Maybe the gym could post a sign: “Warning, entering this locker room may expose you to same-sex nudity.”
That’d solve everything.
The last gym I was a member of was an all-male, Gay gym in West Hollywood.
As many of the guys who worked out there also could be seen in porno films, nudity was not a problem in the shower room. However, in case you ever want to get an inferiority complex the size of Alaska, stand naked in a shower room full of nude bodybuilding Gay porn actors.
Most of the out-of-shape guys hid behind the fake palm trees in the corner to get dressed in a hurry. I still have the imprint of a betel palm on my butt.
Oh, and despite what you might think at an all-male Gay gym, there was never anything sexually active happening there - a big no-no in the club. Not to say people didn’t meet and maybe get together later, but the shower room was really just that - a room to take a shower and get dressed.
As already mentioned, within just the last couple of decades, a lot people did not have a problem with extensive locker room nudity.
Why should someone’s alternate attitude to this be regarded as a valid thing to be taken into consideration?
I don’t know how many ways I can ask the same freakin’ question.
Apparently, as many times as I have to give the same freakin’ answer.
You have to take someone else’s attitude into consideration because it’s the polite thing to do.
Perhaps you would have better luck contacting Miss Manners on this topic.
The attitude has to be reasonable. Why is it reasonable for someone to suddenly demand modesty in a place that has long been traditionally nude? That’s the question I want answered.
I’m with scotandrsn on this one. Not too long ago, men swam in the nude at YMCAs. At the Milwaukee Athletic Club, men still swim in the nude. Nudity has long been the norm not only in the locker room, but in the showers, in the sauna, and in the swimming pool.
The Missouri Athletic Club still allows its members to roam around nude (much to our surprise at our prom 15 years ago). As do nudist clubs, as noted previously. I’d imagine there are a great many places like that which do not fall under the “gym locker room” that most people here are attending.
Are you suggesting that nudity is still commonly allowed in swimming pools, that you would include it among your examples of where it is “the norm”? If it’s not still common, then how is it a relevant example of what people here have encountered, in their experience? “Not so long ago” seems distinctly not to be “now”.
I can’t recall anyone in this thread suggesting that they’re uncomfortable with unexpected nakedness in the showers or the sauna. In fact, most of the people commenting were discussing nudity while blow-drying pubic hair, nudity while shaving at the sink, nudity while sitting for a while on benches or chairs, nudity while roaming around the locker room, or nudity while engaged in conversations.
I agree with scotandrsn also, but nude swimming at the YMCA? How long ago is not too long ago because I belonged to the YMCA in the 70’s and it was a co-ed organization by then. I was on the swim team for years.
Anyway, I was taught as a kid that the locker room/sauna areas are OK places to be naked with the other guys. But to me there’s a difference between temporarily naked while showering, using the sauna etc. and what that one guys does. The guy the OP talks about. He’ll sit there, naked in the middle of the locker room, for hours. There always seems to be one of these guys. It seems like he’s crossing a thin line between getting naked with the guys, and spending a little too much time naked with the guys, as if it were a nudist camp or something.
Note to self, never borrow deodorant.
I don’t generally prance around the locker room naked, but I do change clothes in there before my workout. It doesn’t bother me at all to change in front of people, but I have gotten the feeling that it makes others uncomfortable. In my experience, women have always acted strangely in locker rooms. Most of them seem to try to hide their bodies, and they get weird around those who don’t.
Generally, I think the majority of people (especially women) have hangups and body issues that make them very nervous when faced with the prospect of getting naked or seeing someone else naked in a locker room situation.
Am I the only one finding it amusing that people are complaining about nudity at the gymnasium?
I’m female, so I guess I’m not really the target for this poll, but FWIW:
- Pretty casual.
- I’m 32
- I’d say women around thirty and above are much more likely to be comfortable naked. My impression is that women who are married, have had children, and have had time to get over trying to be the perfect sex object are less inhibited about nudity. Teenage girls are the most neurotic about it.
My attitude is summed up by Buffy the Vampire Slayer: “This is a naked place!” I would say if one doesn’t like seeing naked people, one needs to avoid locker rooms, not complain that people should obsessively cover and/or hide while changing and getting ready in the locker room.
There are some good reasons for somewhat extended nudity in locker rooms. I’m currently one of those people who can’t cover everything with a gym towel, so I sling it over my shoulder. Sometimes I weigh myself at the gym, and it’s easier to do it nude and avoid having to guesstimate the weight of my sneakers and sweatpants.
As for hanging out or doing your hair naked, I can see doing this to give your body temperature time to drop before dressing. This is especially true if you’re going to work and have to wear relatively heavy clothing like a business suit. As was said above, no matter how frigid a shower I take, my metabolism is still really pumped up after a workout, and I continue to sweat - putting on heavy or synthetic clothes is uncomfortable, and makes me sweatier, as well as making my nice clean clothes sweaty.
That said, I do realize it would freak some people out for me to absolutely traipse about naked, so I try not to push it. However, I do feel a bit resentful about it. I wish people would get over their pathological fear of the human body in this country.