SEXY WOMEN

I’m at the gym. It’s 6 am and I’m wearing clothes I picked out in the dark. Not my best look but since my gym has a ratio of 99% gay men to 1% potentially straight it’s too hard to tell at 6 am women, I don’t really care.

Being that there are so few women, one tends to notice the others around. There’s the girl with the brand new boobs who hoists them like a shelf and the clog wearing perky trainer whose voice registers in an octave only heard by whales and dogs. There’s the heavy set lesbian (even at 6 am, there’s no hiding for her) who passes her cardio time with a complete set of tabloids and the girl in the short shorts who might want to wear longer shorts the next time she does squats.

And then there’s the girl with the pin. She’s easy to spot, hard to miss because she is wearing, as she has been for the past 6 days, a large pin on her shirt which reads:

“Sexy Women Vote For Obama.”

I don’t know if she’s gay or straight, but even at 6 am, one thing is fairly certain, this woman is a total and complete moron.

A pin worn to the gym is in and of itself stupid. The chances of being impaled by an Obama pin are not wasted on me and I spend my 37 minutes on the Precor picturing what happens when she drops a weight on her chest, the pin opens, jabs her in the heart, blood spouts out, and she dies; the headline reading, “Sexy Woman dies due to Obama stabbing.” But that’s not the real problem here.

Political views aside, it’s her choice of words that’s got me all wound up. “Sexy Women Vote for Obama.” Does that mean that non-sexy women vote for McCain? And who decides whose sexy enough to vote for Obama because I was gonna vote for Obama, but I’m wearing an outfit I picked out in the dark so I wouldn’t wake my husband as I snuck off the gym to work out for an hour before my kid wakes up and wants to play his new favorite game, “Lets throw food on Mommy” which makes me feel, to be honest, not so sexy. So can I still vote for Obama?

I don’t mind that the Pin Girl has an overly healthy opinion of her own sexuality, but I do mind that the very important decision of who should run the country comes down to how sexy you are. And I’m wondering how the Pin Girl would feel if she were to tell a man she was voting for Obama and he replied, “Well that’s because you’re sexy.” That guy would probably get a slap on the face and be accused of being a sexyist.

We live in an era where young girls look up to Paris Hilton over Hillary Clinton where Wall Street boasts the lowest number of female executives to date in a country with the fewest females holding public office in 30 years. Even Pakistan has had a female President and yet we are defining our voting habits by how sexy we are.

Since becoming a parent, I’m constantly reminded that two people, one of whom is me, will define my son’s view of the world. I’ll expose him to his favorite food and develop his love or hate of music. He’ll appreciate theatre if I do and have a strong sense of family if I encourage it. And his view of women will also be defined by one of two people, me. Personally, I want my son to learn that women are sexy but I’d also like him to learn that women are smart, whomever they vote for, as long as they vote.

I’m at the gym and there she is, the Pin Girl, bench-pressing a grueling 7 pounds. I decide I’m going to stand up for all women and tell her what I think. “Sexy Women Vote for Obama?” I’ll say. “How bout Smart Women Vote. Period.” Then I’ll walk away with my gym full of gays cheering me on. But before I can get over there, I hear a crash. She’s dropped her weights on her chest.

“Fucking pin!” she screams as she rubs her chest.

I turn around, head back to my workout. I take that back. While it’s smart to vote, it’s even smarter not to wear sharp metal objects to the gym.

And by the way, if you’re smart, you’ll vote Obama, no matter how sexy you are.