Now she is scared for her business, and nervous about the media machine that set the ball rolling. "Quite truthfully, if I had read just Ruth Rosen's article before buying the franchise I would not have done it," said Roberts. "But I'm in a position now where I need to defend my small business. I'm trying to help women." Roberts said that her six months of Curves ownership have left her satisfied that she is doing good work. "Every day I walk into that place I know I'm helping women. It's frustrating to look at a whole organization as one person, and sort of erroneous. The only people they're hurting are the franchise owners."

Marx, who described herself as pro-choice, agreed, pointing out that franchise owners pay Curves a flat fee, regardless of whether they have 400 members or 10 members. "So the only way our members could try to harm Gary Heavin is if Michael and I went out of business," said Marx. Marx also said that she believes individualized boycott is not effective and is irresponsible, but that collective organization can make a change. As a result, she and her husband have been on the phone with Planned Parenthood and other women's organizations supportive of reproductive choice, trying to devise a way in which Curves members could make donations and be counted as a group.

It's an endeavor that one local San Francisco Curves member has also undertaken on her Web site, Curvers for Choice, on which she encourages women who want to stay at Curves to wear pro-choice gear to the gym and make donations to pro-choice organizations in Gary Heavin's name. Teresa, a 45-year-old Web designer who asked to be identified only by her first name, has loved her six months at Curves. When a friend e-mailed her Rosen's column, she said, "I immediately thought: What can I do in this situation? Do I have to quit?" So she reasoned a way out of giving up her healthiest habit: "I thought I could do something positive for the other side in terms of encouraging other people to give contributions to pro-choice groups."

The director of development for Planned Parenthood of Central Texas confirmed that the organization has received contributions in Heavin's name since the press ruckus. A representative for NOW said there have been no such contributions made yet to that organization. The NOW spokeswoman also said that the organization has been researching Heavin, but has no official position on him. She added that one lobbyist had already pointed out that since Heavin supports groups that advise women who are contemplating abortions -- and NOW advocates choice, not abortion -- that there may well not be any action against him.

For some, the troubling part of the story lies in the speed with which careless information got disseminated. "This is about how easily we believe the press," said Teresa, who said she has gotten e-mails about Curvers for Choice from Boston, Chicago, Atlanta and Seattle. "Because Jon Carroll says it's true, it's true." Random calls by Salon to Curves branches around the country -- in Maine, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Massachusetts, Montana and Los Angeles -- turned up no discernible pattern of locations that had been affected by the press vs. those where managers had no idea of the controversy.

Many are upset about the arguments that are springing up between women who disagree about how to react to the information. "There's this idea out there that anyone who is pro-choice enough will quit Curves," said Teresa. "It's sad that people feel they have to make a choice in that way."

One blogger who posted the initial round of news on Heavin's donations and advocated a boycott, disagreed. Pineapplegirl, a 30-year-old Austin, Texas, political consultant who asked not to be identified by her real name, said that she is unmoved by stories of the franchisees being forced out of business. "The franchisee doesn't have the right to say, 'It's not me, I'm different.' If that business owner chooses to get in bed with this CEO, you don't get to benefit from the positive branding and marketing that Curves has built and then turn around and say, 'Oh, I shouldn't be held responsible for the things I don't agree with.'" But Pineapplegirl had not yet received word of the Chronicle's correction. When informed by Salon that some of the facts had been confused, she said, "Well maybe it's much ado about nothing, then."

For some, the corrected facts don't change their resistance to the idea of supporting Curves. A letter sent to the Chronicle by two doctors at the Center for Reproductive Health Research & Policy at the University of California at San Francisco in response to the correction, reads in part: "These corrections obscured the ideological agenda of the individuals and organizations highlighted. This agenda includes preventing women from obtaining abortions and censoring and distorting information about birth control and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases." It goes on to lambaste the three organizations Heavin funds, which they claim "restrict services and distort information. They also endanger health." The letter concludes by thanking Rosen, who they claim "has enabled her readers to make a better-informed decision about whether to support an organization whose owner has an ideological agenda counter to their own values."

It's the kind of intra-movement argument that has feminists on edge. "I have never experienced quite as much intolerance from the liberal side, of which I am one," said Roberts, returning on Saturday from a meeting of Bay Area Curves owners where they tried to hash out how they would get their new, corrected image out and rebuild their lost business. "For some it's enough that he's pro-life. I guess that pisses them off enough to stop right there." But, she said, "I'm still proud I'm part of this company and want to get back to helping women with their health."

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