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I'll Show You Mine If You Show Me Yours

This post is a bit lighter, since there weren't any ghosts in my hallway last night.

Mr. Y and I go to a gym regularly, which neither of us like but both of us feel the need to try to look good (you know-get a guy, so then you need to make sure your ass still looks good in a pair of boy shorts). It's a bit dull, but at least the gym has installed tvs on all of the elliptical machines and treadmills, so at least I can be constantly entertained by MTV Cribs or some other mindless nonsense while sweating my hopefully soon-to-be-skinny butt off. Then I go work on the free weights and generally hate my lot in life.

Interestingly enough, gym culture changes from country to country.

I used to go to a gym in Dallas, too, a yuppie urbanite wonder with mirrors all over the place and packed spinning classes at lunch. I went daily back then (read: didn't have a life) and got to know a lot about gyms. First off, in American gyms, even if you know the other person you don't talk to them unless you are out of the locker room. It's like the "don't look at my willy while I'm peeing" thing gone mad from the men's toilets. We go blind in there to everything but the tunnel vision in front of us. We all have wobbly bits, we simply pretend that other people don't exist until we leave the locker room, where, amazingly, once the steam lifts from our eyes it's like an unveiling of the senses.

"June!" you cry in recognition, to the woman who just swung her bare chesty bits by your elbow while you were slipping your bra on. "I didn't see you in there!" (nope, you only saw nipples the size of peanut M&Ms). "How ARE you?"

You know. Cause we all start sounding like June Cleaver when we get out of the gym. Or at least like Alexis Carrington.

And June is just as surprised to see you. "Cassandra!" she squeals in delight (am I getting to carried away with the Dynasty here? ) "My God, it's been ages!" (or at least since she just saw you applying deodorant in clockwise circles, lathering up a real white mess that is now trailing down the side of your black top).

Such is American gym life.

Now, in Sweden, I had the shock of a lifetime. Swedes are known perhaps for being sexually expressive and armed with morals as open as a whore's knickers. As a person who lived in Sweden for many years, I can tell you it's not true. While Swedish culture (in general) supports the ability to be extremely tolerant and understanding of sex and sex education, in general they are as repressed as the rest of us. And Swedish women are rated the second most jealous group of women in the world (just behind the Japanese women).

Speaks volumes, really.

So when I joined a gym in Sweden, upon walking into the locker room, I discovered it was absolutely unlike the American culture in gyms.

It was more like Porky's.

There wasn't a stitch of clothing in sight. Women, as unclothed as the day they were born (but decidedly more hairy ). Talking, laughing, chatting to their mates...all while naked! Totally naked! In fact, getting dressed seemed to be about the last on their checklist of things to do after working out.

Shower...check!
Put dirty clothes in bag...check!
Put on deodorant...check!
Talk to Ingrid about summer holidays...check!
Solve world hunger...check!
Clothes on....oh, all right.

I found it refreshing, I like knowing that women are comfortable with their bodies and imperfections (which I am not!). I like how they just seemed to know the limits and confines of their skin and enjoy how it felt. I enjoyed their openness, even if I never did actually engage in chat with others while swinging my boobies around the shower.

Now in England, I have found a serious reverse happening. Women are bizarrely modest here, so much so that most of them go into a changing room to change. Talk is totally ok, but only if you know the person and came into the room with them. Nudity is verbotten, the towel must be covering the unsightly bits at all times, even to the point where the women do the bra strap shimmy-you know, wrap the towel around their trunk and shake one way then another in order to get the bra off without a side view of cleavage.

It's too bad. I was kinda' getting used to the enjoy-your-nudity Swedish world. Even if I hadn't yet solved world hunger while towelling off.

So the gym is an interesting place.

On Sunday, Mr. Y and I went there to get our bodies into shape, and while in the locker room after the workout, two girls next to me (doing the towel shimmy) were talking.

"He was so good, although it was a little fast." Girl A said to Girl B.
"Just a few minutes, eh?" Girl B replied, understandingly.
"Yeah, but that's ok. We'd had a fantastic evening with the dancing and drinking."
"He was a nice guy."
"I know!" cooed Girl A. "And I can't wait to hear from him again!"
"When is he going to call you?"
"Well, he's just joined MI6 you know, so he told me he'd call me as soon as he was done with spy training. He said he has to go deep underground, so he can't call me for a long time. Isn't that thrilling! He's going to spy training in London, he said. I'm going to be dating a spy!"
"Corr, you're so lucky!" Girl B said, in a trance, as they flounced off to the gym.

Ri-iiiiight. A spy. You'd better hold your breath for him to call when he's out of "spy training".

Chicks. I swear we'll fall for anything.

-H.

PS-Happy birthday Jim!

PPS-for those who were wondering, Kim is here. And here. And here. But he's really here. And he died of leukemia, which is not the way I know he would've wanted to go.