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Men who don't keep their hands to themselves (pool rant)
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Dear swimmers (especially male swimmers), do not GRAB a swimmer's legs or ass (especially a female swimmer) if you want that person to stop at the wall and/or switch to circle swimming!


I swim at a swim club where private membership is multiple hundred dollars a year and open lap swim is $10 drop-in. Two pools, LCM is open for lap swim pretty much all the time and SCY also has some lap lanes most of the time. Pool rules are 2 = split a lane, 3+ = circle; the lanes are not marked for speed, so anyone jumps in anywhere. It is rare to have more than 4 during lap swim, but at masters we can have 12 -15 in a lane without difficulty. I am a solid swimmer and because I tend to swim with my head high (something other male swimmers like to try to "correct" on a regular basis, even when I say no thanks I do not want an impromptu free swim lesson unless you are Andy Potts), I am very good at noticing when someone wants to enter the lane and moving if needed, and at passing without contact.

So this morning I was at the very end of a 4000-meter workout, with the main set 3 x (6x50 fins, 4x200 swim/pull/swim/pull). In the LCM pool, that means I stopped at the entry wall almost all the time. I was alone at the start, but 4 or 5 different (friendly) people came and went, without any issues -- we split with 2, circled with 3. Then on the very last 200, when I went to do the final flip turn, I saw that a new guy who wanted to enter the lane had his feet in the water, so I moved over but didn't stop. And his response was to stand up on the deck and jump in ON TOP OF ME and grab me by both thighs to force me to stop, so he could tell me he wanted to circle.

Seriously, why do men think it's okay to grab unknown women in the pool (when their heads are under water, no less)? This is not the first time I've had to stop and tell a guy to keep his hands to himself in the pool.

Thank you for letting me rant...
Gee
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Re: Men who don't keep their hands to themselves (pool rant) [Gee] [ In reply to ]
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I'm pretty sure that mans testicles would be in his throat if he had done that to me. That's ridiculous.

**********************
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Re: Men who don't keep their hands to themselves (pool rant) [Gee] [ In reply to ]
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In addition to inappropriate, what he did was unsafe. I hope you report things like this to the lifeguards and/or management.

maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
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Re: Men who don't keep their hands to themselves (pool rant) [tigerchik] [ In reply to ]
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tigerchik wrote:
In addition to inappropriate, what he did was unsafe. I hope you report things like this to the lifeguards and/or management.

I did (even though he was kind of cute ;) ) -- after I told him to get his hands off me, he told me he had been "swimming at this pool a long time" (although I am not sure if "long" meant more than the 10 years I have been a pool member and part of the masters team) and that he was "keeping me safe" (because of course the unlikely possibility of bumping into someone would be so much worse than drowning after swallowing water because he was holding on to me, or breaking my hand while punching him, and because of course a girl like me needs a big boy to protect me in the swimming pool). Men!
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Re: Men who don't keep their hands to themselves (pool rant) [Gee] [ In reply to ]
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This is outragous. I've never been touched in the pool aside from accidental hand brushes. out of curiosity, where are you located?

To breathe, to feel, to know I'm alive.
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Re: Men who don't keep their hands to themselves (pool rant) [Gee] [ In reply to ]
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That SUCKS. I would have been LIVID.

Only time anything even remotely like that happened to me was in a pool where I was swimming in the lane labeled 'fast' (but not "fastest") and I had a guy stop me by standing in front of me while I was doing a drill segment (a few laps of drill). He says to me "This is the fast lane here and we are all swimming fast, you might want to go over to the slower lane over there". I was so angry I was speechless and I ended up saying nothing and moving over... Never mind that I had been swimming fast just before that, before he was in the lane, nor mind the fact that he was using giant dive style fins.
It actually worked out in the end because after moving lanes, I found an earring at the bottom of the pool I had lost two days earlier at the same pool. I've never worn earrings while swimming since.
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Re: Men who don't keep their hands to themselves (pool rant) [Gee] [ In reply to ]
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Can you press assault charges? Seriously, that is so over the top. At a minimum, go above the lifeguard and get pool management to intervene with the guy. If he's done this to you he has done, and will do, it to others.

No coasting in running and no crying in baseball
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Re: Men who don't keep their hands to themselves (pool rant) [Gee] [ In reply to ]
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This is waaaaaay beyond touching and simple contact. It is borderline assault- despite his claims that he was trying to protect you (which are laughable).

I , like others, would report this to management.
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Re: Men who don't keep their hands to themselves (pool rant) [Gee] [ In reply to ]
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Full disclosure: I'm a guy.

I would NEVER touch someone in a pool the way he touched you, especially a woman. If I grabbed a guy like that I'd be picking up my teeth, so why he or the others would consider that to be acceptable to do to you is beyond me. As a guy I don't think that is normal behavior. Its just asking for all kinds of trouble, and deservedly so. What did the guards or management say about it?

ishi no ue ni san nen | Perseverance will win in the end. | Blog | @nebmot | Strava | Instagram |
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Re: Men who don't keep their hands to themselves (pool rant) [Gee] [ In reply to ]
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I've had a child hop in my lane and swim directly toward me at full speed (and other various "children shouldn't be in the adult lap pool" incidents) but nothing like grabbing by an adult. Agree with immediately locating a lifeguard or management to help with the situation. Nothing much you can do afterwards, unfortunately.
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Re: Men who don't keep their hands to themselves (pool rant) [Gee] [ In reply to ]
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So quick followup:

  • I swim in SoCal and have successfully shared a lane with Rappstar (split) and with Diana Nyad (circle). In fact, Diana noticed we swim together a lot and asked my name and about my Betty swimsuit, and when I posted about it on FB, it got more "likes" than anything else I've ever posted!
  • I seriously kicked the guy and stopped just long enough to yell at him to get his hands off me, then finished the set. He actually got out and sat on the edge till I returned (and got out; my swim was over), then gave me his story about how he was "protecting" me. To his credit, he did not yell or seem angry, just patronizing, and in other circumstances is probably a nice guy.
  • I sent a written message to pool mgmt describing the event and suggesting that they remind people of the pool rules and also about good judgment and not touching others in the water without permission. The pool recently had an older man assault a young boy in the locker room, so they are sensitive to this issue right now. I was surprised to get no reply, but today the masters coach sent the team his list of pool rules and a link to USMS pool etiquette. Whether that's because of this, or coincidence, I don't know, but it was nice to see.
  • I still do not think that any swimmer should be expected to *stop* in the middle of a 200 (or above, LCM pool) to acknowledge another swimmer who wants to enter the lane. Had this guy waited the ~40 seconds it would have taken me to get down to the other side and make the turn, he'd have seen that I was circling and would not be running into him. Or he might have noticed that I was sighting the wall alligator/OW-style and had seen him. But in any case, I doubt very much he'll actually grab another swimmer any time soon!

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Re: Men who don't keep their hands to themselves (pool rant) [Gee] [ In reply to ]
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Wow. I cannot imagine how mad I would be. I once complained to management at my gym because some teenagers were taking up lap lanes horsing around instead of swimming. I also do not like being touched by strangers without a really good reason. I probably would have kicked the guy, but I might have been too shocked. His "protection" response would have made me even madder.

Tapping someone's foot to let them know that you want to pass or performing CPR are really the only acceptable times to touch a stranger at a pool.
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