Jerks

Nov 11, 2007

So I’m pretty sure that a guy was masturbating in the sauna at my gym on Friday night. I say “pretty sure” because once I became aware of it (via the sound and the motion I could see out of my peripheral vision) I felt terribly awkward about looking over there to confirm. There were four other guys in the sauna besides me and the suspect — and no one seemed to be reacting at all. I put on a deliberately furrowed “what the heck is going on brow” and made eye contact with someone, hoping he’d say something like “Yeah, that guy next to you is jerking off — we’re cool with it” or something. After about 20 seconds, I just exited the sauna. Is it because it was Friday night at like 9pm — is that some unspoken “it’s okay to jerk off in public sauna” time like 4:20pm is supposed to be the unspoken “it’s okay to get stoned” time?

It reminded me of when kids would start just whaling each other in the arm on the bus in junior high. No one would ever protest or say anything — it was just somehow in the air: “we are allowed to hit each other as hard as we want and no one should complain.” Being a guy is odd when it comes to the protocol for hitting or rubbing ones own genitals in public.

I also went to a yoga class at OM NYC with Dyna Moe on Saturday, which I fully (but incorrectly) expected to be the strangest activity of my weekend. As she has attested, we are not likely yoga practitioners. I’m actually a lot more sympathetic to new age / hippie thinking than my muted buttoned-down shirt look implies. Like the chanting — I don’t mind the chanting. I maybe even like it. I definitely like the names for poses: downward dog, plank, warrior 1, tree, locust, baby cobra — I felt like I was in a video game, one which was stretching my one-inch long hamstrings. I enjoyed it. It hurt a bit, but that’s my type of public self-abuse.

| Tags: awkwardness, dyna, gym, yoga

8 Replies

Ashley
Nov 12th, 2007 at 1:37 pm

Well I’m glad that you could fulfill the yoga promise with Dyna that I was never able to (though I do look forward to joining y’all in the future at some point).

As to the sauna masturbator, wow. That is so disturbing on so many levels. I don’t see how you didn’t look over to confirm. I would not have been able to stop myself. But I’m sure it’s for the best that you didn’t because the only other thing he could have been doing was vigorously scratching and that’s probably not something you’d want to see either. What’s with the other dudes taking no notice? That is very strange.
Rob
Nov 12th, 2007 at 7:01 pm

Dude . . . that was you? Sorry.
Linda
Nov 13th, 2007 at 1:21 pm

Catsturbating.
Pseudo-Linda
Nov 14th, 2007 at 11:26 pm

I bet he was thinking about pu… nah, too easy.
Jim
Nov 15th, 2007 at 8:20 pm

You would know that 4:20 was the “okay to get stoned time.” Stoner.
Molly
Nov 16th, 2007 at 1:24 am

One of my castmates works for a gym… His job? To keep people from having sex in the saunas. I kid you not, that’s his ACTUAL job.

The weird part? He’s not supposed to actually break them up or reprimand them, he’s supposed to go in and start up a conversation so that they’ll get distracted or something.
Billy P
Nov 16th, 2007 at 8:52 am

I wish that weren’t a real story and instead was something I thought up myself.

It would be really sad if your castmate got laid off when the gym owner figured out that putting on “This American Life” in the sauna would be just as effective.