There’s a shirtless man in my yoga class. Do I have to grin and let him bare it?

I go to a yoga studio almost every day. At a recent session, a guy took off his shirt and did the class bare-chested. I find this inappropriate. Should I have said something?
K.E., Artarmon, NSW

Credit: Illustration by Simon Letch

You’re asking someone who doesn’t think men should be bare-chested anywhere at all – and I’m not just saying that because I have a torso that looks like an old man’s face, with pink nipple-eyes, saggy love-handle jowls and a deep, dark, bellybutton mouth. As far as I’m concerned, public male shirtlessness should only be allowed within 50 metres of a body of water. And that water must be swimmable, so no park fountains, duck ponds, splashy puddles or tearoom urns.

Because there’s something very confronting about partly naked bodies in non-swimming public places. I once saw a bare-chested guy in a butcher’s shop and he merged right into the meat display: just a head perched on top of chuck-steak shoulders with thick, rolled-pork arms. Since that day, I can’t look at men on the beach without thinking in terms of marbling, texture, freshness and price per kilo.

But here’s where things get pedantic. Some men might argue that “a body of water” could also be “a watery body”. That shirts can come off in any public place where people sweat copiously: yoga studios, gyms, sporting locations, Darwin. And they may have a point: many yoga studios allow male shirtlessness as long as the men behave respectfully and use a super-soaker car-wash sponge as a yoga mat.

If it’s really upsetting you, I’d speak to your instructor instead of the man – and if nothing can be done, just move your mat away from the guy, to a far corner of the room, in a completely different, fully clothed, Amish-yoga studio.

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