It’s hilarious. Every week I’m in a confined space with dozens of bare-chested fit young men, most of who are looking around for someone to show off their rippling back muscles to.
All they want is for some pretty young thing to be watching, ready to swoon and cry out things like “Oh darling, you’re so brave!” But instead all they see is dozens of other straight, half-naked guys, and me and my indifferent friends.
Straight girls on the prowl: grab your chalk balls. We’re going rock climbing…
I love climbing walls. Unlike pounding away for hours at the gym, there’s actually a point to it all – albeit rather a silly one. Climb to the top, then climb down. Climb across, then climb the other way. Stop, gossip under the pretense of giving your arms a break, then do it all again.
For blokes it’s the perfect place for some macho showing off. To a degree, climbing ability does depend on strength, and there are lots of opportunities for dangling off edges and hoisting yourself over precipices with just one arm to show off to your mates what a manly man you are. But for every beefed up bozo there are a dozen quieter climbers – men and women – who are happy to just do their own thing in their own time.
It’s true that climbing is great for building strength, but the beauty is that as it’s your own body weight you’re hauling around you don’t really notice how hard you’re working. You don’t need Wonderwoman upper body strength either – a good climber uses his or her legs as much as possible, as they're so much stronger than arms could ever be. (Hear that, bozos?) Another nice side effect is that some of the most-used climbing muscles on the arms are triceps – those bits the other side of your biceps that you don’t use much. See what I’m implying here? C’mon, don’t make me say it… ugh, ok. Climbing will stop you getting bingowings.
So it’s great for toning, and it's great for picking up hot men with huge muscles. So why don’t many straight girls climb? The only real reasons I can think of is that you can’t really climb with long manicured nails (they will scratch and break, there’s no getting around it), and stereotypical girly girls don’t like getting sweaty. Which is silly, because of course they do. Everyone loves getting sweaty, it’s just about context. Sweaty in tube rush hour with your face in some drunk’s armpit? Bad. Sweaty during hot sex with hot guy you picked up at the climbing wall? Good.
I bet you’re suspicious. Why am I so keen to give away the secret of where to find these luscious hunks? Surely it can’t be out of the goodness of my heart? Of course not. I want straight girls to come climbing so that the straight boys will be distracted and leave the wall clear for me.
See you at the top, losers!