Are Gym Locker Rooms My Salvation or Blindness-Inducing?
I work out in the morning before heading to work. Because the gym I go to is located on campus and I work across campus, it makes sense for me to shower and get ready at the gym rather than driving all the way home. It makes sense, but I don’t like it.
I don’t like that the locker room floor is always covered in water. I don’t like that I have the tendancy to drop my clean clothes in the floor water. My stuff takes up a lot of space and I don’t like shoving my entire life into a gym bag each morning. I don’t like listening to the other locker room patrons’ loud voices and conversations. I don’t like waiting in line to take a shower. I can handle all of that with a deep breath but what I really don’t like is the nudity.
Am I a prude? Yes and no. If you’re a guy I’m making out with and you’re getting a bit creative with your hand moves, then you’ll definitely think I’m a prude. If you attend church with me, chances are you think I’m on the fast track to hell. I guess I’m somewhere in between which is currently causing some massive internal drama but really has nothing to do with locker room nudity.
So I’m trying to figure out if it’s really the nudity thing I have issues with or people invading my personal space (while being naked). I’ll have to think about it for a while longer.
My issues on this subject are well documented (the revelation of my “religion” in the German locker room while standing naked in the shower…”did that hurt”…), but I have to think it can be about talking to strange people, being AMPLIFIED because of a lack of clothing.
That’s an interesting theory and probably right. Sorry to get personal but don’t Germans believe in circumcision?
gross – I’d totally say something because even if they get mad about it they’ll probably skip the sink next to you tomorrow a.m. Just a thought…lol
I give them enough dirty looks… you think they’d get the hint and move out of my personal space.
I know what you’re saying. I don’t like the squishy floor especially, so I heard you’re supposed to wear flip flops but then you have to put them back in your gym bag so I skip them.
I got a plantar wart from a community shower one time so now I’m a huge believer in wearing flip flops.
I just shower at the gym, forget the mirror routine until you get home. Put the make-up on once you’re dressed. Don’t even think about standing there flossing and brushing you teeth…
Gotta do the make up before arriving at work and I have to blow dry my hair. Guess I’ll just have to deal with it but I won’t brush my teeth in there. Yuk
‘I also think, “Gravity sucks.”’
That made me chuckle…! Sadly, it happens to the best of us.
The sad thing is that in a public changing room, nobody cares or judges you on your nudity, and yet I spent my teenage years trying desperately to cover up – for some reason these days, I just don’t care any more! It’s very liberating, and slightly disturbing…
Nobody judges you on your nudity? I judge people all the time! I have no problem walking around my own house naked but just can’t do it in public.
Nudity in locker rooms doesn’t bother me as much as it used to. Most guys attempt on some level to cover up or turn their backs, anyway (except, as MTAE points out, the European guys, but with them it’s obviously cultural and I have no problem with them). But there are always people who are sort of aggressively naked. As in, “I’m going to do this just to make you uncomfortable and then I’m going to imply that you’re the one with the problem.”
No, man, I’m not interested in your unit and I’m not interested in showing mine off. Sometimes I think about saying “I have body modifications that tend to make most guys very uncomfortable.” (True or not, you’d think that would shut most of them up – and the ones it didn’t shut up, well, then you’d know they were worthy of watching with extreme suspicion.)
Maybe that’s just in the men’s locker rooms?
(Either way, the wet floor would disgust me, too!)
There’s not much showing off in the women’s locker room, just a lot of boobs flying every which way. I hope this isn’t what heaven is like… bunch of naked people flitting from cloud to cloud sharing scriptures.
Standing next to me at a sink when there are other sinks available a few feet away — naked or not — is too close. I’m pretty entertained by naked people, men OR women, cause I love seeing other people’s flaws. They make me feel good about myself:) But at a distance, always at a distance. Like, if they fart I don’t want to be able to feel the wind blow – lol.