AUGUSTA – Same-sex gyms and health clubs, outlawed as discriminatory in the 1970s, would once again be allowed in Maine under a measure that got initial support in the state Senate on Tuesday.

The Legislature’s Judiciary Committee had recommended 10-3 against the legislation, but the Senate gave initial approval to the bill on a vote of 18-16.

“This is not an issue about exercise, but it is an issue about privacy and vulnerability,” said Sen. Deborah Plowman, R-Hampden. “It’s not an issue that we want to keep the men out. It’s an issue about what is best for the vulnerable woman sitting there.”

Plowman told the Senate she once went to a health club that catered to both sexes and was “in legal terms, assaulted” by a man who touched her inappropriately while she was on an exercise machine.

She said she was outraged and felt very vulnerable. She said women deserve to be able to go to a health club where they feel safe.

“I urge you not to reject the desire of some women to exercise in a safe and comfortable environment, out of the gaze of the opposite sex,” said Sen. Lois Snowe-Mello, R-Poland, the sponsor of the legislation, which is referred to as the “Curves” bill by lawmakers because of the health club chain’s advocacy of the measure.

“We heard compelling testimony from many women that simply would not join a health facility if there were men there,” she said.

Several senators mentioned the number of e-mails, letters and phone calls they have received from mostly women who are customers of the Curves health club chain, which has 79 facilities in the state.

By law, Curves cannot ban men from joining, but the equipment and facilities are designed for women.

Sen. Lynn Bromley, D-South Portland, discounted the vulnerability and comfort arguments. She suggested the measure had more to do with “advertising and marketing” than exercising and health.

“If there were a compelling reason, I would at least be interested in having a debate. But for my comfort?” she questioned. “If we take men and change that to Native American or tall people of color or whatever, I am uncomfortable with that; [it] feels like a very slippery slope.”

Bromley said discrimination for any reason is wrong and should not be supported. She also questioned whether there is a need for the bill, saying she had called 15 Curves facilities at random and none told her that men had expressed any interest in joining the health club.

“This bill brings me back to the 1970s,” said Sen. Barry Hobbins, D-Saco, co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee, “when discrimination laws in Maine were enacted and sex discrimination was banned by the Maine Human Rights Act. We passed those laws, ironically, to insure that women were not excluded from fitness centers, gyms, sports teams and golf clubs for no other reason but their sex.”

Hobbins served a dozen years in the House in the 1970s and 1980s. He said he was surprised to hear some senators using the same arguments to allow an exception to the anti-discrimination statues that he heard used against passage of the ban two decades ago.

“The arguments then were there are just some places that are only for men, that they would be uncomfortable if women were allowed,” he said.

The measure faces further votes in the Senate before the House considers the proposal.