Victims Of Spin Rage: The Forgotten Minority

We revist yesterday's spin rage post for the simple reason that we now have a photo of Mr. Stuart Sugarman, the man who was unceremoniously thrown into a wall — along with his stationary bike — for refusing to stop grunting during his workout in a Manhattan gym. At first I was sympathetic to his predicament, but God, just look at that photo. Don't you just want to punch him? Now I want to throw him into a wall. And I don't know exactly why.

The article at ABC News.com is kind of a pathetic stab at sensationalism, but the comments are interesting. Who knew that there are a subset of gym dwellers who are "grunters," and that they consider themselves a persecuted minority?

i'm a little peeved at the anti-grunting nazis too — and i'm not even a grunter. Even when i hear someone's grunt turn into a yell, that's great, I let that energy feed me. During the very rare occasions that I do grunt, I am not loud about it in any way whatsoever, and it's totally involuntary — it's just peak effort without any put-ons, however, with this new anti-grunting atmosphere, I can see myself put in a position where someone walks up to me to tell me to stop grunting — and honestly, that would just deflate my resolve to even finish the workout. That's a deal-breaker — if a gym ever does that to me, I'll cancel my membership and buy a home gym. Posted by: zeeklebeagle 10:16 AM

I also like that the first comment in the string, which is visible on the same page as the article, says simply: "Gay."

Rage Against The Machine [Deadspin] Gym Rage [ABC News]