showering nude?

[spokewench]

I think most women in America are prudes when it comes to being naked. But, that is the way it is. I go to work out from work a lot and we have a very large changing area, shower, and two stalls for toilets. I know some of the women are very uncomfortable when I am say in between bras in the changing area even though I try to always have my back turned towards them to keep their experience comfortable. I don't really understand this, but it is the way of America.

[lph]

It's funny that there should be so many different experiences and opinions about this even in the same town and at the same gym! It sounds to me as if the general acceptance of nudity in the US is low, while many of you here on TE find it unnecessarily low.

I won't judge, though I would be sad to see my towelless freedom go. I can vividly remember when I was about 20, doing a long-distance hike alone in France, and broke off my trip to visit a friend of my mothers. She ran a nudist holiday camp, and it would be obviously rude of me to walk around fully dressed. So I stripped off for the day I was staying there, but it was neither comfortable nor empowering. It was the friendliest, nicest family place, but I just felt out of my comfort zone. (Besides, I had been hiking in the sun for three weeks and had the whitest butt ever )

But now I know what that feels like too, and wouldn't want to inflict that on anyone else.

[skhill]

This has all been very interesting!

At the Y I use, we have shower stalls with curtains, and the norm is to wear at least a towel while walking around. A few change in the toilet stalls, but most of us are at the lockers, making some efforts towards modesty (facing the wall while putting on underwear/bra). However, there are quite a few older women who do walk around naked. It's kind of wonderful, how comfortable they are in their own skin.

[NbyNW]

People really can have different attitudes ...

Last winter I was at a mountain resort in Canada, getting dressed after my shower .... it was a small locker room so I couldn't help but notice that a mother with small children, juggling all of her things and her kids' things, had taken her things to a toilet stall to change.

Moments later, her little girl, maybe 5-6 years old, exclaimed in shock: "MOM! THERE ARE PEOPLE CHANGING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE LOCKER ROOM!"

I couldn't her the mother's reply, but then the girl yelled back to her, "BUT ISN'T THAT RUDE?"

Which set off chuckling throughout the rest of the locker room.

[shootingstar]

It is rude and arrogant for anyone to suggest that modesty has anything whatsoever to do with negative body image. Personally I think my body is fairly terrific -- but being forced to parade around nude to satisfy someone else's idea of what is correct? Not going to happen.

I would tend to agree with Pam. I know that part of my modesty is how I was raised as a child. It was not religious upbringing but simply parents who grew up prior to the 1940's when still alot of Chinese women in China, did not show much skin unless they were Westernized.

So my parents carried over the same old fashioned standard when they immigrated to Canada in the 1950's.

I have a good body image that since I am aware many women in my age bracket probably envy me ..based on their comments to me. And cycling often has helped me alot in weight control.

But still, the most skin I even show are my legs in shorts. I don't even wear cropped tank tops...because I'm small up top.

So maybe I don't feel totally la-de-dah butt naked in a women's change/shower area...because I'm small busted... a hang over from teen years.

Ach,.....I haven't seen my sisters totally naked as a adults, except when they were babies and helped my mother by taking their baths, as the eldest kid. We're very polite to each other....we turn away from each other to change. But don't worry, doctor sister will smarten us up if she needs to examine us.

[Selkie]

Do what makes you comfortable and don't worry about it. IMHO, walking around naked, without a towel, in a single-sex locker room is acceptable and no one else should be shocked/offended by it. People can choose to towel up or go au naturel. If someone wants to look/judge, then that's their issue.

[Blueberry]

Do what makes you comfortable and don't worry about it. IMHO, walking around naked, without a towel, in a single-sex locker room is acceptable and no one else should be shocked/offended by it. People can choose to towel up or go au naturel. If someone wants to look/judge, then that's their issue.

Very well said!

[malkin]

Do what makes you comfortable and don't worry about it. IMHO, walking around naked, without a towel, in a single-sex locker room is acceptable and no one else should be shocked/offended by it. People can choose to towel up or go au naturel. If someone wants to look/judge, then that's their issue.

This.

Also in an unfamiliar place I would (do) probably take cues from others and do what seems normal in that space, since I don't care very much. I will also wrap up more if I am freezing!