Went to secondary (aka “high” I guess) school from 1992 to 1998 in Scotland and for the first four years I did PE. I was chubby and really shy for most of those four years, and as far as I can remember I avoided showering after PE as much as possible. Some of the more alpha kids would shower after PE class but a lot would be like me.
However, an adulthood of playing “soccer” relentlessly and going through bursts of gym-going, combined with losing the weight I was carrying age 13-16 has conditioned me to being used to being naked in front of other men. Play football, take a communal shower after, and head home or to the pub - no big deal. But yeah I see kids like 10 years younger than me and in much better shape than me kinda covering things up in the changing rooms at the gym.
So men and women should not care who is staring at them in the locker room when you people are clearly staring at us enough to see how we are getting dressed?
I mean, you saw someone showering with their underwear! How did you see this if you weren’t staring? Maybe you should stop staring at other people!
Me, I have lost some of my modesty but I will never lose all. It’s all in the upbringing. People in my family simply did not get undressed in public. I showered in PE but I didn’t walk around the locker rooms naked, and I still don’t. I shower at the gym, walk back to my locker with my towel firmly wrapped around me, and yes, I do put my pants on before I remove the towel.
I don’t really want to expose my entire naked body to strangers. And I don’t really give a shit if people think it’s silly. I’m at the gym, I’m working out, could you please reserve your judgment?
I think it’s more that we notice what’s unusual more than we’re staring. I also notice people who shower in their underwear and change under a towel because it stands out. The ironic thing is that the people doing that are trying to be more modest, but they probably get looked at more than if they just blended in with what everyone else is doing.
But I can guarantee you I don’t shower in my underwear. But then again, I guess you wouldn’t know, because we have curtains. How do you know people shower in their underwear?
This is ridiculous. People who do weird things stand out and are noticed. Fear of taking a normal shower by wearing underwear and dancing around with a towel while trying to get dressed are going to make you stand out and get more attention.
STOP LOOKING. I mean, why do you care? This is the part I don’t get. I’m at the gym to work out, not to flash my girlie parts everywhere. Do you ever think this kind of shit is maybe why people stop going to the gym? Why can’t you just mind your own freakin business?
And again, I don’t wear my underwear in the shower, and how would you know anyway, unless you were creeping?
Most showers I see are communal. Easy to see if you’re wearing underwear or not. I will grant you, it’s no ones business. I don’t think anyone here really “cares,” but are just discussing the differences in our attitudes, etc. We have the same kind of discussions about food (ketchup on your hot dog?). Personally, I’m fine with people on the modest end of the spectrum, but it is something of a shift from the “old days.” Of perceived to be, at least.
In a communal shower, I might just wear underwear! We don’t have communal showers, we have individual showers. And I do change by my locker, but this is an improvement over past years, where I used to change in a private room.
Your old days are nothing like my old days. Like jz says, it’s a white people thing! Other Indian women in the gym are even more conservative than me. The reason I am even as casual as I am is because I’m almost 40 now and just don’t give a shit anymore.
But I’m not skinny or svelte. I’m at the gym because I am not skinny or svelte. I don’t really feel comfortable stripping naked anyway and not being skinny makes it worse.
I was at a waterpark a few months ago and we, like I’m sure many other people did, checked out of our room on the last day and then went swimming for a few hours and used the shower/changing room to wash off and change into real people clothes and it was hilarious. I’ve never seen so many guys unsure of what level of nakedness was acceptable.
I am not going out of my way to look at anything. But if someone is doing something weird right in front of me, I can’t help but notice. And I don’t give a shit what people do. I just think it’s funny and a bit sad how uncomfortable some people are about something so mundane.
You sound like the sort who should just get a home treadmill or something.
I can’t wear my glasses when I’m swimming (and contacts + swimming = bad idea), so everyone in the locker room looks like a vague blob to me, unless they’re very close up.
And yet, I know about all the nudity and fear-of-nudity shenanigans. How? Well, the creepy old guys who sit around in the lockerroom naked all day* are desperate for attention and latch onto anyone so they can ramble on about crap no one cares about… and they have to do that standing naked, three inches away from my face while I’m sitting down.
And the young towl-dance dressers are wriggling around in a crowded lockerroom, bumping into everyone trying to dress like adults. Or are hogging all the bathroom stalls as changing rooms, while the naked old guys are loudly complaining (and nakedly) that they need to use the toilet.
We care because this is ANNOYING. Not because we want to point and stare at your ladybits/manbits. I can’t see them, anyway, and eew besides.
I mean this literally. There was a guy who would come into the lockerroom early in the day, strip down to nothing, and sit on the vinyl couch watching Fox news all day. I never saw him in a workout area. The staff never saw him anywhere but sweating up the vinyl couch, and had to start posting signs because of complaints about his trying to control the tv and leaving wet buttcheek sweatstains on the vinyl. Naked TV Nazi no longer comes by to undress and watch tv, so we think he may have died.
I am not going to get a home treadmill. I am literally just going to continue not to care about what you think, and change exactly as I see fit. I like going to the gym because there is nothing else to do there but exercise. At home, I get distracted.
I promise I don’t hop around bumping into people, though. I am very cognizant of my space. I don’t care how other people get dressed, I care more about the people who have their stuff strewn all the way across the bench, or don’t put it in a locker, leaving it for you to trip over.
I don’t hog the dressing rooms either.
I am part of a family gym, which means I see many levels of comfort. Some people strip all the way naked and sit their bare asses down on the bench (eew!) and slowly, laboriously change into their clothes. Some people (mostly old or E. Asian) walk around naked. Some change under their towels. Some change in the changing rooms. Some change partly under their towels, like me. (I generally pull my pants on while my towel is still on. Then I take the towel off and put on my bra/shirt.
I just don’t get why we can’t just all politely ignore each other. I am not as comfortable with nudity as you. At almost 40 years old, I don’t really give a shit whether other people think I am weird or not. I just think you need to mind your own freakin business.
We are minding our own business. We are discussing it here, like we do lots of trivial issues. No one is saying to anyone “wow you are weird” to people in person at the gym. We are just thinking it to ourselves if we see strange behavior like showering in underwear or taking drastic measures to not be naked for 5 seconds.
Yeah, it’s dangerous to close one’s eyes in the locker room, you never know what you might run into.
Seriously, Anaamika, it’s unfortunate that there were one or two posts that did sound judgmental because most of us are just remarking on what seems (so us) an odd way that things have changed, and speculating about possible reasons.
This seems like a sensitive subject for you (based on how the tone of your posts here is so different from your usual tone) but really, I doubt if anyone is judging your behavior or appearance in the locker room. I’ve belonged to a lot of gyms over the years and in none of them have I ever felt like anyone was judging (or even cared) how I looked, even when I was very sensitive about being fat. It is difficult not to notice what is going on around one, even if one tries to keep one’s eyes on the ground.
Oh, you said “old white people!” Wow, thanks for clarifying. All this time I’ve been thinking I had a right to exercise dictatorial control over other people’s locker room changing habits, but since you’ve helpfully notified us that old white people are evil, I totally see the error of my ways. :rolleyes:
Yes, in addition to all the old guys who immediately strip down and then conduct all their business while in the locker room naked (like the guys I’ve seen more than once standing at the sinks shaving, totally naked) I once encountered a naked locker room reader. When I entered the locker room, he was sitting on a bench (at least he had a towel under him) totally naked, reading a magazine. I came back from my workout, opened my locker, got out my towel, went and took a shower, came back to the locker, got dressed, and left the gym–at which time he was still sitting on the bench reading his magazine, naked. Your Naked TV Nazi takes the cake, though.
We are politely ignoring each other and minding our own freakin business. Like Living Well said, we aren’t accosting people in real life about it. We’re discussing it on an anonymous online forum. And we’re not staring. Human beings are wired to notice things out of the ordinary out of the corner of our eye, in case you hadn’t noticed.
If the car pool of high schoolers I drive is any indication, young people today think an eye watering, asthma inducingly heavy application of Axe body spray can substitute for a shower.
So… how do you know that if you weren’t looking?
I’m not an old white guy… I’m a 40+ Native American woman. My middle and high school had compulsory showers with teachers watching you shower. Plus I have went to a gynecologist for 20 years, given birth 3 times, was born into a family of 8 and have had multiple kidney surgeries. All of which means any sense of modesty has gone out of the window.
That doesn’t mean I run around my house or in public naked. It just means not only don’t I care what you see but I don’t care about what I see in private or public. If I notice a guy wearing short shorts and his balls hanging out accidentally*, I avert my eyes and laugh to myself. If I see a mom nursing her child and the kid pulls off flashing mom’s nipple to the world, I smile. If I see a guy in a trench coat flashing people, I call the cops.
And I never get my panties in a bunch because I go commando.
*That was at a company picnic so I know it wasn’t some guy getting off on doing so. Or there would have been Stories.