise-savvy individuals wear ridiculous outfits in the SAC gym for over four years now, I feel that I am qualified to present my findings to the world concerning what to expect during a visit.
Before you go to the gym, make sure you enjoyed your lunch, because it is coming right back up the second you enter. The epidemic of scantily-clad guys likely started when two manly guys realized that nobody else noticed how manly they were, despite doing manly exercises such as publicly looking at each other’s abs in the mirrors. The manlier of the two probably realized that a manly lack of sleeves could be made even better by having a shirt with less sleeves than sleeveless. Negative sleeves! The shirts have the entire sides ripped out, presumably so that the wearer can more effectively make everyone else nauseous. Instead of just showing off their arms and shoulders, they can now also seductively display their ribs, chests, stomachs and, sometimes, nipples. These nipple shirts not only allow for a full range of motion, but they also allow the wearer to more efficiently contract staph and other bacteria from the exercise machines. They have the added benefit of forcing everyone in the gym to look at the wearer’s exposed body. Nobody will want to look, but they won’t be able to look away.
More progressive men wear tight spandex material that covers their sides but still reveals, unfortunately, more than it hides. These shirts tend to be a translucent white color, allowing gym goers to view the entire torso and leaving them with a sinking feeling – the kind of feeling that makes you feel regardless of how many showers you take, you won’t feel clean anytime soon. If a man wearing the equivalent of a cellophane bathing suit sounds appealing, you should probably start sobering up.
Because I like to fit in, and I also want other people to enjoy how delicious my body is, I have succumbed to the lure of seductive male gym clothing. Using the approach of less is more, I decked myself out in the sheerest, tightest and shortest apparel I could find. Unfortunately, the results were disappointing, and would have likely resulted in arrest warrants had I persisted. The way men dress really makes me angry because their mindset is completely one-sided. For some reason, it is completely acceptable to wear a transparent, flimsy top. But when I wear my shorty shorts or spandex bottoms, it is suddenly considered weird. It is extremely unfair to arbitrarily declare that too much skin on the leg is anything above the knee, while arms can be brazenly bared well above the elbows. Perhaps gym goers will be more open-minded in the future. But I would feel much better, and more sanitary, if more clothes became the norm.
