Gym Locker Rooms: Men Flaunt, Women Hide

I loved your post on Body Image. Keep it up. I look forward to enjoying your posts. This was my first time here.

Thanks for sharing,

Judi

Re: Gym Locker Rooms...

It may be that some women are 'hiding' their bodies out of shame and self-hate. However, there are many others who cover up out of modesty, for religious or other social reasons---yes, even among other women. How one is raised often affects how one acts. The term 'body image disease' is inappropriate, in either case.

Too true. Good comments. Thanks for bringing some balance!

This is absolutely true. I wrote a post in my own blog a few weeks ago about how women hide in bathroom stalls to change into their workout clothes at my gym and how ridiculous it is. I was talking to my boyfriend and he said it is the total opposite in the men's locker room, the guys just walk around and let it all hang out, no one cares. I guess it just goes to show that a lot of women feel body judgment coming from all directions - men AND other women. This does not speak to the women who cover up out of religious modesty or whatever, but I would venture to say that those women are in the minority.

Hmmm... I have to tell you, while there are guys walking around without a care in the world, (mostly older I've noticed) a good percentage of the men at my gym are painfully shy about being seen naked by other guys. Not that they're hiding in bathroom stalls to change, that IS ridiculous. But some will wrap towels around themselves, even when still wet from the shower, to change out of their swim suits and in to underwear. Ironically, these are often some of the best built guys in the gym, including some of the trainers! I always figured it was a penis size issue, or a big dumb case of homophobia.

I am actually shocked to read that, because at my gym most, and I do mean most, of the women have no problem at all with showing it all off, while my husband says that very few of the men walk around nude like the women do. In the women's locker room at my gym the women will do things like blow-dry their hair or put on their makeup while standing totally nude at the mirrors. And many of them will not hesitate to start a conversation with you while completely nude from head to toe. My husband says that you never see guys just walking around nude, and that they don't even shower in their very much either. I myself do not have any problem with other females seeing me nude in the locker room, but I don't really strut around nude like most of them do.

at my gym idk what the women do but the men let it hang we are always checking each others penis size

Steve,

Speak for yourself there dude. Other than maybe some homosexual men, men do not look at each other in the locker room.

Interesting comments. I've noticed too that a lot of women hide in locker rooms to change and whatnot. I do too, I guess...it's more socially acceptable or whatever. I would feel more at home nude in the locker room if more people in there did the same thing. My husband has told me that men do indeed walk around without anything on. He says it's normal to see different bodies and he says "Hey, if it's a fat guy, you figure...whatever, he's fat. YOu don't compare him to YOU, for crying out loud". It sounded funny at the time, but a lot of women do that.

i am not comfortable being naked in front of strangers. i have major body issues, yes indeed i do, but even if i had the greatest body in the world, theres such a thing as non religious modesty. Just like i dont have casual sex, i dont do casual nudity.

As a plumber I have been in both mens and womens locker rooms. Lets start by saying come on guys you all look to see what size penis others have, we do it casually but we do it. Now for the womens room, It amazes me how many times i put up a sign "men working" and some women still come in undress shower and even ask what i am fixing. It does not happen a lot but it does happen.

I must say that I resent a comparison of casual sex with casual nudity in a women's locker room!

I am 34 years old, I did not have sex until I got married at the age of 26, and it was by choice that I waited until I got married. I am a religious person, and I have never been casual about sex at anytime in my life.

I am in women's locker rooms 6 nights a week since I teach women's aerobics 4 nights a week at a gym, and 2 nights a week I teach children ages ten and under how to swim, at a YWCA.

So six nights a week I shower in a women's locker room. The showers are communal and 100% out in the open. After a few times of showering you start to realize that it doesn't even make any sense to bother to wrap a towel around you just to walk 50 feet from your locker to the shower, and then from the shower to your locker, so you just walk nude to and from the showers.

On the 2 nights a week that I am teaching the childrens swim classes there are many female children in the women's locker room. And it is no different then than it is with all adult women at the gym! The showers are 100% out in the open and not only I, but many of the mothers of the children that help out with the class, shower in the nude. It is completely innocent, and there is nothing inappropriate about it in any way at all! It is all females in a female locker room, none of us are nude for the sake of "showing-off", we are all very casual about our nudity, but it is just to shower and change. So I really have a problem with anyone suggesting that because I or anyone else is casual about being nude in front of other members of the same sex in a same sex locker room, that we are casual about sex, because that's not even close to being true!

Mary, thank you so much for your comments, I couldn't agree more! It's a shame that some people can't see the difference between sex and a woman innocently showering in a locker room!