Recall your first middle school dance. Now describe to me what you see. If I had to take a guess, we see a gymnasium full of shy yet sexually anxious, hormone raging, pizza faced, metal mouth, know-it-all, giggly, wedgie pulling, Bieber loving, Bieber loathing, smart mouthing, freshly developed adolescent jerks who don’t use deodorant in their daily routine yet. What else do you see? Maybe a punch bowl or a DJ playing the crappiest 100 countdown? Perhaps some unwilling and irresponsible chaperones as well.
Look closer at the teens; they’re separated, aren’t they? Yes, they’re in their natural habitat along with their clones that form what they call a clique. But what is it that is separating them on a larger scale? It’s their gender. You got girls on one side of the room and boys on the other; both making quick glances at the other mysterious species trying to decipher their strange language and decode their body gestures.
What keeps them apart is a seemingly everlasting force field of testosterone and estrogen that is fueled by fear, and the only way to break through that force field, is the sacrifice of one soul. Male or female, one has to cross the front line without any protection; hoping to communicate in their native tongue to the other life forms they wish to join in a consensual moment of the dance. At arms length of course.
But there is nothing wrong with this scenario because they’re just teens. They’re innocent and there is no need to rush things. After middle school we definitely won’t see these kids separated by gender again and there will be nothing to worry about.
That was a lie, because all you have to do is go down to any gym in your town, right after rush hour, during the facility’s peak hours and see the same thing; men on one side of the gym and women on the other. This time there is a water fountain instead of punch bowl. Both the female and the male species have claimed their own distinct territory.
You have the muscular, grunting, top-heavy, bicep curling, leg neglecting, mirror-hogging male territory occupied by bench presses, dumbbells, and pointless gallon-jugs of water. Now lets pan over to female watering hole, I mean side of the gym. It is inhabited by yoga pants wearing, afraid to sweat, celery snacking Zumba zombies. Their tools consist of cardio equipment such as the treadmill or elliptical, and weight machines that advertise, “We are here to give you a perfect butt.”
Both clans are hard at work, striving to achieve that dream body only seen on the cover of magazines; a body so fine, one would think they stepped right out of Adobe Photoshop CS6.
But, little do they know, disaster awaits. It comes in an odorless and inconspicuous form. It’s a power much greater than any human being, because it is based upon universal explanations and predictions that are a part of a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge. Yes I am talking about: science.
How does science attack? Simultaneously, both men and women immediately become victims. For men, they continue to build more upper body strength, creating millions of new blood vessels for their heart to fill, but it struggles to. The lack of cardio has only prepared their heart to fail by attempting to keep up with the rest of the growing body, leaving it the lonely muscle that never grew.
Now we go over to our ladies who are losing weight, along with their shape. Without the introduction of heavy lifting, their bodies resemble putty stretched over a skeleton in some places and loose pizza dough hanging off of others. But even worse, their bones are weak and prone to a pat on the back turning into a spinal injury that could only be done by an SUV.
But what’s this? Something else is happening to our manly men friends. Their female mates are abandoning them because their glutes aren’t as filled out as their pecs. Leaving them heart broken and confused, asking why they let the squat rack collect dust and become a city of cobwebs. Oh the humanity! But wait! Do my ears deceive me? Or did I just hear Miss. Pancake-Butt say she is not going to lift weights or eat more protein because she will look like a “roided” up bodybuilder? Oh I want to hit you Miss. Pancake-Butt, I really do, but that would be wrong! But that’s nothing compared to what Sir Chicken Legs stated, which was that his muscles would shrink if he did any sort of cardiovascular activity.
Oh I just cannot look anymore! I wish there was something I could do, but it is far too late. I would say to let nature take its course, but is this even natural? If only there was a way for both men and women to come together and share what their obsessions have done for them.
You would have beautiful women that are happy with their bodies, who bring meaning and value to the backside of their yoga pants, and men who wouldn’t look like they jammed a straw in each of their muscles and filled it with air. You would have physically and mentally attractive beings who know how to nurture their bodies. They would be beautiful and they would be healthy.
They would embrace each other and smile at the enjoyment of each other’s company and live a wonderful, prosperous, unisex life… at arms length, of course.
