Nudity in Locker Rooms

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KimbaFoxNatsume

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I don't quite understand why or how exactly it came to be that being naked in a locker room is acceptable. I mean, everywhere else you go in public, you wear clothes; go into a locker room and all that goes out the window and for some strange reason changing out in the open is the norm. I just don't really get it.

After pool time at the YMCA I always change in a toilet stall. I mean, they're called ''private parts'' for a reason and I'm not comfortable putting them on display. To me that's something you do around people you're comfortable with, not whoever's in the locker room.

I'm not comfortable with the idea that someone I don't know could get aroused from seeing my private parts, as in my personal moral code that is a privilege that is shared only with a special person.

I remember a time when I was about six years old, my dad had just bought me a Rugrats Movie sweatshirt. We went to my grandmother and uncle's house afterwards where my dad helped me change into it in front of my uncle. For some reason, this moment has stuck in my mind with a vague sense of discomfort, even though of course I was just a little kid with no breast development. Then of course there was the time I was eight at Lake Erie and my mom had me change into my bathing suit on the beach; we were farther down from the other people because we had a dog with us, but I'm sure I was still pretty visible...
 
I never got it either. Having roommates in college is no better. I woke up one morning to my roommate humping his bed, which I totally did not need.
 
It's a social convention that we wear clothes even when they're not necessary (warm climates) and it's likewise a social convention that there are places (like locker rooms) where they aren't needed. I think by force of habit, people try to get it done with pretty rapidly but in school we'd have been there past the bell if everyone needed to change in a stall. It's a matter of practicality. I don't particularly care if someone uses a stall when there's no time or occupancy pressures.

If I were using a locker room right now, I suppose I'd be inclined to use a stall but I'm 24/7. Last time I went to a public pool, I wasn't wearing, and I got changed in the room as I have always done.
 
While visiting Japan, I and my friends visited a local hot spring. We were nude in front of one another for the first time, and also in front of total strangers who didn't even speak English! It was normal in Japanese hot springs to be nude, so no one even batted an eye... I just had to get over my own personal embarrassment and awkwardness.

That said, I've not visited the Y nor used a locker room in quite a long time. But I'm normally a very private person and would likely feel uncomfortable in such a place. Japan was something of an exception to the rule...
 
Sapphyre said:
While visiting Japan, I and my friends visited a local hot spring. We were nude in front of one another for the first time, and also in front of total strangers who didn't even speak English! It was normal in Japanese hot springs to be nude, so no one even batted an eye... I just had to get over my own personal embarrassment and awkwardness.

That said, I've not visited the Y nor used a locker room in quite a long time. But I'm normally a very private person and would likely feel uncomfortable in such a place. Japan was something of an exception to the rule...

If I ever got to visit Japan, I think a hot spring/bathhouse might also be the one place where I would make an exception if I could work up the courage.

Of course, there might be some difficulty in finding one that will take a tattooed patron, because of the association of tattoos with the yakuza.

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Maxx said:
When my dad started taking me to the Y in the late Paleolithic era.... it was men only (Young Mens Christian Association...). So not only was nudity in the locker room the norm, nude swimming was the rule, except during swim meets when moms and female spectators were allowed in. More hygenic if you think about it. Nude showers, no clothing to carry crud into the pool.

I still don't bother with changing stalls at the Y or at the park district pools. Nobody's ever said anything. If they looked at me funny, I wouldn't know. Once I take my glasses off, I can't make out facial expressions unless they're really close. I guess it's all a matter of what you're used to.

Whatever is carried into my local Y's pool is immediately nuked by the fifty thousand gallons of chlorine I think they pour into it daily, probably because you can get in in your street clothes and they don't give a shit.
 
KimbaWolfNagihiko said:
If I ever got to visit Japan, I think a hot spring/bathhouse might also be the one place where I would make an exception if I could work up the courage.

Of course, there might be some difficulty in finding one that will take a tattooed patron, because of the association of tattoos with the yakuza.

It's been a few years since I visited, but you'd not likely have a problem at all. ^.^ I was quite surprised at how accepting they were of me simply for being a foreigner. It was very much an "everyone minds their own business" mindset, and I appreciated that.
 
Sapphyre said:
It's been a few years since I visited, but you'd not likely have a problem at all. ^.^ I was quite surprised at how accepting they were of me simply for being a foreigner. It was very much an "everyone minds their own business" mindset, and I appreciated that.

I'm not quite sure it's truly ''acceptance'' rather than ''politeness''. From what I've read about Japan, while they'll be sure to treat foreigners well, deep inside they will never quite view you the same way they view their own.
 
KimbaWolfNagihiko said:
I'm not quite sure it's truly ''acceptance'' rather than ''politeness''. From what I've read about Japan, while they'll be sure to treat foreigners well, deep inside they will never quite view you the same way they view their own.

That is true. I saw that as well. When I traveled by train alone, no one would sit adjacent to me. The train could be full of people standing, but they still wouldn't sit to either side of the foreigner. Apparently I have cooties or something.
 
We took our youth group to Water World, a big outdoor water park, and there was a changing room. All it had were benches and no privacy. It seemed really weird to me. I got in and out as fast as I could.
 
Are public changing rooms common in the US? That surprises me, given that Americans typically seem less accepting of public nudity -- topless sunbathing in the US seems quite rare. And the recent threads about the gender-related privacy of public toilets, and of the "horrors" of an open-air urinal in a park make it seem that nudity is considered more shocking in the US than Europe.

Yet the only places we typically have a shared changing room is in schools, and maybe professional sports stadia. Public swimming baths always have private cubicles for changing in.

I get the impression that Scandinavians and Continental Europeans are even more laid back about nudity than we Brits.
 
I'm definitely shy when it comes to nudity in any non-ABDL scenarios. So any sort of locker room scenario, I'm not comfortable changing around other people. I totally get why being naked in a locker room is acceptable, and most of my friends are pretty laid back about the topic, far more so than I am.
 
tiny said:
Are public changing rooms common in the US? That surprises me, given that Americans typically seem less accepting of public nudity -- topless sunbathing in the US seems quite rare. And the recent threads about the gender-related privacy of public toilets, and of the "horrors" of an open-air urinal in a park make it seem that nudity is considered more shocking in the US than Europe.

Yet the only places we typically have a shared changing room is in schools, and maybe professional sports stadia. Public swimming baths always have private cubicles for changing in.

I get the impression that Scandinavians and Continental Europeans are even more laid back about nudity than we Brits.

I think we've gotten less comfortable about nudity in places like locker rooms in my lifetime. At the same time, we've gotten more comfortable with public nudity, although it's just a matter of degree (we're still far from comfortable most of the time).

If I had to speculate, I'd say it's because we had these fairly well-defined social boundaries and that's no longer the case. Nudity was 100% normal and expected in certain circumstances and not at all in any others. Now it's more loosey-goosey and people decide more for themselves.

I feel sort of in between. I'm old enough to believe I should just suck it up and deal in those places where nudity was expected. However, I'm not scandalized by undress elsewhere, even if I'm not inclined to partake. It's all pretty silly.
 
tiny said:
Are public changing rooms common in the US? That surprises me, given that Americans typically seem less accepting of public nudity -- topless sunbathing in the US seems quite rare. And the recent threads about the gender-related privacy of public toilets, and of the "horrors" of an open-air urinal in a park make it seem that nudity is considered more shocking in the US than Europe.

Yet the only places we typically have a shared changing room is in schools, and maybe professional sports stadia. Public swimming baths always have private cubicles for changing in.

I get the impression that Scandinavians and Continental Europeans are even more laid back about nudity than we Brits.

The facilities you can expect vary from place to place. I've gone swimming at three different pools. The YMCA has two sets of locker rooms, and a family changing room for people with children. I've only been in the locker room that connects directly to the pool. There are the stalls with the toilets, and separate shower stalls with curtains or privacy-glass doors, but no changing stalls. At one local pool, there are changing booths with curtains and showers with walls in-between but no curtains; while at another that is public but at a school, no booths and completely open showers.
 
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While in the military we often had gang showers. One room with twenty or so shower heads. First time I was 13 or 14 in Cadets. You get used to it really. I Germany I would go to nude beaches and bath houses where whole family's went. Again you got used to it and the whole curiosity and shame crap goes out the window. Realization that we are all equipped the same just different proportions is quite liberating and leads to acceptance of oneself.

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It's just your dick+balls/vagina, folks.... nothing special. Almost everyone got something like that down there. I don't care about other guys dicks and if someone happens to feel the strong urge to stare at my so called private parts (not so private after all), well, then enjoy the view, I guess.
It's just that big of a deal you make of it...nudity is by nature not such a tabu as it is in society.
How would you go into a sauna? Traditional rule would be just a towel to protect the ...wood (not your's, the sauna's).
 
I think some people in the ''I don't care'' camp don't really get what I'm trying to say. If you're comfortable with nudity, well that's fine for you. But in a society where we normally wear clothes around other people, I don't see why anyone should be expected to be comfortable with it in other situations. Out in the YMCA hallway = clothes or you're a sicko. On the other side of the locker room door = being naked is fine. In my mind, it's kind of a weird double standard. If society says I am to be covered 99% of the time, what makes being naked the other 1% of the time OK?

It's my body and if I'm more comfortable with keeping my private parts private, that's my choice.
 
Back in my school days from Jr High on in locker room were rows of lockers with benches. Everyone stripped down and went to the shower.
All the dicks were hanging out. Some guys were more hairy than others. For swimming class in High School most went in the nude to the pool.
It was the same way in the barracks in my service days.
 
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