Hmm.....the Crunch on 38th and Bway lists "peekaboo showers" as one of it's amenities...

[www.crunch.com]

As an (ahem) "all-access" member of Equinox, I vote 19th and Broadway as gayest, Greenwich is #2, Time Warner is #3. 63rd and Lex is douchiest.

It's hard for me to believe that any gym is gayer that NYSCs in the Chelsea/Flatiron area. Take for instance on Tuesday morning, I was given an audible reason to always wear slippers in the shower when I heard moaning and "yes" several times from a shower two stalls down. And just forget about the sauna...

Any "fitness center" in any hi-rise condo complex in Williamsburg.

Wow. Between the list of best coke bars in the city and now this, the Internet has basically planned my life for me! Thanks, Al Gore!

New York Sports Club, Irving Place?

David Barton Gym wins. It has exactly 4 natural born female members.

Amanda Lepore strutting on a treadmill gaytrumps B.D. Wong doing abductors in short shorts.

@sexbot: +1

i used to shower after workouts at the crunch on lafayette st., that is until one day when i finished showering and i turned around to find the dude in the stall across from me stroking his aroused unit while watching me. flattered though i was, i kind of prefer to shower sans predatory gay man wanking over my shoulder.

NYSC on 23rd & 8th if you like your gays out and proud (if a non-stop circle jerk is your idea of out & proud). But David Barton might win because a straight guy actually sued them for his membership fee after they refused to refund it when he complained about the rampant sex in the locker room.

I worked out at the NYSC on Park and 23rd for two years, I'm still in recovery from that experience.

But that was before 23rd and 8th was built, so I'm assuming now that the Park Ave location is a second banana in gayness.

Rufus Wainwright goes to the gym?? I'll have to bring my opera glasses to his concert this weekend to check his biceps.

In a recent visit to NYC, I passed by an Equinox in Brooklyn Heights, and was reminded of our Silver Fox, before remembering where I was. Do the outer borough gyms register on the gayscale? If not, who exactly goes to the Brooklyn Heights Equinox?

My fiance is one of the '4 natural born female members' of David Barton on W23rd and she loves it - mainly because she gets a whole locker room to herself!

She also reports that AC(/DC)360 has been working out there recently complete with mini entourage.

As one of the few straight men in Chelsea I chose the NYSC on w23rd and 8th. It has never seemed overly gay to me and there are always plenty of women, young and old, puffing away on the stair climbers.

David Barton is definitely the gayest gym in the city, followed closely by the Greenwich Equinox, which does have at least a few female members and isn't quite as cruisy. The New York Sports Club on 23rd and 8th is a skanky sex club and as recently as a few years ago, had someone whose SOLE JOB was to go back and forth between the sauna and steam room and stop people from masturbating. I'm just sayin'.

I think the harder question to answer is whether there is any village / chelsea / hells kitchen adjacent gym which isn't very, very gay. The equinox mentioned is quite gay, the w.village location is gayer in the sense there are more huge chelsea boy types, but really which gym is gayest is probably more a matter of taste than anything (bottom or top?).

DavidBartonGym wins the pink boxing gloves for several reasons:

1) Any gym that haughtily laughs in the face of traditional grammar, ie DavidBartonGym, is decidedly gay and PROUD.
2) Neighborhood consistency: GYM on 8th is actually a gay bar, so isn't DavidBartonGym just following suit?
3) Men wait in line for the EFXs. . .with hard-ons.

Going to the gym is gay.

@Dragonfruit: Don't forget the opera pants, too!

And since when is it permissible for one gaye to rag on another for lifting 5-lb. weights? It's not like Rufus is some Butch McButchypants. Where is the sissy representation?

high self-esteem gay: Barton, Crunch on Lafayette

medium self-esteem gay: NYSC's on 23rd (both), Crunch on 2nd btwn 58th and 59th

low self-esteem gay: NYSC on Irving

hot sex with guys wearing wedding rings: bally's sports on 32nd

wearing buttplugs while lifting: 19th street gym

hear complaints that "the provided "invigorating post-shower eucalyptus splash seemed to be left out from yesterday and thus not fresh enough and do you know how stressful that is for me as a stylist, a professional stylist?": any Equinox

@momo: Shit. All we ladies get is Curves and Lucille Roberts. They don't even have changing rooms there, and I wouldn't want to see any of the members naked there anyway.

There is a NYSC on 41st Street across from the NY Times building and it may actually be the least gay gym out there for now-I mean, it's listed as the Theater District gym, so it should be crawling with FODs! But, so far, not much. But it's new-give it time. Maybe I should go there after work instead of in the morning.

Actually, the sauna has already been closed by the health department, so maybe a new record has been broken.

And the NYSC in Harlem is also gay, gay, gay. Like a rainbow coalition of buggery. Love it!

@Dragonfruit: The Crunch in Fort Greene definitely registers on the gayscale, albeit more on the DL style gayscale. I observed many times in the free-weight area "married" black men clearly cruising the hell out of each-other. Also, the steam room was always "closed for health department reasons", which I've been told is a tell-tale for naughty goings-on.

I've always been a little jealous of the ease with which gay guys can hook up in public places. I wondered why lesbians don't avail themselves of locker room sex and then I realized that it simply takes too long for women to get off.

@Jory: the name "jory" is gay.

Anderson Cooper & Rufus Wainwright both go to David Barton Gym, the former being there every Wednesday. So, Page Six is at least partially wrong on where the Coop gets his buff on. Oh, and Rufus is right...DBG is the gayest gym in the city and maybe even the gayest place in the Universe. Respect.

@the cajun boy: calling oneself a "boy" is gay

This email came from a straight friend of mine just yesterday:

I went to the pool today at the Crunch gym on 42nd. Holy shit that place was gay! I think it's the pool and Chelsea/Hell's Kitchen proximity. There was this kind of friendly cruise vibe, but almost everyone was ripped out, I mean like GQ abs of steel good-looking, so I was passed over, which is good for me.

I believe the term is "troll" for this kind of behavior. Some of the boytoys even took notice of the situation. I was just busting up and wishing that you could have been there, or maybe that would have given you too much ammunition for when I am drunk and rhetorically defenseless.

My response?

The only ways that you could've found a higher concentration of the 'pink bomb' would be if you went: skinny-dipping in the lake next to the Rambles of Central Park; sunbathing in see-thru hot shorts at the Christopher Street Piers; or a sweaty jog through Fire Island's Meat Rack wearing only a conveniently place tube sock and knee pads. I recommend that if you venture for future visits you find yourself a loose-fitting burkha with tinted goggles. No showing of skin or its "Dueling Banjos" for you. Even your intent stare of Lady Buckeye's brown-eye will not shake them from your crude deposits.

Huh, I used to go to the TW Equinox and now I go to the Lafayette Crunch, and in both cases I've just been all "doo doo-doo, what's the class schedule this month?" Gayness at the gym is kind of like the water fountain, I guess.

Between the pent-up frustrations of the Madison Avenue advertising-set, the latency of i-bankers and the euphoria of post-Tony Broadway any gym this week is the perfect bacchanal trifecta of Edmund White's eros-derived 'all you can eat' man buffet.

For just sending out an email "Daddycool", I think Equinox gets the NAMBLA award.

The gym which I expected to be the MOST gay, and actually turned out to the LEAST gay is the NYHRC on 23rd and 6th to be filled with rampant locker steam room sex. I was utterly shocked about how many straight white females atteneded, and lack of shower/steam room shennigans. The only real sign that we were so close to Chelsea was the disgusting old queen who loved to walk around the locker room with the leather cock-ring.

The demographic at Crunch Lafayette is highly gay, but it is a more "I'll put the weights back on the weight rack rather than toss them on the floor" flavor, than "free-for-all in the sauna" thing, I found.

@Jory:

"If I'm 'gay,' how come I work out so much?"

Oh...

If by "gay" you mean "stout, middle-aged, female and Mexican," then Harbor Fitness on 15th Street in Brooklyn wins!

If you like 70 year old men in bike shorts whose sacs can pick up dust off the ground, then the YMCA at 63rd and CPW is the gayest gym.

@momo: Right on! There's a def self-esteem hierarchy at the NYSCs. Though the Irving Place is of late being taken over by the frat boy set. If I see another Oberlin or Hobart lacrosse sweatpant I will scream.

Equinox is just too much for me. B'way is like walking into Splash. Lexington, not so much.

I'm still shopping around since... eye candy is always an incentive, and I've plucked a few bf's from amongst 'mos at the gym.

Oh, and the NYSC Harlem USA is a hot mess. It's like the Piers on a hot ass summer day.

I will say the LEAST gay right now is the Park Ave and 59th NYSC. I haven't seen any sort of man-buggery since i've been going there.

Anderson USED to go to the Reebok Sports Club/NY, way back when in the '90s when he was working on the UWS. I used to see him there daily - he was modest in the men's "Wet Area" and didn't partake of any of the (plentiful) man-on-man action going on there at the time.

@AndIAmTellingYou: Something tells me Oberlin sweatpant looks less SAE and more Richard Simmons.

I've been modest in my wet area recently as well

@Teabiscuit: "the harder question...there are more huge chelsea boy types...which gym is gayest is probably more a matter of taste."

...oy vey!

BTW, Sam Champion worked out at Reebok Sports Club, too. He wasn't quite so modest (I still can't erase the image of his Speedo-shaped tan line from my memory, and the way his milky white groinal area contrasted against the thick gold bracelet he kept on while lying nude in the sauna), although he never, to my knowledge, did any diddling whilst there. Oh, speaking of milky white, Regis Philbin was a regular, too, though thankfully always fully clothed.

Crunch Lafayette is so gay that the Health Dept. closed the women's sauna. Other gay points: dudes working out in flipflops and jeans. (And I swear I've seen Dale Peck there, though that's more correlation than causation.)

@NobodyLikesMe: chubby women who support an anti-choice company? yeah, i'll also keep my eyes closed until they're fully dressed.

@fortqueenmean: he's lucky to have a gay sensei to guide him through life.

I'm impressed Gawker commenters are so buff... I had taken you all for shut-ins.

@bacon-yum: I TOTALLY second that. That gym is seriously bordering on rape-core.

Oh, and going back to the Spin/Page Six item: I think I liked Rufus a lot more back when he was doing meth.

@MattGaymon: You'd think, but sadly no. Oberlin just screams "bicurious."

Real 'mos go to the Univ of Abercrombie & Fitch, and we wear our gang colors proudly.

@cdmunch: But who said they worked out?

I see you guys found that photo of my housemates online.

Here is the original post that photos came from, from our old blog:

Sunny Days and Pissed Off Realtors

Last last Sunday... and I don't mean today or last Sunday, I mean the last last Sunday, was the first beautiful day we've had in SF in literally weeks. Every day had been cold, rainy, shitty, and cold... and short (like today). That Sunday was still short, but it was sunny and warm.

After waking up and happily noting that I had not pissed myself (wait... nevermind), I went out to get some breakfast with Raph, Johnny D and Katon. It was alreay beautiful out when we left the house at 9:30 and it was even more beautiful when we left the CREPE House at 11. On our way out the door, still looking hung over, we passed by three girls who were pretty typical of our neighborhood. Two of them were looking at us disgustedly, while the other one didn't notice us because she was busy listening to herself talk. Understandable I guess bacause they were obviously discussing matters of import. In passing I heard her say:

"Like... I want to go to the GAP, but I don't. You know?"

That really has nothing to do with this story but it was certainly amusing in it's own right. Anyhow...

We returned to the Jo-tel and settled in on the front porch to enjoy the sun. The PUMA procured from our apartment some milk and a bottle of Parrot Bay. The PUMA proclaimed the milk/coconut rum mixture to be his new favorite drink. Around noon, we noticed that the cars were beginning to multiply on our street... nice cars. They would double park, throw on the blinkers and enter the modern looking building directly accross the street from us. Near the entrance were two delicately coifed ladies, one of whom was handing out folders of some sort, the other of whom was taking notes on a clip board. We didn't really put two and two together until some guy came over to us and asked us if he could come up on our porch to get a good look at the building's facade. It was an open house. We asked the gentleman how much the places were going for; he told us 500Gs.

We'd already noticed that the clipboard lady had been ice grilling us for some time. At that point, there were maybe five of us on the porch, listening to music and not even drinking anything that could be positively identified as alcohol, but we were evidently cramping her style by being visible. Also at that point it became abundantly clear to all of us what needed to be done:

1) Get all the cock rock we could find
2) Go get more alcohol
3) Strip down to our underwear
4) Turn music up... WAY up

So that's just what we did. I think the pictures are pretty self-explanatory as to our outfits. The only thing that bears mentioning is that sweet Inga was out on the porch with us for most of the day. She was not in her underwear, but we appreciated her presence none-the-less in the capacity of official photographer and hot chick legitimizer of shameless frat boy antics.

Surprisingly enough, most of the home shoppers seemed to find us quite amusing. Few if any were disgusted or said anything derogatory that is, except for the realtor. To put it mildly, she was NOT amused. She came walking out of the building, took one look at us and got on her cell phone immediately. We assumed she was calling the cops, but we weren't doing anything illegal so we weren't too worried. For all she knew, we could've actually been driving the bid price up (this