Judgment free zones don't apply to men

Eric Stagno

One of the reasons many people don’t go to gyms to workout is due to the intimidation factor.  People who are out of shape or don’t have a perfect body-type feel self-conscious at the gym because they imagine that the bodybuilders and fitness instructors are silently judging their skinny arms and flabby butts.

A gym chain called Planet Fitness calls this gymtimidation. To combat this form of imaginary bullying, the Planet Fitness people have created a “Judgement Free Zone” so people who have never done a jumping jack in their lives can feel comfortable pedaling a stationary bicycle at the gym in their yoga pants once a month or so while drinking a malted strawberry milkshake can do so without feeling body-shamed.

Or, as Planet Fitness puts it, “As we evolve and educate ourselves, we will seek to perfect this safe, energetic environment, where everyone feels accepted and respected. We are not here to kiss your butt, only to kick it if that’s what you need.”

Boy, talk about a mixed message. The statement starts out sounding very progressive and tolerant with a hippy-millennial vibe that makes it sound like the gym is a safe-place for metrosexual snowflakes who would have flunked gym in high school if public schools still required it. However, the last sentence reveals that familiar Arnold Schwarzenegger-Hans-and-Frans-Charles Atlas tone indicating that they will “pump you up you pencil-neck girly man.”

Recently, a man in Plaistow, New Hampshire, tested the “Judgement Free Zone” in a way that Planet Fitness hadn’t anticipated.  Eric Stagno, age 34, walked into the local gym and according to Captain Brett Morgan of the Plaistow Police Department, “stripped down right there in front, left the clothes and belongings at the front desk, walked back and forth across the gym a couple of times and then settled in over at the yoga mats." According to reports, police arrested Stagno while he was in a “yoga-type pose.”

First of all, ew.

Second of all, for the sake of the arresting officers, I’m hoping it wasn’t the downward facing dog.

Third of all, ew.

Other people at the gym complained of feeling “sick,” “unsafe” and “disgusted” by the presence of a naked man exercising in their midst. Stagno countered by saying “he thought it was a judgment-free zone.”

Well played, Mr. Stagno. Unfortunately, progressive tolerance only applies to themes consistent with progressive ideology. You would have gotten away with it if you had self-identified as a gender other than the one you were born. Details.

Apparently, the naked work out idea is catching on. A man named Brody Tyler Young was arrested in Nashville for doing naked jumping jacks in a women’s bathroom at a McDonald's restaurant. He had locked himself in the bathroom all day and wouldn’t come out despite pleas from the restaurant manager. I’m wondering what how these pleas sounded.

Did the manager use a familiar tone?

“Brody Tyler! You get yo naked butt out a dat bathroom rat this very instint, or I gonna call yo mama. Dis ain’t no Planet Fitness.”

Or maybe the manager used a more formal approach.

“Mr. Young, as the duly appointed representative of this Nashville McDonald’s franchise, I order to you come out with your pants up.”

These incidents are an outrage. When a cisgender man can get arrested for doing yoga poses and jumping jacks in the nude, it tears at the very fabric of our constitutional jock straps. Rise up, cisgender men! Fight for your right to be weird and disgusting like everyone else. You have nothing to lose but your yoga pants.