showering nude?

[Biciclista]

hahaha I'm an older woman and feel very shy about public nudity too.
I remember having serious issues in the gym locker room, to the point of skipping showers. Now I'm 60 and a deterrent to going to a swimming pool is the locker room!!
It's in my head, I know that.

[pll]

Someone said that people would stop caring about what others thought if they realized how little others cared... In a gym, everybody is in their own small bubble, concerned with themselves. If some random person is judging other people's bodies, who cares, really, about that opinion? That person just needs a life.

[AppleTree]

hahaha I'm an older woman and feel very shy about public nudity too.
I remember having serious issues in the gym locker room, to the point of skipping showers. Now I'm 60 and a deterrent to going to a swimming pool is the locker room!!
It's in my head, I know that.

All this brings back such (maybe not so good) memories of junior high school gym. We also used to try to get out of showers by claiming we were on our period, and if we thought we could get away with it, would walk into the shower room, get our arms and legs wet and call it good.

[Eden]

There really are different attitudes world round....

I just came back from Japan, where we visited an onsen (hot spring spa). There are still places there that have communal bathing for all sexes and this one did in one of the baths. I didn't end up sharing with any men - mainly because I wanted to use the one outdoor bath and that one was sex segregated on a time schedule. The women's time in it was at the same time that the big indoor bath was both sexes. When I did go in the big pool at a shared time I was the only one there anyway.....

I did bathe with plenty of other women though, there and at several other places that had communal bathing (one was a Buddhist nun - I thought for a moment I went into the wrong changing area, because they shave their heads and at first glance I thought she was a man....) and swim suits or towels were not allowed in the pools. Basically people are polite. No one even really looks at you intentionally, much less openly stares.

As far as our work locker room goes.... we only have 4 shower stalls. Each one does have a little curtained vestibule, but really, it is much more rude if you do change in there..... we all have to share and we all need to get to work, so if it's politeness you are worried about, take your clothes off before you get in there and clear out as soon as you are done showering and have dried off enough to not drip every where. I solemnly promise that I don't see more than pink/tan blobs without my glasses on, so I'm not looking at you.

[Pax]

I don't post here much, but have been reading for years--feel like I know some of you!

At any rate, I grew up swimming and playing sports (am 51 now) and never thought anything of walking around a locker room full of naked girls. High school, Y league, age group league, and then college. My non athlete roommate came into the locker room after a college meet once and was astounded that we were all naked--and she was a nursing student!

Started back swimming in my late 30s and was astounded at the women who brought young boys into the locker room at the Y. One lady took a picture of her son in the locker room, and I am certain I am in the background in some state of undress! I got more modest at that point! Now in the very nice gym that I frequent, I see most women trying very hard not to be seen in anything but a fully clothed state. I go with that just to be polite, but it strikes me as funny.

While visiting a friend in LA (I am in NY) we went to a Korean spa where all the women are naked in hot pools, saunas and such, and then were massaged and 'scrubbed' in a communal room with others. It was interesting, and not the least bit uncomfortable for me. When in Rome....
Laura H.

Very similar to my experience (I'm 51 too).

I've never liked wearing clothes, as a child I took them off all the time to run around nekkid, as a teenager/young adult I wore as little as the law allowed, now as an older adult I still don't like wearing clothing but make allowances for other people. The gym remodeled a few years ago and went from shower trees to separate stalls, since the new norm at the gym seems to be to cover up, I wear a towel in the locker room now.