When it comes to the link between “gym buddies” and sex, Boyles thinks it’s twofold: “The gym is how you can build your body and thus appear more ‘manly’. “So many of my clients are uncomfortable in gyms,” says Matt Boyles, founder of Fitter Confident You, a fitness company that helps gay, bi and trans guys get into exercise. Gyms are horny, but also quite anxious, places for some gay men. For some, there is clearly a feeling of empowerment in being legibly gay in a hyper-masculine space or reclaiming an aesthetic or pastime that they once felt excluded from. Many garments that have become part of the sartorial language of gay men, from jockstraps to tube socks and short shorts, are also rooted in sportswear.
In 2019, Vice UK investigated why so many gay men still go cruising at the gym, after a Virgin Active health club emailed its members saying it would be sending in undercover police to check for “inappropriate behaviour”. On gay Twitter, it seems like everyone has a “gym crush” and there’s also an entire genre of porn that fetishises gyms and the locker room. It’s hardly surprising that the gym might seem like a particularly fruitful backdrop for sex – after all, they are spaces full of sweaty men in not much clothing.
