Depending on the time of day a person goes to the gym, they may find themselves surrounded by atrocious sights. It’s not weights left lying about, wherever careless patrons left them or people that think doing curls in the squat rack is cool. Those sights are infuriating, but not quite atrocious. What I am referring to is the abundance of man-nipples, referred to forthwith as mipples, on display. It’s nauseating to behold and entirely unnecessary in a fitness environment.

Some male gym patrons favor sporting gym shirts that can’t, in good conscience, even be called clothing. With large holes, either by design or through the ill-advised use of scissors, they have so much flesh exposed that it’s almost comical they chose to cover any of it.

The gratuitous display of mipples does nothing to enhance performance in the gym. Having moobs flapping in the breeze doesn’t make a person stronger. An overwhelming portion of the upper torso exposed doesn’t improve lifting form.

So what is the point of throwing on a fraction of fabric and parading around the gym with mipples in open sight for everybody to behold? It’s about misplaced ego.

These purveyors of unpleasant presentation suffer from the delusion that their bodies are so magnificent they must be shared with the world. Clothing that only manages to hide their spine and the midline of their abs allow their glorious physiques to be admired by the poor plebeians who are not so gifted.

There is a delusion that tells such gym patrons that other gym goers have nothing better to do than stand in stunned awe and stare at their chiseled bodies and glory in being blessed with bearing witness to the mipples.

There’s just one problem with all of it; nobody wants to see that crap. The only people impressed with the wanton display of nearly naked bodies covered in sweat are the creeps forcing the sight onto everybody else.

The rest of the world would be quite grateful if they could avoid knowing the exact size and shape of some random man’s nipple.  

Perhaps these mipple exhibitors think the many stares they get are out of adoration, thus leading them to persist in their nauseating displays. The stares, however, are not out of adoration.

People stare at the mipple displays for the same reason they stare at trainwrecks and mangled car crashes: it’s just so awful and uncomfortable that for some reason it’s difficult to look away. And when people are able to look away, their eyes keep coming back to the carnage to verify the hideous sight is still there.

It’s just gross. That is the reason people look—not because they’re impressed with someone’s inability to properly clothe themself.

Women are not immune to convincing themselves that everybody wants to see every inch of their flesh. Unlike their male counterparts, they have figured out how to cover their nipples in public, but some haven’t figured things out on their lower portions.

I originally shied away from talking about this when hearing a number of complaints from female gym patrons. After all, it would be easy for a male talking about females publicly baring their bodies to be shouted down as sexist.

However, my wife insisted the problem needed to be addressed if I was going to call out my fellow men for sticking their mipples into other people’s business. And she’s the boss. So here’s the wardrobe malfunction some women experience in the gym: shorts that just don’t cover what they should.

Apparently some women just have a really hard time finding shorts that fit. The abundance of backside that hangs out as a result leaves less to the imagination than some kinds of lingerie.

Just like exposing mipples, airing out butt cheeks in the gym accomplishes nothing regarding exercise performance. Instead, it serves as an uncomfortable distraction for people who are at the gym to focus on improving their health.

Men or women who are just so proud of their bodies that they need to expose every inch of their flesh should just a little more judicious about where they bare their bodies. The gym isn’t a strip club or a dance club and it shouldn’t be treated as such.

A little consideration about the comfort level of those around a person ought to lead them to make sure they put away their mipples, butt cheeks and act like they are part of a civilized society.