Dear Lad,
° Time was, if the Village People can be believed, that YMCAs were little more than male brothels.
° And you yourself remember the lean years, when Pope’s handsome Y degenerated into a flophouse cum steamandmasseur.
° But the dechristening and castration of the Young Men‘s Christian Association into the Your Family Y (YFY, pronounced “Wifey“), and a more aggressive dipping into the public tax monies via taxexempt bond issues, has brought a resurgence, just one gigantic new facility after another. Tennis, pools indoor and outdoor, weightrooms, babysitting stations, personal trainers, racketball, basketball, walking and cardio--how the nontaxpayersubsidised Gold’s gyms survive is more’n I can say.
° But even if the Ys are no longer male brothels, they can’t help, by their tasteful spickandspanness, but attract a sizable percentage of samesexers. And excluding any general class of members, even secondtier citizens like Jack and Ennis, might jeopardise taxexempt status. Then too, samesexer money spends the same as differentsexers’.
° But clearly, Something’s Got to Give.
° Astonished as I was a couple of years ago to see a sign in the over18 male dressing room at the Colliverdi Y--well I was shocked that agesegregation was thought necessary or legal--a sign stating that
The management cannot tolerate inappropriate sexual behaviour in the dressingroom,
which begged the question,
Exactly what sexual behaviour is appropriate in the dressing room?
Astonished as I was, it was nothing to the amazement I felt upon seeing a sign in the over18 male dressingroom at the Baltimore Villa Wifey stating that
Out of respect for those uncomfortable with nudity, members are asked to remain covered at all times in the dressingroom and wet area.
I like to’ve never got dressed out, showered, redressed. Just try it yourself. And I couldn’t help but notice that the towelwrapped Wifey Dearest male is about ten times more blatantly gay (I blush to say plainly how one erects that statistic into a tower of hard fact) than Fatass Cartman himself.
° ((I was thrilled to see, in fine print, that this branch of the Y possesses a document that defines, in plain English, “inappropriate sexual behaviour,” and I long to find somebody fool enough to ask to see it and tell me what it says.))
§§§§§
° Has it come to this?
° Must American men wear burkha?
° (For that is the justification of burkha, lest arab men, unable to control their animal impulses, should be victimised by being induced by an oppressor female not under wraps to rape her.)
° “Why should I have to watch tv shows like --------- ----------?” Even Ellen Goodman, ablebodied as far as I know and probably possessing a tv channel selector, asked this inane question, and failed to recognise the whiny neoNazi subtext of her own query.
° “Why should I be forced to gaze upon hairy flabby wrinkled manass and floppy flaccid weeny mandick?”
° Why indeed?
° Forced by some unspecified Forcer to close now, Giac.