An Oregon woman details a recent gym experience that concerned her. Here’s what the man said about her tattoos, why it was such a “weird” interaction, and what she wants men who approach women while they work out to know.
TikTok creator Kodi Rose (@kodiirose) posted a video about her experience last week. “It is 2026: We either stop approaching women in the gym, period, or if we’re going to interrupt women, let’s not pretend we give a [expletive] about their tattoos,” she says in the video.
Rose says most of the time she is approached at the gym, it is by a man wanting to discuss her tattoos as a conversation entry point. That’s why she usually covers up from head to toe before heading to her workouts. On this day last week, she says the warm weather inspired her to change up her routine.
“Women can wear whatever they want in the gym, and it is not an open invitation to approach them,” she tells viewers.
During her workout, she felt someone tap her on the shoulder, and she turned around to find an older man. He asked her if he “looked familiar” to her, which made Rose concerned that he was a client from her job in exotic dancing.
“I’m really confused by this,” she says. “I’ve never seen this man’s face before. I’m like, ‘No, you don’t look familiar to me.’ And then of course I don’t look familiar to him either—he just needed a way to approach me. There you go. He broke the ice.”
In Rose’s opinion, the man then attempted to continue the conversation by asking about her tattoos.
“The word that he used at first was [that] he’s ‘very attracted’ to my tattoos,” she recalls. “Then he starts trying to ask me about the meaning behind them, where I started with getting tattoos, where the first tattoo was, and all this stuff.”
She tried to politely disengage, but the man apparently didn’t get the message. She looks up during her next exercise and sees him approaching her again.
“He’s telling me that he’s so sorry that he’s interrupting me, but he just had to come from all the way across the gym to tell me that my tattoos are sending him a message,” she says. “I’m like, ‘What are you talking about?’”
Rose says the man then started “trauma dumping” about some issues in his personal life.
Eventually, she says she interrupted the man’s monologue.
“I basically was like, ‘I’m so sorry you’re going through such a hard time in your life, but maybe my tattoos are sending you a message that you should not be approaching random women in the gym to talk about their tattoos.’”
She continues, “There is just something about using tattoos as a gateway to have a conversation with somebody when you don’t even really like tattoos. That is the case with every single person I’m ever approached by at the gym.”
In the comments section of the video, viewers reacted to the man’s conversational tactics and Rose’s feelings about being approached about her tattoos in public.
“Women have the right to be in public spaces without being approached by a man,” wrote one viewer.
“Normalize not even responding to dudes in the gym,” wrote a second viewer. “I literally put my hand up and keep my earbuds in.”
“I wouldn’t want my two daughters and eventually my three granddaughters approached by men in the gym, especially those twice their age,” said a third person. “You should be able to work out in peace.”
Another person said, “My biggest pet peeve is dudes talking to me about my tattoos.”
A woman with tattoos wrote about this phenomenon for Everyday Feminism, calling it “tatcalling.” The article echoes much of Rose’s argument, including the idea that women with tattoos aren’t asking for attention and should be left alone by default. Women with tattoos regularly post on the internet about facing harassment over their tattoos.
AllHipHop contacted Rose via TikTok comment and direct message for comment. We will update this story if she responds.
@kodiirose tattoos are not conversation starters ok bye #gym #storytime ♬ original sound – kodi rose 
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