showering nude?

[lph]

No, this is not as interesting as it might sound

I was just browsing a travel forum for Iceland, because we're headed there in June. Iceland is famous for its geothermally heated swimming pools. But several of the US posters mentioned that it was "no problem at all" to just shower and lather up first like the locals, in the nude.

It never struck me there was any other way of doing so. Is it uncommon in the States in gyms and swimming pools to have one large open shower room where everybody (of the same sex) showers together? Or is it usual with separate "cubicles"? Just curious.

Here you'll often find some kind of narrow side partition, but I think that's just so that they can fit the showers closer together without people feeling they're about to bump into each other.

[Blueberry]

My gyms have always had separate "shower stalls" much like toilet stalls, but with a curtain as the door. One then goes to the dressing area, and gets dressed. Some (nicer) shower areas have separate, curtained dressing areas attached.

I do think there is a mentality of getting dressed as modestly as possible, here. I'm sure you've observed that the US appears to be much less comfortable with nudity than the remainder of the world

[lph]

Thanks Blueberry! Is it customary then to wear a towel between the shower and the changing area? And are you expected to keep the towel around you until basic clothing is on? I know how to do this, from changing on public beaches, but in womens showers and changing rooms here it's considered acceptable to wear no clothes at all, as if you were at home in your own bathroom.

Sorry to be clueless, but you may be saving me from some major embarrassment if I ever visit the States and go swimming

[OakLeaf]

I think it's goofy too, but yeah, in the USA in gyms and pools it's customary to have separate stalls and to wrap yourself in a towel between shower and locker. Some older school gyms still have common showers. Some places have double stalls with a curtained changing area in front of the shower.

Everywhere I've been, if there's no curtained changing stall, you're not really expected to go through contortions to avoid exposing anything while dressing. Some people do, but they're the exception rather than the rule. It's okay to take the towel off while you're putting your clothes on.

[katluvr]

Actually at our pool (when I was swimming --or trying to swim w/ the tri group) the shower area has a few stalls and one "shower tree" that can be a group shower. I would do my hair there and rinse while in my suit then go change privately...but many of the women would strip their suits right there while talking to you. I don't think I am that comfortable with my body or maybe general nudity at all!

K

[GLC1968]

Ditto what the others have said. The only places that I've encountered non-curtained shower stalls or rooms was adjacent to pools that are pools only (like town swim clubs and the like). All the gyms I've visited had at least stalls if not full curtains and private changing areas.

I generally try to make a point of avoiding bending over butt naked or flashing my nudity in someone else's face. For the most part though, I don't bother to try and stay covered as I dress.

I will say that with the exception of a random older person (or perhaps a European person?), women generally don't walk around bare-naked in changing areas. They will usually hold off putting on makeup or doing their hair until they are at least wearing underwear.

[Blueberry]

I agree with Oakleaf and GLC.

What I've seen is that most people will pull on panties with the towel on, and then sort of face the wall until the bra is on. After that - no worries. I'm sure it varies from location to location (and I'm sure I've offended some people because I do try not to be in your face - but I get dressed comfortably). The walk from shower to locker with no clothing or towel on would be odd, I think.

[lph]

It really depends what you're used to. I can feel a bit self-conscious if it's been a long time since I've been in a common shower, but next visit I'm wandering around forgetting that I'm not wearing anything.

I think this might be changing a bit over here too, though. I know many schools have trouble enforcing showers after phys.ed., and I can see that at some of the pools that immigrants frequent people cover up more.

In summer I much prefer bathing without clothes altogether, I really hate wearing a clammy suit, so I love bathing up at my in-laws cabin in the mountains where I can skip the suit when nobody's around Not brave enough to go to the nude public beaches. They all seem to have someone sleazy hanging around.

PS. That was an interesting comment about maybe a "random older person". Was nudity more common and accepted before than it is now? Otherwise I'd think older people to be more conservative in their ways and dress rather than less.

[Irulan]

The efforts that I see of women to NOT be naked in the locker room just astound me. The difficulty of completely undressing and putting on workout clothes, and then after the workout reversing it, all with a carefully draped towel.... so that you never show boobs, or butt, or a little pubic hair...astounding. I think it's ridiculous.

So yeah, Americans are way too uptight about this stuff. It's funny, I can go 100 miles away into Canada, to the hot springs, and it's amazing the cultural difference over an imaginary line.

As for major embarrassment if you ever come to the states, not to worry. There are always some who just do whatever they do.

[VeganBikeChick]

I am one of those very modest people who wouldn't be caught dead walking around in the nude. I grew up in a very modest family and the thought of strangers seeing me naked freaks me out. I also think that others who saw me naked would stare and judge the whole time (like they don't have anything better to do, right?!) and there's been lots of press lately about cell phones and videos in locker rooms. I'd rather not have my large butt up on youtube :P

[channlluv]

San Diego is an ethnically-rich city, so there are all ethnicities of women in my gym. My Y has both a communal shower and separate stalls for people who want more privacy, although there's no room to change in them. You'd have to exit the shower or get your clothes all wet.

Some women are very modest and wear robes. Others walk around stark naked with maybe a wrap on their hair. It took me a little while to get used to it, but it's no biggie now. It only bothers me when someone sits bare-butt on the hot sauna seat. Ick.

I shower in the communal shower room, but I wrap a pretty sarong around myself when I go back to the lockers to get dressed, mainly because it's a big, open area between the showers and the lockers, with sinks and wall-to-wall mirrors, and an open-around-the-corner hallway to the main gym and I just feel exposed in there, and if I'm in the sauna, I'm on an extra-large spa towel with the sarong wrapped around me.

With their renovations last year, they added family changing rooms that are really nice, and thank goodness, because some of the women would bring their older, wide-eyed sons through to the pool area (which was only accessible through the locker rooms before the renovation).

One time I'd just finished showering and had wrapped myself in a sarong. There was a ten- or twelve-year-old girl from the swim team showering in the communal shower, too. As I left the shower area and turned the corner, I came face-to-face with a boy about eight-years-old. His mom, who had a toddler girl in her arms, was steering him into the shower! I stopped her and said there was a young girl in there and she gave me this "so what" look, and I said, "Look, if I were a girl her age (thinking of my daughter), I sure wouldn't want a boy his age to see me naked." And I just stood there blocking the entrance to the communal shower, towels and shampoo kit in hand, until they turned around and went to a private stall. And honestly, had they been a minute or two earlier, he could have been scarred for life seeing me naked. Geez.

Roxy

[pll]

It's not so bad! In the gyms I have been, there are separate shower stalls. With exceptions, people tend not to walk around naked between the shower and the locker section, but wrapped in a towel.

Only once did I encounter a shower "tree", in the change area by a pool in a state park. I had finished an organized ride. By the amount of giggling from girls and teenagers in bathing suits, I inferred that showering in the nude was not customary there (it is what it is... nobody was showering when I started), but several women from the same ride then did the same.

The only place in the US where women seem to walk around in the nude is the women's area in a Korean sauna I go every now and then.

[channlluv]

Okay, here's a women-only spa question for you, and it's something I encountered in Hawaii. When you go to a schmancy spa and there's a Jacuzzi there, do you go in naked or wearing your bathing suit?

I wasn't given instructions by the attendant, just given the robe and told to feel free to walk around naked because it's all women there and the custom, and I did go nude into the steam room and the hot sauna, but I wasn't sure what to do in the Jacuzzi, so I missed out on that. I hadn't brought a bathing suit with me, not knowing what to expect. (My first time at a real spa.)

What would you have done?

Roxy

[pll]

Personally, I am not a fan of jacuzzis, but if looking around did not help, probably in the nude (given the cue from the attendant). I love the hot sauna, though. I always take in a couple of towels, one on which to sit or lay down (if it is empty), one to cover my toes and shins when they get too hot. If there are people in the sauna covering themselves with a towel, I will do the same as the last thing I'd like to do is to make anyone uncomfortable.

[Crankin]

The modesty of women in locker rooms astounds me.
I guess I don't care.
I don't use the locker room at my new gym, but I did for about 20 years at 2 other gyms, here and in AZ. The crowd at 5:30 AM is pretty friendly and we knew a lot about each other. But, really, to go into a private changing cubicle to get dressed?
I wore a towel between the shower and my locker, but I took it off and was naked during the time it took me to get dressed. I think it's a sad statement that people are so embarrassed of their bodies. I usually dried my hair and did my make up while in my underwear.
I once took a shower and changed at a ski resort in NH when I was with a close friend. She went into the shower with her clothes on and I guess took them off in there . I just stripped and put my towel on and I was done and dressed long before her. In fact, I saw She Fly in the locker room, as I was half dressed after my shower .