Gym Phobia and Me: The Path to My 'Physical Therapy'

Contrary to popular belief, all gay men do not have memberships to their local gym. Even more shocking, many gay men do not work out at all. I know what you’re thinking: Horrifying, isn’t it? With the gay community’s seemingly endless obsession with all things gorgeous and muscular—as reflected in everything from magazine covers to billboard ads for anything from shaving cream to orthopedic wear—one might surmise that we are all hulking hunks of ripped, sinewy mass. But, as hard as it may be to grasp, there is indeed a rather large percentage of us that don’t frequent the local Gold’s. I am one of those guys.

I don’t know my way around a Bow-Flex; I don’t keep a lifetime supply of Creatine in my kitchen cabinet; and, truth be told, my idea of a personal trainer is a hot older man who stands over me in a jockstrap while I bench press half my weight and barks, “You want some of this, boy? Then pump that iron!” Now that’s what I call incentive!

I’d like to tell you that I have some kind of medical condition that prevents me from lifting too much of anything heavy on a regular basis (alas, not true), or that I’m allergic to the smell of sweat (um, quite the contrary!)—or even that I’m so hot that I don’t need to work out (hey, I’m allowed to dream!), but the truth is actually much simpler. I have gym phobia.

As an awkwardly scrawny teenager struggling with my budding sexuality, I was name-called, picked on, and pushed into just about every locker and wall you could find in junior high and high school. And while the other boys were becoming model examples of American masculinity, I was reverting further and further into myself, shutting myself off from contact with my peers and social activities. And gym class was the worst. Getting undressed in front of the other boys was like pure torture, and I feared that I didn’t measure up to their rapidly developing bodies. I froze when it came to sports and athletics (the territory of “the normal boys”), fearing that I would be taunted for my lack of athletic prowess. As a result, I was always picked last for everything from softball to hockey, and the experience of being humiliated over and over again during my fumbled attempts to be like the other boys left me scarred and traumatized.

Now that I’m a grown man who’s been out as gay for nearly two decades, you’d think I’d have dealt with these issues along the way, and to a point, I had. That is, until I moved to Los Angeles, where I suddenly found myself drowning in the middle of a sea of perfect-bodied gay men whose penchant (or, rather, their obsession) for staying fit—and their insistence that anyone who might want to “get to know them better” be in comparable shape—sent me right back to square one in terms of my self-esteem. Looking in the mirror after a shower became a depressing experience, while taking my clothes off in front of anyone became an exercise in complete and utter humiliation. When I look in the mirror, I’m not happy with what I see. When I’m in bed with a guy and he reaches down to squeeze my bicep, I jerk away. It’s just not cool.

People tell me that I’m imagining things. They say, “Ken, you’re not in that bad of shape.” And I suppose it’s true. I’m not 300 pounds overweight, and I have what some might refer to as an “average” body. But in this town, if you don’t have a big chest, arms and a six-pack stomach, you’re out of shape. I feel like I’m invisible, and it’s not a good feeling. I frequently get passed over for bigger, more muscular men—men who evidently fulfill this community’s frustratingly prevalent penchant for shallowness and body fascism. It must be said: Gay men are some of the most cruel and heartless that there are when it comes to seeking out sexual gratification. One only needs to visit a sex club or spend a little amount of time on a hookup site like Manhunt (where profiles frequently read: “Looking for muscular/fit men only. I take care of my body; so should you”) to see this in action. Put a bunch of so-called “VGL” muscle jocks together in a gym, where they have free reign to obsess over their own bodies and ogle those of others, and it becomes a “hot only zone” where anyone who doesn’t look like them simply doesn’t belong.

So what’s an insecure guy like me supposed to do? Well, for the past 36 years, not much of anything. I’ve stayed out of the gym for fear of not measuring up to the other guys. I’ve avoided taking my shirt off at pool parties and beaches. I’ve had sex in places where all the clothes can’t come off so I can avoid being seen naked. But all that is about to change. Because I, Ken Knox, self-professed “wimp” and hater of all things athletic, has gone and done “the L.A. thing” and gotten myself a personal trainer who’s going to whip my lazy ass into shape.

Why has it taken me so damned long, you ask? Well, apart from the reasons stated above, I just didn’t want to buy into the community’s obsession with beauty and muscles. I don’t think the only hot guys are the ones who look like they stepped out of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog, and I don’t want to become the kind of person who does. If I work out, aren’t I then compromising my integrity and “selling out” so that I, too, can be just like all the pretty people?

Perhaps. I would, of course, be lying if I said part of the reason why I’m doing this wasn’t because my already fragile ego could use a bit of a confidence boost. It would be nice to occasionally be found desirable by the men I find attractive. But I can honestly say that the bigger truth at play here is the fact that I simply want to be in better shape—not so that I can get laid or feel "hot," but simply so that I can feel more energetic, look healthier and feel like I’ve done something truly special for myself. In other words, this is not for anyone else but myself.

I know that I owe it to myself to change the things about myself that I don’t like. After all, when it comes right down to it, I am my own worst enemy, and there’s really no one out there telling me that I can’t achieve something except myself. I spent so many years of my life telling myself that what those kids in high school said about me wasn’t true, but now it seems that, by giving in to the sickening little voice in my head that tells me I’m not good enough, I’m really just letting those kids win after all. And that is not something I’m about to do.

I’m not sure how any of this will change me. People tell me that I’ll act differently, that I’ll become just another hot guy in Los Angeles who only sleeps with men who look just like him. Doubtful. I know myself pretty well at this point, and I think I can safely say that I won’t become the kind of guy who rips his shirt off the moment he walks into a club so everyone can gawk at the results of his gym regimen. And I certainly hope that I don’t turn into one of those narcissistic gym bunnies who stands around in bars bragging about how much he can bench press. But it will be interesting nonetheless to see where all of this takes me.

And so I’m inviting you all along on my journey. I’m about to embark on one of the scariest adventures of my life. I’m going to journey into the kingdom of Gymdom and face down the proverbial dragons of my youth. Will I slay them and walk away the winner? Only time will tell. But I have a feeling that at the end of the next six months, I will walk away from this experience a much better, more confident person.

In other words, Yay me!

(Pics by Kevin Cazares)