Also, does this imply that any man being looked at by a woman would be perfectly acceptable, but not the other way around?
Just to go further with this, who makes that decision? You?
I’m guessing there are people that it may very gorram well matter to.
Who’s to say that their opinion in this case is not a valid one?
Interesting to see these thoughts, thanks for the discussion.
I am sure there is no solution, but if it were just some guy or gal floating around the opposite locker room, it WOULD be thought of as wrong, in American culture anyway.
Oh I know you ! You’re the guy at the end of the bench, legs akimbo, completely relaxed, genitalia just brushing against the floor, reading David Pogue’s latest book.
Is that even a crime? It might get your membership revoked or something, but is that a crime? Disturbing the peace or something?
I answered your question. A men’s locker room is for men. Or, the ones with penises, generally speaking. Bathrooms & locker rooms aren’t designed for “people who like vaginas change in here, and people who like penises change over there.”
Where are kids supposed to change clothes, before they’ve even figured out which they prefer?
In the gym I frequent, kids aged four or over are not allowed in the opposite-sex locker rooms.
(I should mention that my gym has a separate “play area” where kids can spend their time while mom/dad is working out. I’ve never been in there, but I assume that there are bathrooms off of that play area.)
At a water park when I was in high school I once saw a man bring his daughter (6, 7?) into the mens changing room, then freak out and start telling people to cover up and saying something about “perverts exposing themselves” before storming out. Another time I was staying at a small mom & pop campground with my parents. The mens showers were communal. I was in the gift shop/camp store off the reception area when some woman stormed in with her (fully clothed) 11/12 year old son, and tore into the desk clerk with a rant about how there were “naked men” in there with her son, and how she never would’ve let her son go inside if she knew, etc. The boy’s hair was wet so I assumed he did take a shower, but the whole time she was standing there yelling he looked like wanted to crawl into a hole and die.
If locker rooms are to be changed to “people who like penises” change together and “people who like vaginas” change together, I am so going to get my penis hating card right now. Where do I apply and what do I have to do to pass the test?
My gym lets girls aged 7 and under in the men’s changing room, I think I’ve seen them once. Not to harp on about it, but I was struck but the ages of children in the men’s changing area in the Swedish swimming baths and sauna that I went to. A dad had his two kids with them, a boy and a girl, and I would have guessed they were probably about 9 or 10. No-one was bothered about it.
I was talking with my sister-in-law one time about her visiting Iceland for the first time and her experience as an American being exposed to the Scandinavian public pools: until she got used to the idea that other women are getting naked, wandering around, washing themselves, then hopping into the pool with a bathing suit on, it was a little awkward. The only major difference between your experience and mine is that Icelanders are stricter with the gender separation of changing rooms.
It depends on the school. The middle school I went to had and still has gang showers, which nobody used. When I played volleyball in high school, we had shower booths, which I used on many an occasion. I would have used the gang showers if 1) there was enough time to do so, and 2) it weren’t completely socially verboten by the rest of the middle school girls. Seriously, I came in my first day of gym in middle school and was surprised that I was the ONLY PERSON WHO BROUGHT A TOWEL.
I’ve never experienced that in the States, but Icelandic pools follow the “if your child is in school, they can use their own gender’s changing rooms”.
This thread is relevant. I mean, I’m not a man, but I’ve started going to the Y for swimming laps in the mornings. I am, frankly, amazed at the amount of women who just walk around naked. I really will never get them, and I suppose they will never get me.
When you walk into the locker room, you have to swing a right to get to the lockers. Immediately to your right are curtained changing rooms. You actually have to take a few steps to your left to get to the lockers. It is super convenient.
I always change in the changing room. I would NEVER walk around naked unless someone stole my towel, I guess, and I would be humiliated in that case. I will walk back from the shower with just a towel wrapped around me, but it’s a pretty big towel, down to the middle of my thighs.
I know it’s the way I was brought up, in a conservative household. But why does anyone care? I don’t understand the naked-walkers but I don’t expect them to change inside the changing rooms. I will continue to change in the changing room forever.
Some of us are just more modest than others.
I especially don’t get the ones who insist on changing RIGHT IN FRONT OF the only mirror in that section of the locker room. Really? Some of the rest of us might want to use it, too.
So. No nudity for me. I don’t care how accepted it is. I probably wouldn’t do it in foreign climes either. I don’t intend to change that.
Oh, I do get naked in the shower, and I ALWAYS wear my flip-flops.
Meh, I have spent enough time stuck in doctors offices and hospitals I just don’t give a shit any longer. I am 50, fat and your basic handicapped hausfrau. If you want to point and laugh, I will be smug knowing that all pretty flesh will too soon pass. Everybody gets old.
I can’t even remember the last time I was told to take my clothes off and wait for the doctor. Do they still do that some places? I’m almost always fully clothed unless they want to x-ray something.
No, me too. Even the gyn gives me a robe (and mine gives me warm comfy sock/slippers! they are awesome!) I think they have finally gotten the idea that it’s uncomfortable to sit around naked!
It’s been about the same time since I was in high school, but that’s exactly what the girl’s showers were like, too, and showers were required. Also, boys swam nude in PE (same-sex classes back then, obviously), so I imagine they got over that shyness right away, or they learned to hide their discomfort.
I’ve always wondered about that. Don’t the penis and balls like, wave all over the place? Get between your legs?
Honestly it’s because of balls alone that I am so glad I am a woman. I can’t imagine how men deal with them between their legs all the time.
Oh and I went to high school in the early 90s and there was no nude co-showering and certainly no nude swimming. Granted, our school didn’t have a pool. I don’t think we ever showered after gym class, but I can’t really remember.
I have wondered that, too. A good swimsuit would get them out of the way.
Your second comment reminds me of something Elaine said in a Seinfeld episode. I think it was the shrinkage one, and I agreed with her as I do you.
Anyway, if it’s not cameras or thinking people are looking at you (and is that something that most dads teach their sons? Keep your eyes to yourself in the bathroom and locker room? Or am I missing some important point of male etiquette here?), is it cultural? It sounds like men don’t do that in Europe. What about Japan?
Unless you’re wearing one of those super expensive, high-tech Olympic swimsuits that are slicker then human skin you’re still more “aquadynamic” naked, even without shaving all your body hair off. It’s also alot more comfortable and hygenic (since it’s easier to just make everybody take a proper shower before going into the pool that it is to make everybody take a proper shower and verify that their suits are clean).
Let’s face it boys have a habit of just leaving their gym clothes in their lockers for extended periods of time. That was the case at my school (I admit I did leave clothes in my locker for a week or two, but I also skipped PE alot :o). We didn’t have a pool, but if we did alot of guys probally would’ve done the same with their swimsuits. I knew a boy to transfered from another school with a pool. He hated swim class because they all had to wear school issued speedos they had to turn back in after each class. I guess that’s one way to ensure the suits are clean (probally pretty expensive too).
I don’t swim nude, but cold water makes a penis shrink to minimum size and contracts the scrotum so it’s darned near flush to the skin and certainly not “waving all over the place”. And since they’re between our legs our whole lives, we’re pretty much used to coping.
If you’ve got to have a couple of sensitive glands dangling in a sack, that’s probably the best place for them. Imagine if they were attached under your chin…
I’m amazed at how self-conscious some of you guys are. When I was in school, not only did we have mandatory showers after gym class, but we also had nude swimming class . . . just the boys; the girls wore suits, and swam in a different pool. Except for one really unfortunate kid, we all got used to it.
