How about, it should be in the nature of men to have some manners. If you are so desperate to satisfy your fantasies by staring at someone, have the respect to do it discreetly. Women wear what they wear because they want to wear it - should we go to the gym in a burkha?

Take some responsibility for how you make a woman feel by staring, and accept she’s not there for your amusement. She’s there to exercise, just like you.

Actually, it is. I know a lot of men who are uncomfortable when another man checks them out in general… But I also know a lot of women who are much more uncomfortable when other women check them out than when men do.

I’m not saying its right -I’ll not try to apply moral standards to what makes people uncomfortable. Personally, I just ignore any unwanted attention from either gender, and if I’m enjoying it I’ll respond with glances or light flirting. That’s all there is to it for me -I’m not exactly certain why glances in a gym are a issue anyway; now, in a church or an alley I can understand.

However, for the sake of argument I would like to point out that different people do things for different reasons. In some cases, I would definitely agree with Brad, but in others I would agree with yabonn.

And yabonn, I actually know a couple girls who have a plot to dress nicely-so-they-can-give-evil-eyes-if-checked-out.” A terrible truth is that it sometimes makes some people feel better about themselves to do such things. -just saying again, can be just about any reason in a particular instance.

And some of you guys are being awfully general when you say that the women glaring at you are deliberately dressing sexy and then spurning the attention of the guys who aren’t appealing to them. There may be women who do this, but certainly all of them don’t, and it’s unjust to make a blanket statement and quite frankly, makes you look bitter and hateful.

It is a petty form of objectification, coveting certain glances but being retributive for others.

For me, when I work out, I’m pretty serious, and when I lift, etc I fix my gaze on random distant objects. Often I’ll finish a set and realize I’m looking 3-10 degrees near one such female, who then gives me a dirty look.

Which makes my gym experience–a major source of pleasure in my life–uncomfortable.

What is the solution? Well, I can just objectify them right back. Start thinking “well, if I stare I stare and I don’t care what you sluts think.” It is a bad thing to do, but it is simply self-defensive thinking.

Good work, girls!

And since when is nudity/skimpy clothing inherently sexual? Since when are people who fit a narrow ideal of beauty the only ones allowed to wear what they want?? Sorry, the logic that revealing clothing is an exercise in sexual objectification does not fly.

Mainstream N. America today is relatively repressed and narrow minded in terms of representations of nudity or contexts for nudity as compared to many other cultures I’m familiar with. We think we’re so progressive when the truth is, our most prominent cultural venues for nudity are overly fetishized and sexualized - porno and advertisements that for the most part, only feature bodies of a very specific aesthetic and age. It’s pathetic.

I think it would be better for our society to expand its contexts for nudity and become more open minded about the body in general. I don’t think a constructive answer is to say things like: women should suck it up, accept being objects, men will always look sexually so women should just get used to it or run away to women only environments etc. Is that something you’d want for your sister? Your mother? Your teenaged daughter?

But gym wear also needs to be put in the overall context of womens’ clothing in general. Women’s clothing is designed to make her attractive to men. Period. Take a simple shirt, for example. Men’s shirts are worn buttoned to the Adam’s apple as though they are trying to hide something personal and sexy. Women’s, on the other hand, are worn open, from a couple of inches below the neckline to low enough to let you know there is something very nice you can almost see. A tease, no? Is it because women run warmer than men and need looser clothing? Not likely. I won’t go on, but it seems across the board womens’ clothing is designed and worn to showcase her femininity. This means receiving the glances of men… (and some women too…
:P) Consider the leering a compliment, any time.

Women wear what they want - baggy, close-fitting, shiny or dull.

Men look at women - doesn’t too much matter what they’re wearing, though in almost all cases, less/tighter clothing = more looking.

Women either respond positively to the attention, ignore it, or respond negatively, according to some externally unknowable mix of their intentions, mood, preferences, perception of the attention-giver’s attractiveness, etc.

No foul in dressing however you want, No foul in looking if you find it eye-catching, no foul in getting the evil-eye back, IMHO.

And in fact it’d be a regression, since “Gymnasium” comes from the greek word for nudity, as they all exercised in the nude. If you want to have extra amusement, you may want to know that the greeks that ran in the ancient olympics weren’t technically fully nude, but used this unusual article of “clothing” called a “kynodesme”:

http://www.addicks3.fsnet.co.uk/nat/nudelife/kynod/kynod.htm

Sucks for us circumcized ones, since this one depends on having a prepuce. Oh well, someday i’ll get seriously into restoring. :D

Heheh, my problem isn’t so much the men gawking though–I really don’t pay much attention, it’s more my own insecurity about my weight!