Sweat

For awhile, I've forgotten what going to the gym feels like. I have not had that strong identification with sex and the locker room (and the idealization of the athlete) that many men have. I see the gym as a place where you go to get sore for awhile and sweat and drink water and get even more sore.
The men at the gym -for me, at least- are somehow out of bounds in a dual way: one, I take them for straight and two, they seem to be too centered on themselves and -as the stereotype goes- are vacuous and self-centered. I know, there's plenty of gay men at the gym (prisoners of the body fascism that gay and fashion magazines impose on us) but somehow many of those men give off some kind of weird vibe that does not tickle my gaydar.
It may be all the machines or all the iron (I do circuit training with a bunch of girls and some guys, mind you. The closer I get to the machines is to ride a stationary bike or do that funny elliptical machine) and all the grunting and sweating, that instead of coming across as sexy, it's a weird turn off.
But yesterday, while on the bike and having small talk with other people, this one guy -kind of in his mid-twenties, blond, not too tall- came to ride a bike to my left. I think it was his arms what I saw first. Very nice, not too big, but strong and defined. The soft, taut skin covered muscles that I usually do not notice, his shirt, in typical gym fashion was sleeveless and allowed me to peek at his chest when he leaned forward in his bike. His chest was very nice, with the kind of nipples I find mouth-watering: dark pink, with the little nub pointing out and defined just so. His legs were not big or muscular, they just looked strong and were covered by a light blond fuzz. And he was sweating.
I popped a boner right then and there. Just like that. It may have been the guy's carefree sensuality -he was totally unaware of the effect he was having on anybody, totally centered in his workout as he was- his obviously beautiful body or the fact that my guard was down and I just let myself take his beauty in. But he did give me hard on. Or a semi-hard-on, because I tried to stop staring and decided to concentrate on MY workout.
Still, I kept staring. In those minutes, I understood all the porn movies with a locker room theme, all the gloryhole stories, all the straight guy-gay guy erotic stories. This guy set my mind in motion with my body responding in kind. It was a very cool moment, when I felt very sexual and very free. It was a very private reaction in a very public place and it felt liberating.
I think the fact that I'm being more physical -all that exercise- does free some pheromones and gets e more in touch with my own body. I'm actually looking forward to doing the stationary bike again. Maybe this one guy will be working out and I'll get a glimpse of those beautiful arms again.