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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Comment
Emma Beddington

Women just want to work out in peace. Why all the thigh-rubbing lechery?

Shane Gillis with a microphone
Shane Gillis during his appearance on Saturday Night Live. Photograph: NBC/Will Heath/Getty Images

I’ve spent the morning doing Shane Gillis’s work: checking out women in the gym. If you’ve avoided Gillis thus far, apologies for enlightening you – he’s a “comedian” who recently told a “joke” on Saturday Night Live that began: “I haven’t been to the gym in so long, I didn’t know women just dressed like whores now.”

Well, reporting for duty from the weight room, here’s the clothing tally: eight women in leggings and T-shirts; six in T-shirts and trackie bottoms; five in shorts and vest tops; one in a crop top and leggings. It’s not exactly the Folies Bergère – there’s not much, I would have thought, to cause Gillis to blush. But maybe I’m wrong – how undressed, exactly, constitutes whorish? Is a glimpse of a female forearm a distracting provocation? Should we pull up our socks to avoid inflaming male passions with our slutty ankles when we’re doing step-ups?

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