gymbot

n. a person, usually a gay man, perceived to spend too much time at a gym or to be too devoted to having a muscular physique. Subjects: English, Gay, Health, Derogatory, Slang

Editorial Note: This term has often been used by writer Bruce Vilanch in his articles for The Advocate.

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Citations: 1993 Usenet: soc.motss (Aug. 26) “Re: hunky Asian men in the cinema”: Your friend has probably not been to San Francisco. Here, the “Asian gymbot” type is making a bid to unseat the “Asian boy” as the dominant “gay Asian look.” 1994 Usenet: alt.personals.bondage (July 22) “SWM dom in NYC seeks F”: About my body: SWM, 29 years old, 6’1,” 200lbs, broad shoulders, piano player’s hands. Short brown hair, brown eyes, clean shaven. Athletic, but not a gym-bot. Attractive enough to get dates, but tired of vanilla. 2002 Ron Jackson Suresha Bears on Bears (Feb. 1) p. 171: All of these various elements of our culture are emerging and growing because it’s a revolt against the gymbots. People are looking for other clone models to attach themselves to. 2004 Richard Burnett Hour.ca (Montreal, Quebec) (Apr. 8) “Get up, stand-up”: Last week when I mentioned to him that porn director Chi Chi LaRue once told me he calls gym bunnies “gymbots,” Smith cracks, “I’m too old to be a gym bunny and gymbot sounds like a gay android in the queer version of The Matrix.” 2005 Carol Burbank Freedom of Expression (Maryland) (July 30) “Exercise: The Horror, the Horror”: I suspect we’re learning that the body is a machine—not a sensual, flexible collective of organs and muscle and bone and skin, but a machine we can “work out” with.…Even if the metaphor has some merit, biologically, it certainly loses a great deal of soul in the gym-bot environment. 2006 Guy Trebay New York Times (May 21) “24-Hour Sweaty People”: The value of spending a full day inside a gym is that it gives one the opportunity to survey a rich gallery of human types: the male gymbots with their proud bosoms and stick legs.

Posted 24 May 06 | Permalink | Tell a Friend