On the advice of my doctor, I’ve recently joined a gym. It’s the fitness and aquatics center of the local college - very nice, new facility with one of the nicer locker rooms I’ve ever used.
I’ve noticed a great many of the women and girls (the local high school uses the pool for swim team) will go into the toilet stalls to change. I don’t entirely understand it - maybe it’s generational. Back in the olden days when I was in high school, we were all required to change for PE and shower afterwards - the only exception was when you had your period. After the initial weirdness of being naked in a big tile room with a bunch of other girls, it just wasn’t that big a deal. My husband says he’s never encountered such bashfulness in the men’s locker room.
I’m slightly bashful, but if everyone else is getting changed in the locker room, I will too. If other people are going off into toilet/shower stalls, I’m not going to be the exhibitionist who bucks the trend.
I just change clothes. When I’m done, I strip off, put on a towel, get in the shower, put on a towel, walk back and put my clothes back on. I grab my things and go do my hair and makeup, then off to work.
I do occasionally see women changing in the stalls (2) they have for the purpose - probably to stop them hogging the toilets to change. I don’t think it’s odd but as the meme says, ain’t nobody got time for that.
I don’t see women strutting around topless. Those of us who don’t care about being seen naked are modest about it. once I’m shirtless the first step is to put a shirt on.
Teenage girls and preteen girls want to change in the shower or toilet stalls. Totally annoying for those of us who want to take a shower or pee.
I went to the gym a few times with a friend who has a rockin body (I have the opposite of that) and she changed in a stall. I was very surprised. What did she have to hide?
Just goes to show that women of all shapes and sizes are ashamed of their bodies. And some lots of women that people think should be… Aren’t.
Me as well. Maybe it’s funny to say this, but I was taught to use discretion while maintaining locker room efficiency for politeness sake. The first means that you don’t run around naked, you cover yourself as appropriate (a towel between shower and locker), you try and choose a locker with sme distance between you and the other people in the yoga class, the second means that there really aren’t adequate toilet stalls in the locker room I use for changing, and they are needed for people who have to use the toilet, don’t use them to change without consideration for others.
It would be nice to have changing stalls, but my locker room doesn’t.
I’ve done it but I’m not crazy about it. There’s always somebody strutting around butt nekkid (blow drying her hair even!) And then there’s the one hunched over on the end of the bench, trying to pull on pants while taking off a sports bra.
I fall somewhere in between. That’s why I’d rather have a marguita.
Because from birth we are bombarded with messages about the ideal body, and are completely paranoid that we are too fat/too thin/wrong shape/small tits/big arse, you name it. Men have no idea of the anxiety women feel about their bodies thanks to centuries of the world thinking a woman’s only worth is her beauty.
You think all that pressure doesn’t have an effect on how women feel about their bodies? It does, big time.
I’m a “keep mostly covered” but that’s’ if I’m not straight home afterward (in which case I’ll just shower and change here). I don’t feel the need to hide in the toilet stall - but generally I’ll put on bra & underwear post shower, in that area, then finish dressing out in the locker area.
The reasons for this are that my gym is on the campus where I work, with lots of students (including mine), immediate coworkers and colleagues from other departments. I honestly feel like there’s no need for them to know what I look like nekkid.
I found English people do that, change in the loo. Not in the gym (I wouldn’t know) but in the theatre! Of all places! IME the theatre is always the most progressive of places, and actors the most liberal people. At my drama school in the Netherlands the changing rooms were not even gender segregated. I was shocked that fellow actors in England would hide in the loo to change a t-shirt! Half the time it was one of those t-shirts with low arms through which you could see their bra anyway.
It’s by no means a universal thing, it differs from place to place and among groups of people. But it was enough to confirm for me that there is a difference between England and the Netherlands.
I try to go with the prevailing culture of the particular locker room. Frankly, I’d just as soon expend zero effort on not being visibly naked, and trust to everyone being an adult and practicing “custody of the eyes” - you might glimpse someone’s body, but you don’t stare. NBD. But that seems to freak some people out, so at the Y I bring a sarong to cover me between the showers and my locker. I’m not going to scurry to a stall or hunch over trying to shield all view as I pull on my underpants.
That said, there was once a naked chick putting on makeup at the sink, and in the process she was mashing and rubbing her pubes all over the edge of the counter. Like, luxuriantly and thoroughly. THAT is definitely over my comfort line!
What I don’t understand is , why are you watching us??? I hate that. I don’t change in the toilet stalls but I hate the feeling that women are all watching what I do.
If there’s a lot of women in the stalls I’ll maybe go in a changing room. Otherwise I’ve gotten used to changing right there…but I don’t flaunt it. Some women walk around naked, I’m glad they feel comfortable but I never could. I uncover as little as possible.
Hogging the toilet stalls is a little rude, but I don’t want to judge anyone’s level of comfort, lest they judge mine.
My gf was talking to a French couple on the beach. They were discussing bathing suit sales (in French, so I did not have a clue). At one point the dude stood up and got his new suit out of their beach bag; and changed into it. On the beach. Standing next to me.
So…there I am laying horizontal in my chaise lounge with some French dude’s penis swinging around by my head. Totally surreal.
