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.

[goldfinch]

Well, I avoid making eye-contact when I'm not wearing any clothing....

For the random older person. It used to be a bit different, I think. Open showers and no stalls. Plus, The girls and boys had segregated health classes in school. And they had required showers, etc. Seems like my mother said some things, and perhaps I read things about how it used to be different? Foggy on details though.

Now, along with being uptight, everyone is concerned about safety. Especially for their kids. People don't grow up like that anymore.

We had segregated health classes and big open showers that were mandatory. I hated it as the girl that got boobs early. I had the same gym teacher from 6th grade through 10th grade, when gym ceased to be mandatory. She used to bring her girlfriend to work fairly frequently. They would pass out towels as we came out of the shower. Back in the 60s we gave no thought to her sexual preference. I didn't know she was gay until long after high school and met up with her a few times. Nice woman but the girlfriend at the gym was not appropriate. I think in our small town no one had a clue.

[pll]

We had segregated health classes and big open showers that were mandatory. I hated it as the girl that got boobs early. I had the same gym teacher from 6th grade through 10th grade, when gym ceased to be mandatory. She used to bring her girlfriend to work fairly frequently. They would pass out towels as we came out of the shower. Back in the 60s we gave no thought to her sexual preference. I didn't know she was gay until long after high school and met up with her a few times. Nice woman but the girlfriend at the gym was not appropriate. I think in our small town no one had a clue.

Wow. Talk about inappropriate behavior.

I attended a German school in South America and gym was always scheduled at the end of the day. For the day we had gym class, we'd wear a track suit all day. No showers, just go home afterwards. I was a bit shocked when I came to the US, but I did not know otherwise. I have to say that, at a university, if you are teaching, it is supremely uncomfortable to be greeted by students in the locker room. No thanks! In the university where I attended grad school, they have separate locker rooms for faculty and staff. I clearly see the reason now.

[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!

[laura*]

I can't really explain why when morals seem to be so much more lax today than they were in the 1960-1970's. There are probably those who would take exception to the term "lax" and identify or label current standards with the term diversity or tolerance and maybe lax is not the best word but it is the one that comes to mind.

I think this (subject of this thread) is a result of the USA's increasingly diverse population. Decades ago, the wider community matched one's family unit. The red haired Irish kid was the odd one out. Today it's the Somali kid who doesn't fit any of the old labels.

Years ago, kids likely got used to sharing a shower with siblings, cousins, and so on. The comfort with this would easily translate to school where all the kids looked like one's relatives. Not so any more.

Somewhere I read an article about a study that found that in diverse/integrated communities "everyone" hides behind their home's closed doors.

...

Near here there's a skinny dipping spot in a river. It was popularized many decades ago by (presumably) kids from the nearby Baptist community / summer camp. Yes, the very conservative Baptist community! The one where I'm a bit on edge when I cycle through wearing cycling clothes!

[Crankin]

I don't know, I think, maybe from being a teenager/college student in the late sixties and early seventies, that things were way more open back then in certain ways. We treated young people more like grown ups, for one thing. Maybe this is just a reflection of my own upbringing, which was fairly progressive, but today the "lax" standards seem to border on the sleazy. I am the least prudish person around, even compared to my closer friends, and I think most of that has to do with the way I was brought up.

[Brandi]

It is so funny every time I look at the title of this post I am so drawn to it even though I know it is not what it sounds like. Makes me giggle.

[goldfinch]

I don't know, I think, maybe from being a teenager/college student in the late sixties and early seventies, that things were way more open back then in certain ways. We treated young people more like grown ups, for one thing. Maybe this is just a reflection of my own upbringing, which was fairly progressive, but today the "lax" standards seem to border on the sleazy. I am the least prudish person around, even compared to my closer friends, and I think most of that has to do with the way I was brought up.

My experience and feelings are the same.

[Aggie_Ama]

I didn't read the whole thread... What I find bizarre at my gym is the number of women who got into a stall of the bathroom to change clothing. I don't make it a point to look at anyone or make eye contact when I am changing but I do completely change in the open locker area. My body isn't the best body at the gym but I am not ashamed of it.

I do have one of those towel wraps with velcro I will walk around I shower. I usually pull on my panties pretty quick so I don't accidentally flash someone but I won't put on the rest of my clothes until my hair is dry. I find even after a lukewarm shower I don't cool down for a bit. FWIW I am 30 to give an age reference. I see all ages from 20-60+ headed to the bathroom to change.

[Sky King]

Well, I guess I am one of those "random older people." We had enforced showering in middle school and HS, with individual showers, at least here in MA. Same thing in Miami when I moved there. The teacher stood outside the shower area and checked us off and we all tried to lie, by saying we had our period. Somehow, that excused you from a shower . I rarely sweated in gym, since I was so uncoordinated. But, after I flunked the President's Physical Fitness test (yes, I did), I got put in what was euphemistically called "Flab Lab." It was there that I discovered I was good at endurance things (we had to jog around the gym/locker room for 20 minutes to pass the test to get out of this class). I think it was the first time I actually sweat, and I was happy to shower.
My kids had to change for gym, but no showers.
And the things we did in Flab Lab had nothing to do with the stupid skills on the President's test, like shooting a basketball.

HA, HA Part of our PE grade was based on taking a shower!! We had an large open shower. If you were having your period you took a "half" shower, meaning you kept your knickers on. The instructor stood at the entrance to the shower and you called out full or half as you went in and she marked it in her book.

I always find campground showers interesting, last summer's bike tour half of the showers took tokens that you had to get from the host and half took quarters. Sometimes, I just take two water bottles full of hot water into the stall and take a water bottle shower. I am not one who has to have clean hair when touring two bottles works just fine.