Yes, yes. Locker rooms are places where people are naked. But there are certain unwritten rules about locker room nudity which, based on some of my recent locker room funtimes, need to be written after all.
- When returning from the showers, “Putting my clothes on my clean, dry body” should always be first in the order of getting-dressed operations. Before putting on your perfume, before blow-drying your hair, before checking the missed messages on your cell phone.
- Do not converse with people you do not know while either of you is naked, except in the very unlikely case that, say, their hair is on fire or there is a cockroach crawling into their nether regions.
- For the sake of all that is hygienic and good, do not sit your bare ass on the locker room benches. I can think of no scenario when this would be necessary, and I refuse to believe that such a scenario exists.
That is all. For now. I hope.
(Shudder.)
21 responses so far ↓
Yuri // April 10, 2009 at 1:06 am |
You know people pee in the showers, right?
Readwright // April 10, 2009 at 2:46 am |
See, this is why I am thankful that the YMCA I belong to is 5 blocks from my house. I never go near the locker room. I get dressed in my gym clothes before I go and then I go home without seeing anyone else naked.
By the way, if I were to go in the locker room and a cockroach was crawling into some random naked lady’s nethers and I happen to see it, I would let it keep crawling. Maybe that’ll learn her to put on some damn underwear!
michelle // April 10, 2009 at 6:52 pm |
I suppose it’s just me but public/locker room nudity doesn’t faze me. Perhaps because being on the soccer team in high school, I witnessed (and partook in) a lot of bare breasted camaraderie. I’m not saying I make a point to walk around and initiate bare-assed small talk but rushing to slap on clothing isn’t necessarily foremost on my mind. So I suppose I’m one of “those” people.
Talking to strangers in the nude, however, is bizarre and creepy. And sitting one’s crack on a public bench is pretty disgusting.
jtabz // April 11, 2009 at 3:11 am |
Yuri, the peeing in the shower actually bothers me infinitely less than the bare-assed bench sitting. Just gotta remember your flip-flops.
Kate // April 11, 2009 at 4:01 am |
Cockroach-in-the-Crotch??
Oh, dear.
jtabz // April 11, 2009 at 4:05 am |
I saw the biggest cockroach I have ever seen in the gym last week–seriously, the fucker was the size of a small rodent–and I think the memory of it crept into my brain when I was writing.
Lucky you.
Kate // April 11, 2009 at 4:10 am |
I think that Cockroach-in-the-Crotch is going to replace my previous idea for a hyphenated 18th century Maryland land grant name of Kate-Frozen-On-The-Severn.
Lucky, indeed.
Patty O'Tool // April 13, 2009 at 3:42 pm |
This post needs more pictures.
jtabz // April 13, 2009 at 3:43 pm |
You are dirty, dirty old man.
Ack Ack Ack // April 14, 2009 at 2:23 pm |
SKIRT STEAK!
jtabz // April 14, 2009 at 3:05 pm |
No. Skirt steak. Ever. Again.
Kathleen // June 11, 2009 at 5:09 am |
I’m more like Michelle, only maybe even less bothered by it, because it doesn’t bother me when other women have struck up a conversation with me while they were naked. I got used to locker room nudity from the volleyball team in high school, we all showered after every practice and game in those group showers in the school locker room. I’ve never really understood why some women get bent out of shape about other women being nude in the locker room?
I do completely agree however that no one should ever sit bare ass on the benches, that is disgusting.
jtabz // June 16, 2009 at 3:05 am |
To clarify, I don’t think it’s weird for women to be naked in a locker room. It’s a place for people to take showers and change into and out of clothing.
I do, however, find it a little strange to, say, stand naked in front of a 6 foot long locker room mirror while one does one’s hair and make-up. And I don’t want to have the naked stranger next to me strike up a conversation.
For all sorts of reasons, people have different levels of comfort with their bodies in particular and with nudity in general. It’s not that hard for someone to put on underwear before they dry their hair or check their telephone messages, and it makes the less “free” people in the locker room feel more comfortable. Seems like an easy fix to me.
Gambit // July 18, 2009 at 5:25 pm |
What is with all these guys who are so freaked out about being naked that they spaz out if someone starts up a conversation while their johnson is showing? Grow up and get over your shame.
Aimee // July 18, 2009 at 6:38 pm |
I don’t like it when fully-clothed strangers strike up a conversation with me. I find it weird that because there is a room for people to change in that means I shouldn’t feel weird about seeing them naked or vice versa. It’s not a shame thing, it’s a privacy thing. There is a reason my husband is the only person I feel comfortable being naked with – it’s what makes it special to me. Should I burst in on my friend who is visiting while they shower and change in my bathroom? After all, it’s a room where people are meant to shower and change. Privacy does not equal shame.
As for guys, I can’t speak for them, but it seems like most guys don’t care about that kind of stuff. I’m pretty sure most of the comments have come from girls.
Kathleen // July 25, 2009 at 8:01 am |
Aimee,
I’ve always thought that it’s the other way around, that females are more comfortable with locker room nudity than males are. Of course I’m basing that off of my own experiences.
I have one sister and two brothers and all four of us were on sports teams in high school. I remember back then my brothers saying that none of the guys on the teams ever showered in the locker room after games or practices, which my sister and I thought was pretty gross for them to not shower right away.
I know that with the girls teams that I was on that everyone of us girls ALWAYS showered in the locker room right after games and practices, and my sister said the same about her teams. I honestly can’t recall any of the girls on my teams being shy about being nude in the shower room or the rest of the locker room.
Even now as an adult I would say that at least half of the ladies at my gym seem to have no reservations what-so-ever about walking around the locker room in the buff. My boyfriend says the guys are much more conservative in their locker room. Even though I’m perfectly comfortable being nude in the gym locker room I never prance around for a really long time. But many of the ladies at my gym do spend long periods of time walking around nude, blow drying their hair and doing their makeup totally in the nude, and as I mentioned, strike up conversations.
I always figured that with us females we were more open with nudity in general because of things that we did or do in our lives like share a dressing room both with a friend when were trying on clothes at a store, changing and showering in front of each other at slumber parties, and giving birth in front of a bunch of strangers.
I’m heterosexual, so I hope it doesn’t sound like I’m into naked chicks, but I’ve always liked that most females usually seem comfortable with seeing and being seen by each other while in the nude. I just don’t find it threatening for other women to see me nude in the locker room or for me to see them nude.
Aimee // July 27, 2009 at 6:54 am |
OK, you’ve convinced me, I’m going to walk around naked and talk to the first naked person I meet. Finally I will be normal. Sheesh.
jtabz // July 30, 2009 at 2:12 am |
Wow. I can’t wait to post my “Ladies’ Room Etiquette” follow-up.
(Typed from my iPhone, whilst naked in the locker room.)
Aimee // July 30, 2009 at 3:55 pm |
Slumber parties & high school locker rooms are not bastions of acceptance and girl bonding where I come from. Someone always got made fun of for the way they looked, either to their face or behind their back. I was lucky I was athletic, thin and well-liked (and I *never* made fun of someone or joined in when others did so) but plenty of girls who weren’t fit enough to make a sports team weren’t so lucky. Girls are mean. Meaner than boys. I’m willing to bet that everyone who has fondly reminisced about their naked frolicking with fellow teammates surely cannot have been one of the homely girls.
I don’t think showering and changing in a locker room is wrong. I also don’t think it is wrong for me to be a private person. That’s all I was saying.
jtabz // July 30, 2009 at 4:39 pm |
Aimee, you’re shattering the male image of girls’ locker rooms as little utopias where bare-breasted young women frolic and embrace in an inadvertently homoerotic fashion!
Ladies’ Room Etiquette « The Dobler Effect // November 18, 2009 at 3:33 am |
[...] I doubt it will be as contentious a topic as ladies’ locker room decorum proved to be a while back, there are still a goodly number of shared ladies’ room etiquette [...]