My Letter to X-Sport Fitness

Hello,

Please cancel my membership with X-Sport Fitness. My ID number is xxxxxxxx.

I would like to note that the reason I am leaving is because I do not feel that the Belmont location in Chicago that I have been going to is a safe and supportive space for women. I was nearly constantly pushed to do personal training and was told that my BMI, which is the “good” range, could be “a lot better” and was asked multiple times how many inches or pounds I wanted to lose. Despite the fact that when I originally signed up I continually expressed that I had been exercising for a long time and was not there to lose weight  but merely to maintain fitness during the winter, I was pushed for nearly an hour to sign up for personal training. Despite my requests not to call or text me about personal training, I received numerous texts and calls until I finally angrily told a trainer not to call me anymore about the free hour of training.

I understand that this is how the personal trainers earn their income, but their pushiness was extremely unwelcomed, and their tactic seemed to be simply to make me feel so insecure about my body that I would give into the offer for personal training. I would like to note that my husband has experienced nowhere this amount of pressure and harassment from the staff.

I hope that in the future, X-Sport Fitness will become a place that does not view shaming women about their bodies as an acceptable means of gaining profit. I hope that I will be able to return to this gym, which has very nice equipment and is just down the block from my house, to work out rather than traveling across town to exercise someplace where I do not feel judged for the fact that I my BMI is in the healthy range and I am not underweight. I hope that X-Sport Fitness will become a place where women are not asked about how many inches or pounds they’re trying to lose, but rather how they want to feel, and that when our answers are “no,” we are heard and respected and not shamed into saying “yes.” I hope that it becomes a place where all people, no matter what they look like, what their BMI is, or what their goals are, feel welcome, accepted, and supported.

Please cancel my membership.

Best,

Eva PenzeyMoog

Chicago, IL

penzeymoog@gmail.com

A Story: The Guy Who Refused To Get Consent

This is a special guest edition written for a friend who wishes to share her story but remain anonymous. It will be followed by another essay about authentic consent (in which I will call her "Alice"). If anyone would ever like to share a story or viewpoint (anonymous or not, written by yourself or told to me to write for you) please don't hesitate to get in touch!

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Like most American women, my view of consent was both progressive and terribly dated at the same time. I was informed about rape, I knew how to forcefully say "no" and was more than comfortable doing so, and had a handful of pleasant hookups and minor relationships under my belt by the time I had my first real boyfriend in college. He was incredibly attractive and all through our short-lived relationship, I simply felt lucky that he wanted to be with someone like me - attractive enough but not anywhere close to his muscular, careless beauty. He was kind and sensitive and I give him the benefit of the doubt that no one taught him about what real, authentic consent meant.

image: fem2pt0.com

It would go like this: we'd start making out, and it would get progressively more intense, until he put his hand to my pants and would begin to unbutton them. I'd put my hand on his and move it away. He would never try twice in one night - what a great guy, I thought. There was no verbal communication, and consent to him simply looked like my non-verbal hand-moving "no," instead of a loud verbal "yes." This happened for a while until one night I decided I was ready for my first below-the-belt experience and didn't push his hand away. It felt wonderful and terribly uncomfortable at the same time, and we didn't talk about it afterwards. He never asked me how I was doing, if what he was doing felt good, or what he could do better. I started to get him off with my hands, but he never succeeded in doing the same for me. I didn't have the language to express my feelings of frustration and a nagging sense that this wasn't equal and therefor wasn't right. No one had ever taught me to advocate for my own pleasure, and I certainly hadn't seen it in any of the TV shows, movies, or songs that largely educated my view of sex.

Why we're actually upset about The Biggest Loser's Rachel Fredrickson

You've probably heard some of the media outcry over The Biggest Loser's Rachel Fredrickson's weight loss. She dropped from 260 pounds to 105 pounds, losing 60% of her body fat. It's caused a lot of people to wake up about the show's dangerous message: that fat shaming is acceptable and even encouraged and that the ends justify the means - even when those means involve dangerous dehydration, brain-washing, and eating disorder mentalities. 

Biggest Loser winner Rachel Fredrickson

But I don't think the general public is actually concerned about her weight. I think that people are upset with being forced to come face to face with what the brutal work that a woman has to do to meet the standards of our skinny-obsessed culture. Rachel Fredrickson has ruined the fantasy that rail-thin women are the norm and that if you're not lucky enough to be born that way, it's not too much work to get there. She's shown just how much work it is. And to deal with this discomfort, we claim that she's too skinny, has gone too far, that we're "worried" for her. But she looks like pretty much every runway model I've ever seen - but now that the curtain has been pulled back on what it takes for her to look like that, America is freaking out.