Actually, it’s to reduce the chance of spreading foot-fungus and other diseases by limiting floor/bare foot contact. It has nothing to do with masculinity unless you firmly believe that Real Men® must have athlete’s foot or they’re really just sissies.
Not wearing flip flops in the shower was sure a crime when I was in the Navy. Athlete’s foot was a BIG issue to avoid. Going barefoot in the showers led to open censure for so casually spreading your infections (real or imagined) with everyone else. Sure, there were weekly cleaning details, but in between, there was bacterial buildup. And it doesn’t ALL wash down the drain with the water. Anywhere that puddles of water are left standing are prime areas for infection. And with dozens, hundreds, of men showering daily, the puddles may move, but they rarely dry up. You can’t avoid stepping in them; just go around the deeper ones so the standing water doesn’t get up to your toes.
I believe most of the prep school circuit still uses showers like this. Maybe it’s because they were constructed at an older time and the schools don’t want to replace them. Everyone used the showers (which were made of a pole with 5 spigots coming out of them) in my gym after whatever practice you had. Hell, some of the hockey guys used to shave their balls while we were all showering. First time I ever saw a razor get near a scrot, and it made me plenty nervous.
Heard tell that the girls’ lockers had individual stalls, but no curtains, or some such. Most of the girls went back to their dorms to shower. Lots of college gyms were set up the same way. I haven’t spent much time in commercial gyms, but I’ve often wondered about why people are so shy as well. Especially since I regularly sit in baths with naked grandpas these days.
Also a private school can simply require all students shower and that’s the end of it. They don’t have to worry about that one mother threatening to sue the school because her “precious baby” is being forced to “expose himself”. If she did she’d just be told to enroll her kid in another school. I knew some guys in college who went to expensive boarding schools (including a military school) and they all had a complete and total lack of modesty compared to most men our age.
Dad was in the Navy and he was the one that drilled it into my head to never go barefoot in any kind of lockerroom as a kid. Nowhere, not even the (usually) private showers at campgrounds. The one time I did get athelete’s foot was in college, from the shower in a private bathroom in a suite I shared with 3 other guys.
Real men don’t read instructions…
Until they have been trying to fix something for 7 hours and it’s dark outside
While I understand the idea that shoes SHOULD stop the spread of foot disease I’ve never understood the point of expecting flip-flops to do the job. Flip-flops just trap the filthy water between the rubber soles and ones feet and flip germs right and left as you walk. Ewwww. Athletes foot needs a moist environment to thrive and that is exactly what flip-flops provide. I can’t think of a better way to incubate germs except for maybe taking off the flops and immediately putting on some polyester socks.
Just pee on them.
When I had high school P.E. (mid 90s) the coach only made us shower twice during the year. Both times I got horrible athlete’s foot. I never did try using flip-flops (maybe if we had some warning that we’d have to shower) so I don’t know how well they work, but I can testify that you can get athlete’s foot from a shower.
I know that the UTD makes me unreasonably angry. Why are you so shy, young fella?
Is there a value judgement to be made here? Is it reasonable to be irritated that men (and boys) seem to be ashamed of their bodies? I want to be angry about this, but maybe this is the new normal and it’ll be illegal to be a naked male in front of other naked males in 20 years.
Don’t be irritated. Be smug about it. While you’re at it, wave your private parts around so that they get irritated. That’s what I do.
Sometimes it’s fun being old.
I am in the “change clothes, no towel dance, get the hell out” club when it comes to locker rooms.
There is one old gent, we’ll call him “naked creepy dude” for reference.
I show up for a 2 hour work out, and NCD is in there taking off his 40 piece ensemble of belts, pads, braces, spandex, head bands and “do” rags.
I change, head out to work out.
Come back in and get cleaned up, change clothes, and NCD is STILL in the damned locker room. Butt-assed naked (BAN) and just sitting on a bench, then he goes for the “naked shave with junk on the sink” that was previously mentioned, followed by a stroll through the locker room up to the toilet/sink area (still butt-assed nekkid) and uses the urinal, also BAN.
I mean, come the frakk on.
As far as the original question goes, my comment is, isn’t it a bit “wrong” to shower with dudes when they are what you find attractive? I mean, to the other dudes that don’t share your particular views?
It would be like me showering in the women’s locker room. Or is that way off the mark?
No idea what the solution to that is, but just seems a bit strange.
FTR, I have a gay acquaintance that works out at the same gym. Not good enough friends to ask that, but I always wonder.
It does irritate me a bit, because of the underlying cultural attitude it represents. OTOH I can’t entirely blame the (virtually all, IME) younger men who do this because it’s been drummed into them that the male’s body is ugly and the female’s beautiful; and, moreover, that only homosexual men dare to bare more.
At the same time, it’s only fair to point out that the phobia Americans have about nudity goes beyond the question of whether it’s male or female. I doubt if foreigners fully appreciate how far it goes, and it cuts across most political viewpoints. By way of illustration, there’s a legal nude beach in northern San Diego County (Black’s). Going north from there, there isn’t another one until you get up to the Bay Area. You’d think we could have a hundred yards in each county, but no.
I’m a woman, but this thread is interesting. I’ve never been a member of a gym but now that I’m an exercise fiend I would like to, when I have more spending money. Will be interested to see the habits of people in the locker room.
Re: the barefoot thing - athlete’s foot is mostly an issue of susceptibility rather than exposure. I have always gone barefoot everywhere possible, inside and out, including in many pool showers, and I had it once in my childhood but never since then.
Of course if your skin is prone to being infected by the fungus, it would be wise to take precautions.
What’s being described in this thread is a LOT more prudish than what I see in the women’s locker room at my dojo. No one parades around nekkid, but no one is contorting themselves to remain covered either. You need to put on a sports bra, you gotta bare your boobs first. And when you’re wrestling the twins into said sports bra, there’s going to be more than a flash on occasion.
I really don’t care if a gay woman catches an eyeful of my rack while I’m changing; as long as their behavior is appropriate, everything is fine.
I meant, virtually all the men I’ve seen doing the UTD are young, not that every young guy does it. I’ve only really seen it a handful of times over years of belonging to health clubs.
I don’t think the purpose of segregating nude men from nude women is to prevent men from getting looked at.
Basically if you have a penis, you get naked with the other penises. It doesn’t matter what your sexual interests are.
That applies to any endeavor. We’ve long had an adage:
Never Bother With the Instructions.
Until all else fails.
I think you are misunderstanding (and maybe attempting to make this a “poor men” argument from me? ).
It’s not a matter of which sex is being seen by an opposite sex or persuation so much as the fact that they ARE.
If I walked into the women’s locker room, it would be seen as a crime. Not because of what they would see, but because of what they assume I am there to see.
As I said, it doesn’t bother me, just something I have though of before and was curious to get an honest answer from a proclaimed gay man.
I use the gym at my office, during my lunch. Where else am I supposed to shower?
No, I “get” it. I even have no problem with it, myself (for god’s sake, it’s just nekkidness)…just curious about thoughts on it.
It’s not like we can have a locker room for every different persuation, hell we’d have 20 locker rooms, these days. 
Anyway, was just trying to “Fight Ignorance”.