Gym rats: are men in locker rooms more modest than they used to be?

[Malienation]

I am 44 y.o. and a regular gym goer. I have noticed recently that men in locker rooms seem more modest than they used to be. They are less likely to face the common area of the locker room when they change and guys that shower seem to try pretty hard to avoid exposing themselves on the way to and on the way back from the showers. Thing is, it's mostly younger guys. Older guys (especially older than 50) seem to care less. Also, guys with better bodies are more self-conscious. WTF?

Am I imagining things? And why would this be so? A lesbian acquaintance I mentioned this to suggested homophobia, but I'm not convinced by any means. And the better looking guys: better looking because they're self-conscious, and thus highly motivated to look better? Guys?

FWIW, I am in pretty good shape but a little heavy (205, 5' 10 3/4"). I'm a let it all hang out kinda guy.

[iano]

Perhaps high school and such... it's my impression that showing in high school is now atypical, but for people over 50, presumably it was?

[Walloon]

I've noticed this too, and I can't explain it. We had group showers at my high school, group showers at my college, group showers at my college fraternity, group showers in the locker rooms when I was working as a journalist, and group showers at my old health club. It was no big deal. But the health club's new building has individual showers, and I don't know if it's sad or funny to see these younger guys carefully trying to pull their underwear on underneath the towel wrapped around their waist.

"In my day, we used to streak, you know, run around naked!"

[Fiveyearlurker]

It's funny. I was going to ask the question from the opposite direction.

I am one of those guys (30 years old now) who puts his underwear on under his towel. No reason for it, really. I think people my age and younger were never in locker rooms all naked together.

I've had this talk with friends about what it is about you old folks that makes you so comfortable walking around naked in locker rooms!

[TheLoadedDog]

I've noticed it too. In my work locker room, there was only ever one guy who would strip down completely, and the others complained about it.

I have had gay friends who were really fussy about it, to the point of using the stalls in preference to the urinals. One of them even told me that outside of a sexual context, he found nudity offensive.

[matt_mcl]

One of my friends noted that (much to his irritation) many of the swimmers at the Athens Olympics were wearing body suits instead of speedos, or otherwise covering up excessively.

[Frosted Glass]

Originally Posted by iano

Perhaps high school and such... it's my impression that showing in high school is now atypical, but for people over 50, presumably it was?

I think you hit the nail on the head. Most of my peers (I am 22) never had to shower for gym in school so people in my generation really are not used to getting naked in front of people. Between swimming when I was younger and track in college, I have grown accustomed to changing in front of people so to me it is a non-factor.

[Walloon]

Originally Posted by Fiveyearlurker

I think people my age and younger were never in locker rooms all naked together.

Didn't you have gym class in high school? Didn't you ever play a team sport?

[iano]

Originally Posted by Walloon

Didn't you have gym class in high school? Didn't you ever play a team sport?

In my district showering was required for neither. In fact, the showers were only really on if there was a dance after school or such, something which prevented people from going home to shower and dress. It's probably for the best, since it was so unusual that when it did happen, some jokers would invariably strike up conversations with whoever walked by, approaching them completely normal with a kind "are you freaked out yet?" grin on their face.

[Walloon]

Forget about "required", weren't you stinky and sweaty after gym class? Didn't you want to shower off after all that?

[Malienation]

Originally Posted by Fiveyearlurker

It's funny. I was going to ask the question from the opposite direction.

I am one of those guys (30 years old now) who puts his underwear on under his towel. No reason for it, really. I think people my age and younger were never in locker rooms all naked together.

I've had this talk with friends about what it is about you old folks that makes you so comfortable walking around naked in locker rooms!

Ummmm....it's a locker room?

[Rigamarole]

Originally Posted by Walloon

Didn't you have gym class in high school? Didn't you ever play a team sport?

We didn't shower after my high school gym class (I'm class of '03, for perspective), just changed clothes and (maybe) swiped some deodorant on. In retrospect, kind of gross. But I would have been terrified of showering in front of other guys in high school (I was overweight and terribly self-conscious. Changing my shorts and shirt was hard enough for me. I always did it in the corner if I could).

Nowadays, I don't go to the gym but if I did, I wouldn't mind stripping completely and taking a nice shower at all (in fact, I would prefer to. I hate leaving any sweat on me).

[treis]

Originally Posted by Walloon

Forget about "required", weren't you stinky and sweaty after gym class? Didn't you want to shower off after all that?

We rarely got enough time to shower.

[Mr. Excellent]

Originally Posted by Walloon

Forget about "required", weren't you stinky and sweaty after gym class? Didn't you want to shower off after all that?

I, for one, made it a point of pride to never break a sweat in phys ed. Strangely, I also never broke past a "B" in that class. Eh, it was worth it.

/Enjoys fond memories of slacking.

[Gridnak]

I'm in the gym fairly often, 2 to 3 times a week ,and I've noticed the same thing. I remember seeing a younger guy actually showering in his underwear and doing a WTF?

Personally, I had any kind of locker room modesty burned out of me at the academy. I don't know how it is now, but when I was there the locker room down on the practice fields had toilet stalls with no doors on them. And...there were two rows of them facing each other. There's nothing quite like wiping your ass in front of a row of people to slap the whole modesty thing down the drain.

[Bobotheoptimist]

Originally Posted by Walloon

Didn't you have gym class in high school?

Hell, I didn't have gym in high school - it wasn't required even way back in '86.

And frankly, I don't want naked dudes around me.

[Rodgers01]

I think you're right -- it's a function of not having ever had to do group showers at school. When I was growing up (I'm 26) I never once had to shower in school: the most we ever had to do in gym class was change our shirts and put on gym shorts over our underwear. I was worried we'd have to shower, but it wasn't even an option: the shower room hadn't been used so long, the school was using it as a storage room. I don't remember worrying about being sweaty and smelling -- I guess we just used deodorant and dealt with it. No open showers in college either.

If I can expostulate for a minute, I think there's another, larger reason at work here: a lot of younger people have never had to share much, period. In the past couple decades, birth rates have fallen, and average size of houses has grown larger. My impression is that in the "old days" you'd often have pretty big families (3+ kids) living in small-ish houses: everyone would have to share one bathroom, a couple siblings might have to share a bedroom, everyone would have to fight over one TV and wait their turn to use one telephone. People were, in general, bumping into one another a lot more. Nowadays, you have much smaller families living in much bigger houses. Most kids have never had to share a bedroom. Many of them have their own TV, and even their own private bathroom. Virtually all of them seem to have their own phones. I've read a couple articles where colleges are rushing to build individual dorm rooms, because incoming students don't want to have roommates -- they've never had to live in close quarters with anyone, and they don't want to. (My first roommate in college fit this profile -- he very clearly had never had to adjust to living with someone else before.) I'd guess somewhere in that transition it became unthinkable to have open showers.

[Walloon]

Bowling Alone.

[Tomcat]

Boy, most of y'all would have a real problem here...Some places I go to here will give people the key to the opposite sex locker room if your's is full. I've had to say "Pardon me ladies, this won't take but a 'sec." and had to change there. And no, I didn't put my underwear on underneath a towel.

I wonder if there is a connection to rising childhood obesity levels and the fact that kids don't play sports hard enough to require showers? I went to high school in the mid-late 80's and showering was a requirement because we sweated our butts off.

-Tcat

[Edward The Head]

If you're looking for naked men you'll have to find a swim team. There are only a couple of guys on the team that don't strip down naked after swimming. We even take nude showers together. Guess it comes from seeing damn near everything anyway.

[Fiveyearlurker]

Originally Posted by Walloon

Didn't you have gym class in high school? Didn't you ever play a team sport?

Gym class? Yes. Like others have said, no showering afterwards. You had 3 minutes once class ended to get to your next class. How could you possibly shower? In retrospect, it's not pleasant, but no one thought anything about it at the time.

Team sports were always after school was over. You finished, went home and showered there.

[StinkyBurrito]

Originally Posted by Fiveyearlurker

Gym class? Yes. Like others have said, no showering afterwards. You had 3 minutes once class ended to get to your next class. How could you possibly shower? In retrospect, it's not pleasant, but no one thought anything about it at the time.

Team sports were always after school was over. You finished, went home and showered there.

I will echo the above from my experiences. But I would have to say in high school, we played a lot of golf and some bowling. Everyonce in a while we played a game of softball in the gym so we never really got all that sweaty.

Nowadays, (I am in my mid twenties) I hang out naked in the locker and steam rooms and shower naked when I go to the gym. It is kind of fun in a free and liberating kind of way.

[alphaboi867]

Showering wasn't required (class of '03) and the showers were almost never used. We just changed shirts and shorts over our underwear (& most guys were reluctent to have both off at the same time). Some of the sports teams showered after practice and occasionally jocks would shower if they had gym in the mornings. Nobody changed in stalls though (no doors). I hated gym (and all the male PE teachers) and skipped as much as possible. I didn't shower simply because none of the other boys showered. If they did I would have. From 10-13 I went to a "Christian" summer camp. There were stalls, but they only went up halfway didn't curtains. My 1st night I (along with with alot of other boys) kept our underwear on. After I was done I realized how pointless it was to shower in tighty-whities. By the end of the week our counselors had to keep reminding us not to walk outside out tents naked and everybody slept naked. We even made fun of the more modest boys. It's all about peer presure.

[Hampshire]

I guess I fall into the category of "just take care of your business and get dressed".
I don't mind guys undressing in front of me / undressing in front of them, showering with them in the same area, going to and from the showers, getting dressed together, etc.
But geez, it just creeps me out when these old guys want to hang out nude striking up conversations with people and strolling around the locker room like it's the "nude dudes social club".
Then they go up to the sinks to shave, etc. without putting a towel around their waist and lay their junk right up on the counter.

Just take care of your showering/clothes changing needs and either get dressed or put a towel on.
I joined a gym, not a men's bath house.

[Fiveyearlurker]

I used to work out at a predominantly gay gym (in Chelsea, in New York). I can tell you that I felt no different about it there, than I do now. I like to be naked in groups as little as possible. If I drop trow, the towel is ready to be wrapped. If I remove towel, the underwear is ready to go on. Gay gym, straight gym didn't matter. So, I really don't think homophobia is an issue in this at all.

Hijack:

Interestingly, for reasons that escaped me, one of my current gyms (though not predominantly gay, certainly has a large gay clientele) has shower stalls, but no curtains. The women's locker room, I'm assured has curtains. My gay buddy laughed at me when brought it up, and he said, "Why do you think we're all in such good shape around here."

[GrizzRich]

I'm an gym-rat (age 46). That is, I'm a heavy weight lifter; in both senses (a heavy weightlifter AND a heavyweight lifter). I've noticed a similar trend.

I think it's a products of the more "tender" ways that schools are treating students these days. You know, don't want to have ANYONE being offended, so certain things are done away with. Seems that communal showers were one of the things that have been quietly shuttered.

But, jeez, showers used as STORAGE AREAS?!
You'd at least think the sports teams would use them after practice and games!
After football practice at school, I was sometimes LITERALLY covered in mud.

[Ethilrist]

Originally Posted by Tomcat

Boy, most of y'all would have a real problem here...Some places I go to here will give people the key to the opposite sex locker room if your's is full. I've had to say "Pardon me ladies, this won't take but a 'sec." and had to change there. And no, I didn't put my underwear on underneath a towel.

In H. Allen Smith's The Complete Practical Joker, he mentions an infamous stagehand from the days of Vaudeville who would walk through the women's dressing room. He'd yell "Close your eyes, ladies, I'm coming through..."

Re: the OP, we had group showers in high school and college, and I never really gave it a thought about walking around nekkid. About ten years ago I was a member at Bally's, and again with the walking around nekkid. Now, the gym I use is at work, and there's not so much walking around naked, most people wrap a towel around their waist even though it's only about twenty feet from the lockers to the showers. There are still a few guys who walk around nekkid, but we also have a few on the other end of the scale who go fully dressed to the showers (individual stalls which have a pre-shower stall with hooks on the walls) and do all their changing there, and a few guys who don't even shower after working out. Their co-workers must love them.

[you with the face]

[quote=HampshireThen they go up to the sinks to shave, etc. without putting a towel around their waist and lay their junk right up on the counter.[/QUOTE]

There's one chick who does this at my gym. While she doesn't quite lay her "junk right up on the counter", she does spend a lot of time walking around without any clothes on. It doesn't freak me out or anything, but I do wonder why she does it.

[wolfman]

When I was in high school we were one of the last classes that did naked showering. It was kind of stupid because we had a total of 40 seconds to enter shower. dry off, and get dressed before the end of class. It was simply a matter of conforming, cause no showering was ever done. The showers were turned on and everybody dropped clothes, walked in a single unwavering line under the showerheads, and out the other door grabbed a towel wrapped it around, and hoped to get back to your clothes before they were thrown in the toilet.

Everybody aimed for the median path. the guys who were scared to get naked and covering themselves got picked on a wusses, and the guys who lingered too long naked were showing themselves and picked on as gay.

That's still how I operate today I guess. While showering, naked, but not more than 5 seconds before or after the water is on. And I do look for some privacy and face the wall before towling off butch and sundance.

[HMS Irruncible]

Originally Posted by Malienation

Am I imagining things? And why would this be so? A lesbian acquaintance I mentioned this to suggested homophobia, but I'm not convinced by any means. And the better looking guys: better looking because they're self-conscious, and thus highly motivated to look better? Guys?

The gym is a little different as far as nudity goes, in my opinion. In a nudist type environment, the sexuality is dealt with up front and everybody understands that whatever sexual issues you bring up are your own. The purpose is to be naked, openly and often. A mens' locker room can be a little different... not because everyone is cruising for sex (although some occasionally are), but because there is nudity in a place where sexuality is a concern but nobody really knows where each person stands. I think maybe 30 years ago, most men in the locker room never dreamed that it was a place of any sexuality at all (or if they did, they absolutely did not let on), but it's a slightly different world now.

Personally, I don't really care who sees my body. But I know if I cavalierly flaunt my goods, others may wrongly see it as sort of a sexual advertisement. Of those who saw it that way, some would be offended and some would be attracted. Since I'm not trying to create those situations, and it's not a requirement that I show off my package to the world, I practice just a bit of basic modesty. Nothing like hiding under a towel to cover each and every single exposure, just dressing with face to the wall, not lounging around for a half hour with my legs splayed apart, etc.

[CalMeacham]

Heck, nobody's modest in my gym -- everyone walks from the lockers to the showers naked, and we're of all ages.

[HMS Irruncible]

Originally Posted by Fiveyearlurker

Interestingly, for reasons that escaped me, one of my current gyms (though not predominantly gay, certainly has a large gay clientele) has shower stalls, but no curtains. The women's locker room, I'm assured has curtains. My gay buddy laughed at me when brought it up, and he said, "Why do you think we're all in such good shape around here."

Well, an anecdote fraught with assumptions... for several years I worked out at a gym in midtown Atlanta (quite the bustling gay hotspot). The showers had a view of the changing area, and they had vinyl curtains. The shower curtains always had an eye-level hole large enough to see through, and whenever a curtain was replaced, the eye-level hole would appear again within days. The prospect of someone using me as a wank object strikes me with the same indifference as if they were getting off over a furniture catalog; that's their thing, I have no reaction to it. But knowing that someone could be watching, I did become conscious about trying not to give off any come-hither signals and trying to find a locker somewhere other than the "observation deck". I don't go to the gym to deal with that kind of attention.

[alphaboi867]

Originally Posted by Brain Wreck

...he shower curtains always had an eye-level hole large enough to see through, and whenever a curtain was replaced, the eye-level hole would appear again within days...

Which is why I find it funny whenever a gym/school/club/etc remodels and replaces a communal shower with private stalls because of lawsuit concerns, privacy, behavior complaints, etc. Private stalls (especially with locking doors) encourage more of the "unseemly" behavior that the institution seeks to prevent.

[Patty O'Furniture]

I don't know if it's sad or funny to see these younger guys carefully trying to pull their underwear on underneath the towel wrapped around their waist.

It's hilarious. These guys are few and far between (at least in my area) and I don't think they realize that this makes them the object of more attention, not less. People look at them with a puzzled "what the hell are you doing?" face. Sometimes the towel will slip off and then they have to juggle the half-pulled-on underwear with trying to grab the towel.

[ZipperJJ]

It's because of the Internet and it's preponderance of porn.

The only other naked men that guys see outside of the gym have huge cocks, and the only other naked women girls see have huge breasts.

No one wants to take off their clothes for fear that other people will notice how spectacularly un-endowed they are.

The people you see flitting around the lockerroom are the ones who have never seen porn

[GrizzRich]

Originally Posted by ZipperJJ

...The people you see flitting around the lockerroom are the ones who have never seen porn

bolding mine.

You know how sometimes someone says something and you're SURE that's the first time in history that those words were ever put in that order?

...well, for me, those four bolded words has to be one of those times.

[Count Blucher]

I thought people were more modest in locker rooms now because of all the jerks with camera phones, but maybe I'm wrong.

[Spectre of Pithecanthropus]

Originally Posted by CalMeacham

Heck, nobody's modest in my gym -- everyone walks from the lockers to the showers naked, and we're of all ages.

Pretty much that's what I notice, though I go to a relatively upscale club that probably skews slightly older, since the dues are probably a little expensive for someone just out of college. I don't notice the younger guys being that much more modest, with one exception: at one of the locations I go to, we have nude, gender-separated jaccuzis, and I rarely see anyone who looks even as young as I am (48), let alone younger than that, using the men's.

I will not put my clean towel around me when I'm all sweaty after working out, so I head to the shower in the altogether. But on the way back I usually wear the towel since it helps absorb residual water that I might have missed. So, going both ways I'm guided by primarily practical concerns.

I think men generally are a lot more modest these days. To me, it sometimes seems that men's bodies are thought to be generally ugly even under the best of circumstances, and then so many of us are flabby anyway, which encourages the wearing of shapeless, covering styles. Then wearing clothes like that, what's the point of being in shape, so some guys probably end up fatter than they otherwise would.

[corkboard]

In middle school, we got plenty sweaty but just put our street clothes back on and went on with the schoolday. Teachers must have been disgusted.

When I was entering my teen years (early '80's) we had swimming class in school and we were strongly encouraged to shower afterwards, but nobody did. Also, during that time we were all going through... changes. I remember one of the popular guys- handsome, football player-type- was getting changed out of his suit and I had to do a double-take- his junk was the size of a horse's. I of course assumed every other guy had one like that too, having never before been exposed to one other than my own. I hadn't yet begun my pubescent transformation and was mortified that someone would see my own tackle and I'd be the laughingstock of the school.

Nowadays, I'll change in the gym lockerroom with the same speed I do it at home. I don't linger naked, but I don't scramble to get covered either. I don't walk around naked. Clothes come off, wrap a towel, go to the showers, towel goes on a hook, finish shower, dry off, towel around waist, back to locker and get dressed.

[DMark]

In my public, small town, Midwestern high school, they had an old swimming pool with just two small locker rooms - one for the boys and one for the girls.

Girls had an odd, one-size-fits-all suit that they wore and then threw in with towels at the end of swimming class.

Boys all swam in the nude! Yep - four years of swimming classes and four years of nude swimming. The first couple of classes were a bit intimidating, but after awhile, you didn't care. My cousin still works at the high school and said it is still the school policy.

I remember one swimming class where the school bells were out of sync and all the boys dove into the pool in a hurry when the girls swimming class suddenly appeared out of nowhere to begin their class.

There was another incident with one of the guys who was rather proud of what he had and intentionally got, uh, excited as a joke. The swim coach made him stand on the end of the diving board until everything returned to normal.

This same public high school also had mandatory ROTC for a minimum of one year.

I tell people these stories and hardly anybody ever believes me, but it is all true.


Specific to the OP - I used to go to a Gay gym in West Hollywood and it depended on the person. Some guys just loved ambling nude over to the showers, taking their sweet time and putting it out there for the world to see - other guys wouldn't even take a shower and just left and went home to shower. Almost all of the guys were in good to fantastic shape, so I think it had less to do with body image than personal preference. Some people don't care, others are more modest.

[alphaboi867]

Originally Posted by DMark

...Boys all swam in the nude! Yep - four years of swimming classes and four years of nude swimming. The first couple of classes were a bit intimidating, but after awhile, you didn't care. My cousin still works at the high school and said it is still the school policy...

Really? It's still policy? I asked the same question in GQ, but didn't get a real answer. I assume this is in the US.

[Rodgers01]

Originally Posted by DMark

Girls had an odd, one-size-fits-all suit that they wore and then threw in with towels at the end of swimming class.

Boys all swam in the nude! Yep - four years of swimming classes and four years of nude swimming. The first couple of classes were a bit intimidating, but after awhile, you didn't care. My cousin still works at the high school and said it is still the school policy.

I, too, find it incredible that that would still be polcy today! Anyways, what was the rationale for having the girls using bathing suits but the guys swimming nude? Why not everyone either swims nude, or in suits?? What in the world is the point in swimming nude in the first place -- saves money?

[stpauler]

I dunno, I'm 33 and I've always been a modest guy. I belong to two gyms. One is at work, it's typically pretty empty when I go and I'll occassionally take a shower there as it's private and has its own stalls. The other gym is Lifetime Fitness. I sweat a lot more at Lifetime but they don't have private anything there, so I just slip my sweats on afterwards and shower at home. My partner on the other hand wanders around naked and has no qualms about nudity whatsoever and he's 37.

[DMark]

Originally Posted by Rodgers01

I, too, find it incredible that that would still be polcy today! Anyways, what was the rationale for having the girls using bathing suits but the guys swimming nude? Why not everyone either swims nude, or in suits?? What in the world is the point in swimming nude in the first place -- saves money?

Yep, still policy.

The rationale was because of the small locker rooms, they couldn't assign everyone permanent lockers - so there was no place to put wet bathing suits. And the one size fits all for guys was more problematic, as they would constantly be stretched out and would fall off most guys when they dove in or tried to swim fast, even if they tied the waist strings tight, so why even bother.

Supposedly, the girl's suits held up better because they were one piece and had the straps going over the shoulders, although I remember some girls complaining they were either too tight or too loose, but for the most part, their suits at least stayed on when they dove or swam fast.

My mother went to the same high school and it was even policy back then as well. To be honest, it got to be no big deal other than if you were unfortunate enough to have swimming first period of the day. Do you have any idea how cold that water was at 8:00 AM on a January morning in Illinois? The pool was "heated", but trust me, it was anything but warm. After that first plunge, every guy pretty much looked the same.

[Roboto]

I wish I didn't have to encounter naked men in the locker room . . . I don't consider myself to be homophobic, I just prefer not to have some guy's junk in my face.

Plus, I've seen some blatant weird naked guy behavior (guys blowdrying their pubes, etc) that weided me out and makes me uncomforatble in the lock room.

[Malienation]

Originally Posted by Rodgers01

If I can expostulate for a minute, I think there's another, larger reason at work here: a lot of younger people have never had to share much, period. In the past couple decades, birth rates have fallen, and average size of houses has grown larger. My impression is that in the "old days" you'd often have pretty big families (3+ kids) living in small-ish houses: everyone would have to share one bathroom, a couple siblings might have to share a bedroom, everyone would have to fight over one TV and wait their turn to use one telephone. People were, in general, bumping into one another a lot more. Nowadays, you have much smaller families living in much bigger houses. Most kids have never had to share a bedroom. Many of them have their own TV, and even their own private bathroom. Virtually all of them seem to have their own phones. I've read a couple articles where colleges are rushing to build individual dorm rooms, because incoming students don't want to have roommates -- they've never had to live in close quarters with anyone, and they don't want to. (My first roommate in college fit this profile -- he very clearly had never had to adjust to living with someone else before.) I'd guess somewhere in that transition it became unthinkable to have open showers.

Good point. When I was growing up, I shared a room with my brother until we were split up by college. When my sister went away to college (she's the oldest), we still shared a room...too used to it to care, I guess. Only one bathroom, too, so dad/son/son in there shaving/showering/taking a leak all at once was common too.

Along the same lines, I read somewhere that since many kids are used to eating alone in their rooms some have trouble eating in a group setting when going away to college. Now that's strange.

[Walloon]

You call a man's proudest possession "junk"? Shame on you.

[Spectre of Pithecanthropus]

Originally Posted by Walloon

Forget about "required", weren't you stinky and sweaty after gym class? Didn't you want to shower off after all that?

Right, after spending 35 minutes lackadaisically playing a sport I had absolutely no interest in, I reeked.

[Hypno-Toad]

For me, it's only an issue if the guys are unfamiliar to me. If it's faces that I've seen at the gym for years, it doesn't really bother me. But if it's a stranger, I'm more modest.

And I agree that it sucks to have some old guy's equipment jiggling next to my ear while I'm putting on my socks.

[Wee Bairn]

I took PE every year probably from grades 7-12 in 1983-1989 and never once saw anyone use the showers- I'm not even sure if they worked.