the western world, especially anglos, have a bizarre relationship with health and fitness. like others have said, the focus has been from increasing health to image, something these people are obsessed with. this is why i prefer to workout at home, this capitalist way of thinking is prevalent everywhere but at its worst at the gym.

Threads like this make it really obvious as to why the right wing has so much success pulling men in, when the left criticizes all of them for wanting to just be fit. It’s pretty well known this mentality is due to right wing propaganda yet here is another thread of “all men that go to gyms are just dumb assholes.” Again we devolve into attacking the people instead of the system that causes this. Let’s not do anything to build up a healthy masculinity on the left. Let’s just berate them and drive them further to the right. It’s hilarious how easy we make the rights job for them.

Leftists: “Why gym bros driven to the right?”

Also leftists: “Hey let’s have another entire thread calling men stupid, vanity driven, sexist assholes for stepping foot near a gym.”

Are most gym bros just terminally insecure man children?

Yes sadly, right wing media apparatus targeted men’s fitness pretty hard around 2016, barely any progress has been made to decouple the two :(

They also tend to uhh, put down people who are overweight for trying to excersize. Im not a very strong person, but I had to restrain myself from attempting to knock two people the fuck out for saying “look at that loser” to someone who was working out at the gym.

Are most gym bros just terminally insecure man children?

Most men are terminally insecure man children…

going to get so much pussy for lifting

Body dysmorphia is rampant amongst gym bros. Not getting laid is the driving force. Internet market delivers toxic results. Also, yes dudes can be that dumb.

This is why I go to planet fitness and workout with old people

I learned a long time ago that I need to wear headphones in the gym, on planes and on trains. Human beings in general are pretty fucking stupid, it’s not limited to the gym or to men.

I know I’m probably in a bubble as a sober, vegan communist but still.

I mean yeah. It’s a good bubble to be in, if one is going to have to be in a bubble, but there is a lot of reactionary bullshit out there…

It’s weird to be aware and to be trying to do something about it, and also live within that stuff. Reminds of the following line from when I was trying to read through: https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:No_Free_Left

E. M. S. Namboodiripad found a flaw in Ningal Enne Communistakki. The characters, he wrote in 1954, “are puppets with no relationship to living communist activists.” Where are the voices of the dalits, the adivasis, the worker and the peasants, the heart of the communist movement? Thoppil Bhasi, Namboodiripad felt, had not adequately addressed the struggle to become a communist which often runs through several phases – fighting one’s circumstances, certainly, but then the break with established ideologies, ability to find activities to do to contribute to the struggle while living in this world. In close-knit communities at the nether end of the social order survival is an anxious business and social humiliation is a constant hindrance. The communists who emerge out of these worlds are often talented and bright – those who could make lucrative careers and could be the shining lights of their communities. Yet, they chose to go to the trenches of political battle. They refuse to leave their world, but in adopting the transformative social agenda of communism they remain within at a curious distance – unwilling to conform to conservative social trends. What Namboodiripad seemed to indicate is that communists live a double reality – fighting against this world to make a better future, and living in this world within one’s social order. To inhabit the present and the future is a stern burden on a communist. None of this comes out in the art on communism – too middle class in its orientation, only able to see the Maoists or the communists as figures of romance. It makes it so much easier to disdain them when the romance fades.

(bold emphasis mine)

And I would add, unlike the concept of a cult and other formations that emphasize a sense of superiority as a justification for being outside the norm, communism has no such mental buffer exactly? Instead, there is I think more of a humbling going on and an uncovering of scientific ruggedness in existence that might otherwise be more softened or hidden by fanciful ideologies of elitism and false promises. It is like you are seeing the raw nerve endings of society and watching as a steady diet of fast food is paved over with running a lot (figuratively speaking). But you can’t simply pretend you exist outside it and act from a safe vantage point. You’re in it even as you try to change it and are awash in its influences on you.

Idk if that makes sense, but I’m trying to get at something that is hard for me to put into words.

I have a theory: Just do sports, don’t lift, at least not as your main form of exercise. I have always felt that women can somehow smell it on the guys, I dunno.

The funny thing is that while most male Americans (and increasingly Westerners in general) are fat (which isn’t attractive to most straight women) the maximum body for getting the ladyfolk is not that much muscle and you should be slightly underweight but not shredded.

The biggest thing about a great physique for attracting mates is confidence, and for men it ends up creating a really fucked up body dysmorphia. I worked at the university gym during college and let me tell you the bizarre things I heard like some guy refusing to go ask a woman out that was sending him all the signs of attraction because they were embarrassed that their calf muscles were too small or upset that their lats weren’t looking better.

Been going to various gyms for about 18 years now and this is not something I encounter.

Yeah a lot of gym bros do it for vanity nowadays and the rise of steroid usage proves it. It’s disappointing to see the route mainstream fitness has taken nowadays but it was to be expected in a capitalist society.

Stupidity and lack of self examination are the rule, not the exception… but if they had heard that God really wanted them not to fornicate nor be adulterous and were surrounded by people who believed it so maybe, just maybe, whatever desires they had would’ve been channelled into monogamy, initially through peer pressure perhaps and eventually thanks to maturity and love for their partner as a person and not a tool for satisfaction.

What I meant by this is basically: few people will spend time of their day pondering about the ethical decisions they have made and will make, as they naturally don’t gravitate to philosophy nor do they have the ease of thought that would make it a more pleasurable experience. And while a serious, self respecting intellectual might reach some moral conclusions ‘naturally’, the 99 others require an easy set of rules and a fear of inescapable punishment to act right on many occasions. This is why Catholicism, which is nothing more than a parasite wearing Jesus’ skin, failed to provide an ethical framework to the West: either “you’re already saved” or you can just go to the priest and tell him you did something wrong (while never fixing it, apologising to the other person or facing the punishment of the law for it…) and you’re all good, nothing to worry about, God forgave you touching your little niece, lol.

Anyway, TLDR: it’s sorta disappointing but keep in mind that the software can be easily changed in a generation or two. Those lacking in hardware have and will continue existing, but if we all agree on a set of basic rules and values, we can all live together in harmony and without disrespecting others.

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