I think you ought to talk to the management of your Y (or fill out a comment card, if they have them.)
At our YMCA, we have separate adult locker rooms in the aerobics facilities. No children (other than infants who are being brought in to nurse) are allowed in them. There are separate childrens/family locker room downstairs. Children up through age 5 may go in the opposite sex locker room with their parent (e.g., a son can go into the girls’ locker room with his mom.) There is a similar 5-year old policy for the locker rooms at the pool facility.
IMO (and, obviously, in the opinion of our Y), 6 year olds should be capable of getting changed on their own. In some places, I would be very nervous about sending a child that age into a restroom/locker room on their own. I was not nervous in the YMCA. (I also wouldn’t hesitate to ask a YMCA staff member to check on my child there, if need be.)
So are you comparing her to a prostitute or stripper now? Listen closely, she was saying she was uncomfortable by his presence. If you think that being given money would have made her less comfortable, let me know what drugs you’re on so I can avoid them.
At a public bath the other day (which is segregated by sex), a woman called in her nine or ten year old grandson to look at my baby. The grandson was fully dressed, while the woman, myself and three other women were completely naked.
I didn’t freak out, but I can totally sympathise with featherlou. I deliberately chose to use a sex-segregated bath over a communal one so I wouldn’t encounter strange men or boys. Having one waltz in without a care in the world was pretty bizarre.
I think I have an inkling of the philosophy that zuma is getting at, but I don’t want to be accused of putting words in anyone’s mouth . . . and besides, I’m sure he’s going to dig himself a deep enough hole all on his own.
Guess what, doofus - I wouldn’t have sex with you. This is because I value my body. There’s no amount of $$ you could pay me to make me put out.
This is because I’m not a prostitute.
Despite the fact that I’ve gone topless on a number of occasions, I wouldn’t let you see my rack. This is because I value my body. There’s no amount of $$ you could pay me to check out my rack.
This is because you’re an idjit, and idjit’s don’t get to see the girls.
Now, perhaps you should cruse on back to your fantasy world.
He molests the TV when Victoria’s Secret commercials come on. I’ve caught him staring at my friends in a way that most would term ‘leering’. In short, some nine year old boys definitely want to look.
Sure, sure, everybody develops differently, but nine, in my opinion, is too old to be in a changing room for the opposite sex, where people are getting dressed and undressed. You’re in third, fourth grade at nine. You now about the differences between boys and girls, and more like as not, you’re starting to develop sexually. He shouldn’t be in there.
But that’s not really the point. Regardless of the child being…uh, “interested” in the oppisite sex in “that way” or not, the other people using the changing room shouldn’t have to deal with this. I’m sure most people, not just the OP, would find this situation uncomfortable. I’m one of the most uninhibited people I know, and I would find this wrong. It’s the girls’ room after all, that’s what the little caricature on the door wearing the dress means. Other facilities exist for parents and their children. It’s not like their needs aren’t being catered to.
Ducking and running from the flying boobies? Al’s not that old, is she? (That reminds me of something that happened at work today - the boss came in and asked my supervisor if she had any floppies (she’s about 45), then quickly clarified that he meant disks. I sniggered for a good while over that. :D)
When I was nine (eight, really) I was obsessed with boobies. All my male friends were obsessed with boobies. All the nine-year-old boys in class I wasn’t friends with were obsessed with boobies. In the boy’s change room before gym class, the main topic of conversation was which girls in class were developing boobies. Boobies, boobies, boobies. Mmmmmmm… boobies.
If my parents had had the poor taste to put me in the women’s locker room, there would have been a lot of leering. And leering makes people uncomfortable, especially if when they’re already naked and vulnerable, even if it’s a kid who’s still too young to understand why the boobies are so darn interesting or why the leering is so inappropriate.
The boy should have been in the family change room with mom or by himself in the men’s locker room. Likewise, I hope not to be put in the uncomfortable position of having to cover up should some pinhead bring his nine-year-old daughter into the men’s locker room. It’s just inappropriate. If you want your kids to hang around with naked adults, do so in the comfort of your own home or a nudist colony or somewhere in Europe where people have a more relaxed attitude to nudity.
The only problem I have with the OP is how they assume that 9 year boys are just dying for a chance to leer at them. When I was 9 I would not have “leered” at anybody. I still wouldn’t. A leer is “a sidelong glance; a desirous, sly, or knowing look.” It makes me especially sad to hear 9 year olds accused of this. Maybe some are capable of it. I don’t know. But it makes me sad.
I agree that a 9 year old boy should not have been in the dressing room, because the women there have a reasonable expectation that he would not be there, and they might not want to get dressed in front of him. That’s fine. You don’t want to be seen. That is enough. You don’t have to accuse 9 year old boys of being sly leerers when you already have a perfectly good justification of your feelings.
She said that the boy was old enough to be doing that, not that he was doing it right then, or that he was specifically leering at her boobies. vanilla was one of the posters who said they weren’t sure that leering would have happened yet by 9 years old, and other people came up with examples from their own development saying they sure were interested by 9.
The topic of her own particular nakedness came up in the following paragraph, but it was in context of explaining how she knows that some people feel that nakedness is a natural thing:
So I’d give this particular boy a pass on the leering thing; she was (by my interpretation) just speaking up as to how it’s wrong in general to be bringing kids that old into opposite-sex changing rooms.
I’d still like to know the state of the family locker room at featherlou’s gym. Have you ever been it it? Is it adequate? Does it allow for sufficient privacy?
Having a family locker room and having an adequate family locker room is, in my experience and the experience of my girlfriends, two very different things.
Calgary is (I would imagine) like Minnesota - in that during this time of year you can’t do the whole “put the kids in their swimsuits at home take them to the pool, pull jeans over swimsuits when they leave, and skip the whole locker room experience.” Leaving you with a choice, if the family locker room isn’t adequate - use the inadequate facility, let your nine year old into the men’s locker room by himself, or bring your nine year old into the women’s locker room with you. It ain’t a good choice.
Now, if the family locker room is spacious, clean, offers decent privacy, and the families who use it are well behaved (another issue - if you just have drapes, and a two year old who likes to pull back drapes, it becomes a co-ed dressing room with no privacy - something that embarrassed one of my girlfriends - it was her two year old that got away from her while she was pulling on her swimsuit and opened everyone elses drape - she now takes her family to the women’s locker room - where they may get oogled by her four year old, but at least they won’t have her two year old running a peep show for adult men), than the rant is more than justified.
True enough, and I’m not personally forgetting that, but providing private dressing rooms for everyone isn’t really feasible; you have to do something to make the best of the situation. Segregating by gender for adults and teens (but not very small children, who stay with any parent), and providing family changing areas for young-but-developing children and their parents, is a good compromise given the circumstances, and is what was provided in the OP’s case.
Considering that the concern in the OP was the uncomfortableness of the other adults, most adults will assume that a youth of their own gender sneaking looks is “comparing” not ogling. And as was mentioned in at least one other thread here that I read recently, about locker room behavior by gay/lesbian teens, often this really is the case by that age at least.
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She said that the boy was old enough to be doing that, not that he was doing it right then, or that he was specifically leering at her boobies.
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And that was what I was talking about. I think the vast majority of nine year olds are incapable of leering. To say that nine years is old enough for boys to be leering just seems wrong to me. Old enough to look curiously and not really know what they are seeing? Sure. But that is really the opposite of leering. Boys mature slower than girls do. At nine years old a boy is incapable of a knowing, sly, desirous glance. Also, it makes me sad to hear any age group accused of being susceptible to leering, because I think the true number of people who would do that kind of thing is far lower than commonly believed. Maybe I’m wrong. I hope not though.
Being “interested” does not constitute leering. I wouldn’t have been interested in seeing adult women nude when I was nine. But for those that were, it was likely due to curiousity rather than being a “knowing” sidelong glance. There are very few nine year old boys who could be classified as “knowing” on this subject.
I agree that she had justification in believing boys would not be in the dressing room, and if she does not want to be seen by them then that is a valid complaint. But there is no need to say that nine year old boys are potential leerers. I don’t know why it affected me so negatively. I’ve pretty much accepted what general “knowledge” about males is going to be, and I try to shrug it off. But something about applying it to nine year olds makes me cringe.
Geez. You are adults. Kids are bound to be fascinated by other people’s boobies, dongs & general nakedness. That’s because they never get to see it and they pick up their parent’s uncomfortableness about it. It becomes secret, taboo. I think this increases the chances they’ll grow up obsessed about it. Let 'em get a good look. Maybe they’ll get bored with the whole thing & maybe, just maybe that’ll prevent some problems later on down the line.
Off topic, but this reminds me of a joke I heard a comedian tell once. He said he would only let his kids see him naked once. They’d be very small & young, but old enough to remember. That way, they’d spend the rest of their lives telling their friends “my dad has the biggest penis ever!”
