The change seem to have started in the late 70s early 80s where I grew up.
When I went to 7-12 building you showered after every gym class you had plenty time.
Coach, our gym teacher told us we had to shower so we did not stink up the next class
The only time you did not have to was when you had gym last class, showers were optional.
I found the experience character building in my life, it allowed me to be comfortable.
One thing you may read about is the increase of steroid use by boys some years later.
The study was to see if boys were using that to put on muscle like what they saw in the media.
That is/was a classic problem for women who use to be the modest ones compared to men.
I find the thread interesting as it confirms much of what I have witnessed in society.
The school I went to was somewhat diverse with about 20% being non white. I still see some of my old black friends at the local gym and they still till this day use the communal shower. This is not an old black guy or white guy issue.
Once and while we will sit and talk for 10-15 minutes after the steam sauna and a shower. I know when I leave the steam sauna I need at least 10-15 minutes to cool down. Most time I sit quietly on a towel by my locker. From time to time I might talk with some friends about news or sports if they are near by talking.
I am an old guy and the reason I sit naked is I am still sweating and do not want to put clothing on a wet body. My body is nothing to look at, but I am comfortable with myself, not fat but at 60+ things sag. I do not sit naked to show anything off, I am letting the air dry off what the towel did not.
There are a lot of young guys who either get dressed sweaty of dress like a kabuki dancer under a towel. The only reason it draws any attention is the amount of effort the guy take to ensure he is not seen naked. It is their hang up not mine. Being nude around other men, whether I know them or not has never been a real problem for me. There seems to be a lot of focus on seeing your junk by younger guys, who cares if your comfortable with your own sexuality. Being naked is not always sexual.
I’ve never been in a gym, but I’ve even observed this weird towel-dance behavior in gay bathhouses—places the attendees went to specifically to have anonymous sex with other men. Seems a little odd to, afterwards, suddenly become that coy.
All I have to say is: I wish men in locker rooms would be more modest.
I have to constantly refill my bottle of brain bleach due to the men I see walking around in the nude at my gym. Bleech!
Going into a all male locker room since age 6 where you were expected to change from your street clothing into swim trunks next to other men without using a towel. That was a rule at a local pool. It is where my father told me it was okay to be naked next to a guy while changing clothes. I was not sure what to do the first time with other guys around me getting naked. My dad said yes it is normal. We even showered naked after swimming all day to get pool stuff off us. It was eye opening I will admit.
The study I read suggests that since young men no longer are seeing other young men in showers or other times in the nude they no longer have the natural comparisons of what they look like and how they are developing as compared to other males their age. Now all they mostly get to compare themselves against is what they read or see in the media like porn or other media. The vast majority of these are not your average male bodies. So they try steroids to put on some muscle mass and also worry that their junk size is small compared to what they see.
This was not the case 30-40 years ago when guys would all pile in the locker room shower nude after gym class and would see other young males about the same age in a variation stage of devolvement. For me it was from 7th through 12 grade I had to take a shower after gym class. So living in a small town I saw all the guys older and younger than me at one time or another nude in the shower or the skinny dipping spot. I saw my body was not perfect but very few were.
For me it showed me I was pretty normal as compared to my peers and it made me less worried about body image. The study suggests that lack of this older comparison input young men have unreasonable expectations of what they should look like in body shape and size. It is interesting when you see the increase in steroid use as compared to the end of public showers after gym. Or the rise of male modesty.
Just as a data point: no modesty at all here in china. Heck, there are many guys that come from the showers still dripping wet and proceed to dry themselves off using the hairdryers :eek:
I have no issue with guys wandering around nude in the locker rooms (though I wouldn’t condone walking around still wet and using the hairdryers).
I’m long past giving a shit about seeing naked bodies. I wouldn’t raise an eyebrow (or anything else) in a hypothetical unisex changing room.
Though I do know at least one guy, who’s Muslim, who is uncomfortable about seeing naked bodies, so had to find a gym that had changing cubicles.
I was in the locker room with a friend the other day and was surprised at his behavior. I sat down on a bench, undressed, put on a towel, then walked over to the shower stall area. However, he got undressed in the stall, showered, then dressed in the stall and came back to the locker area nearly fully dressed. Seemed a bit over the top to prevent anyone from catching a glimpse of his body.
Electric and water is not a good combination, those are like 1500 watts at 230v that will cause some harm if not careful.
Interesting to read that in your country it is not a concern to be less modest and shower together without any worries. It use to be that way here but that was some years ago
Well, that’s an interesting theory, but it seems specious to me.
Guys have always wanted to be bigger and stronger. My suspicion is that the rise of steroid was due to availability…
You could be correct about the availability, I do not know for sure. The study had a graph of steroid use based production and year. I will have to look to see if I can find the link, it was on a men’s health website. It made it very clear that steroid use was more common with younger men as compared to past norms of boxers and other sports.
It did draw a comparison with women’s modesty and their efforts to look more like the un-natural women they would most often see in the media. As very young kid age 3-6 the woman’s locker room my mom took me in were all private cubicles. Women have been more modest than men for many more years. Look at all the social anxiety issues many women have with anorexia, etc.
It was much different than the men’s locker room that my father took me too at the same pool when I was 6 or 7 as I have mentioned earlier. I do recall asking my parents later about the reason and it was explained to me that women were more modest than men.
Going to that pool and using the locker rooms are some of my earliest memories as a child. I think because the pool was a special treat we only went i or 2 times a year. The locker room stood out based on the volume of people coming and going.
I never expected any sagging and keep myself in better shape than many my age but age and gravity take their toll. But when I look at myself in the shower mirror or in a hotel room full mirror I am not what I use to be.
beowulff keep that beech close you may need it as you grow old for yourself. I hope you do not expect to be buff all your life. As I mentioned before I am nothing to look at and I do sit in locker room naked to let the sauna sweat dry off. I do a hot cold treatment in the steam sauna where you get extremly hot and then poor ice cold water over yourself in the steam sauna. I do this for about an hour. So my body sweats a lot even after I have cold showered.
If some guy wants to stare at a average size old guy naked so be it. I am not ashamed of my body nor am I wanting to show it off. I think having been in public showers with other naked males of all ages I am more comfortable with myself when nude in a public locker room or shower.
Well, I’m 55…
Even though I try to stay in good condition, I’m still very modest. I believe in maintaining some semblance of decorum, even if other guys my age don’t.
Your situation is somewhat unique in that you have a legitimate need to sit around naked in the locker room. I can understand why you would do that. However, I would think you could still cool off pretty well even if you had a towel covering your lap.
In any case, most of the naked guys in the gym aren’t doing it out of necessity. The nude guys reading the paper, watching tv, shaving, talking, etc. seem like they just like being naked in public.
I think it comes down to making a reasonable effort to keep your genitals covered. If someone is changing clothes, then incidental nudity is expected. But if they are doing something like shaving, watching TV, or striking up conversations with strangers, then they should at least wear a towel so they cover their genitals.
I am 65 years old and do water aerobics 5 days a week at a local college in there indoor pool.
I’m pretty much a pudge ball, so, my problem is more embarrassment than modesty, but I’m working on it.
I think this is a large part of it. We also seem like a more gendered society in many ways. When i was young, feminism was about women and men not being trapped into gender stereotypes. Now we have people inventing new genders to describe exactly where they fall, and stores that sell “girls building blocks”, because, you know, if they aren’t pink girls wing want them.
I would say that many people would benefit by cooling down after showing and before dressing. At home, i usually hang around unclothed for a while after i wash my hair, and often after a regular shower. In the winter i wear my terry cloth robe, but in the summer i usually hang out nude. It’s not because i want to be nude in public (I’m alone in my bedroom) but because i don’t like getting dressed when i am still damp.
I think of locker rooms as a place where you don’t have to keep your genitals covered (perhaps because i am in my 50s), and it seems completely natural to me that a man might shave after the shower and before getting dressed. To me, it’s not a question of “do you need to be nude?”, rather, the question is " when do you need to be clothed? " and i think the answer is “before you leave the dressing room, and return to ‘public’.”
It’s interesting to read that you find it rude for someone to do ordinary locker room stuff, like shave or chat with a friend, while undressed.
(TV guy, or people chatting up strangers in the buff, seem weird and possibly creepy to me, though.)
The locker room is still a public area. There are all types of people there and they have all different types of sensibilities.
There’s no absolute right or wrong for nudity. It’s based on the society you’re in. If you’re in a locker room where most of the men are doing their day-to-day business naked, then that’s what’s normal. If you’re in a locker room where most men are in a towel other than when they’re dressing, that’s normal. I would say that generally in the US, casual nudity in the locker room is not the norm. I would imagine that in other countries it’s the complete opposite, where the person who’s not naked is thought of as strange.
I’m roughly the same age as the OP. Personally, I don’t have a problem being naked in the gym locker room, but my gym is less than ten minutes from home and work, so I’d rather just hit the gym, come home, and shower. If I were to shower at the gym, I’d need to bring a change of clothes, towel, and a set of shower stuff, and I have to worry about taking stuff in and out of the locker and if there’s a wait. If I go home, I just toss the workout clothes in the hamper, take a shower using the stuff that’s already there, then figure out what clean clothes I want to put on. So it might read as being worried about gym nudity, but it’s really just convenience for me.