ATOMIC DOG
Unclench Your Butt Cheeks
by TC

"I am not a panty sniffer," sniffed Pavel T, he of the 5 sets of 5, the kettlebells, the Russian Special Forces, and the often masterful self-promotion.

That was Pavel Tsatsouline’s actual response when we asked him to write for Testosterone Nation. Why the weird, Pavel-onian answer? Well, I guess he read one of my more sexually provocative Atomic Dogs or a blog–something that made a reference to sniffing panties (okay, I’m juvenile, get over it)—and decided that we were morally bankrupt.

The little dickens didn’t seem to mind that we sold a lot of his books and products through our old "T-Jack" feature–that was somehow okay—but when it came down to actually writing for us? Hey, he’s got principles.

I think it might really have something to do with his realization that he knew he wouldn’t be top dog over here, not with people like Christian Thibaudeau, Chad Waterbury, Charles Poliquin, and all the other fantastic coaches and experts populating T-Nation.

That has to be it, right? I mean, the thing about us being too potty-mouthed is too far-fetched, isn’t it? After all, the guy spends a good part of his life in locker rooms, which are the stereotypical bastion of the often-raunchy male world. Hence the expression, "locker room talk." Pavel’s probably even done his share of towel snapping, but yet his moral fiber bristles at the mention of panties?

Tell me that he didn’t at least once recite the famous old ribald Russian limerick that goes like this:

There once was a girl from Estonia,
Who never said nyet to, "Can I bone ya’?"

Good grief.

Hey, if anyone wants to defeat those Russian special service Speznatz guys in combat, I just figured out how to do it. When they come at you with their knives, just rubber-band some thong panties at their heads while shouting Pootie Tang! They’ll wither and die of moral indignation. Buncha’ damn daffodils.

So where did Pavel—this last bastion of honor, integrity, and the Russian way—go? He now writes for Ironman. There, amid advertisements for bodybuilding porn sites, videos that trumpet their "Hot, Wild and Drippin’ Wet" starlets, and lengthy, ever-present swimsuit pictorials that are thinly disguised tributes to female pudenda, are Pavel’s articles.

Hey Pavel, how do you say hypocrite in Russki?

Ads, above and below, from Pavel’s new home.

Unfortunately, Pavel’s not the only "morally superior" butthead we here at T-Nation have to deal with. A doctor I know sends some of his middle-aged clients to T-Nation to buy Grow!, but he tells me that when the site pops up, many of them mouse-click the "previous page" icon so fast and furious it sounds like a cockroach wearing tap dancing shoes.

"Oh, it’s so dark and foreboding! Someone named Tim Patterson is threatening to blow my head off! And good heavens! There’s a woman’s butt cheek staring me in the eye, and it looks...it looks angry, malevolent even!"

A friend of mine told one of his customers to check out the site. Now, my friend probably should have known better because this customer is always telling everyone that if they stopped eating meat, there’d be no more wars. Brilliant.

Anyhow, the guy checked out the site, stormed into my friend’s store and lambasted him for recommending T-Nation. Something–Lord knows what–had offended him, or at least made him realize that his anti-war strategy had little chance of catching on...at least among those of us who actually have testicles.

I told a fellow local gym rat about T-Nation, thinking that he’d be thrilled to find such a goldmine of information. Not so. A few days later, I made the mistake of asking the gym rat if he’d bothered to check out T-Nation. The guy glowered at me and spat out, "Didn’t you know that I’m Christian?!?"

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

And I can think of dozens of similar situations.

Criminy, I don’t get it. What is it that these people are offended by? What is it that they’re afraid of? Is it my columns? Is it the solitary, comparatively tame picture of a female that graces the home page 5 days out of 7? Is it how we hold the "evil" male hormone, Testosterone, in such high regard? Or maybe it’s all you potty mouths on the forum!

If you compare us to Ironman, MuscleMag, Flex, or Muscular Development, we’re seminary school students!

Lions and tigers and butt cheeks, oh my! Lions and tigers and butt cheeks, oh my!

I don’t know, but Pavel, you big pussy, you need to unclench your butt cheeks. And the middle-aged Pollyannas and the vegetarian-for-peace and the indignant Christian–you all need to unclench your butt cheeks. Who knows what might clunk to the ground if each of you let those muscles relax? Maybe the 20-pound kettlebell you misplaced during a seminar in Hoboken, your Lawrence Welk vinyl album, the autographed picture of the Mahatma, your great-grandmother’s rosary beads, or maybe even that huge branch from a California sequoia.

I’ll be the first to admit that our content isn’t always100% compatible with the New Testament, but I think T-Nation would fit in real nice with the Old Testament, what with Jehovah going around kicking all that righteous ass.

Hell, you could throw any one of the Ten Commandments our way and not one of them would stick...well, except maybe number 10, but hey, don’t cast any stones lest you get a gander of our neighbor’s wife. You’d covet Mrs. Bronsky, too.

But did these aforementioned muttonheads ever read–really read–the site? There’s a super strong thread of morality laced into T-Nation. It’s not just about lifting weights and eating right, but doing the right thing; about being a man and getting the best out of your self and your life, and the importance of intellectual pursuits. Sure we get irreverent, but good Lord man, the Bible itself was a little bawdy and lusty in places.

As we’ve said before, we’re virtuous bad boys. We might tell an off-color joke or say something that will blister the panties off a choirboy, but for God’s sake, we’re not taking money from porn sites or companies that sell porn videos!

Man, we don’t want to water down T-Nation. Too much of the whole damn world is watered down. I like my T-Nation straight, just like my whiskey. Part of me thinks we’d have even more readers if we played to the center, but just thinking about it reminds me of the way I felt when I heard Beethoven’s "Ode to Joy" being used as the soundtrack for a car commercial.

I think Pavel and the rest of the tight-asses whose Puritanical dander we managed to raise have made a tragic mistake. They could have been a part of something really cool, a community of men and women who don’t just pretend to have conviction—men and women who see that morality comes in many forms and guises.

But we’re willing to at least hear what everyone else has to say. Do we need to water down? Should we just stick to the "message," that being weightlifting and diet, and weightlifting and diet only? Should we become a bunch of choirboys?

Let me know. I won’t unclinch my butt cheeks until I find out.

Is this what you want?

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