Adventures in Adulthood Blogging Is Cheaper Than Therapy Fitness Fun Memoir Rants
by Stacey
Nekkid
I’m a painfully shy person, so it’s not unexpected that the gym locker room is a place of high anxiety for me. After exactly two days I discovered that not everyone shares my opinion on public nudity.
I was changing back into my work clothes when a woman appeared from the showers wearing a towel . . . on her head. The rest of her was air drying, I assume. It gave me a little shock as she was the first naked person I had ever encountered in a non-intimate setting (which coincidentally isn’t many more people).
This is where the Captain interjects, “Stacey, it’s a locker room. That’s pretty typical for a locker room.”
Yes, I understand it’s a locker room. Which is why after my initial surprise I realized that seeing naked people was something I’d have to become accustomed to.
But then the naked woman started talking to me.
Ok, you know what? I don’t care if prancing about bare-assed is completely acceptable in a locker room setting, it’s freaken weird when a naked stranger starts chatting you up. I mean, there I am wondering where to look. If I look away, will she think I’m offended by her cellulite? Will my averted eyes damage her self-esteem? So I try to be polite and make eye contact, but she’s moving around and then bends over and really, that I don’t need to see.
She continues chattering a mile a minute, blissfully unaware that I’m probably scarred for life, while I’m trying to act all natural like I’d totally join this woman’s nudist commune except I’m easily chilled or something. At this point I begin to consider the absurdity of it all. I don’t even know this woman’s name, yet I can tell you that she keeps things well-groomed and probably doesn’t color her hair unless she’s just covering grays.
This is typical? Really? Knowing the state of a stranger’s bikini line and possibly being able to identify her colon in a line up?
Typical? Perhaps. Awkward? Absolutely.
So, excuse me, naked woman at the gym? Call it one of my many neuroses, but while I’m glad you’re comfortable with your body, I’m not.
No offense.
I’d like to get the male perspective on this. Apparently men are accustomed to being around a bunch of naked dudes and think it’s no big deal.
by Amanda
My gym has wide open/communal showers, so I have grown to be pretty comfortable with locker room nudity (and have grown more confident about life in general from it even)….but even ME (who just sounded that pro locker room nudity) would not be comfortable talking to strange naked chick. Unless I know you (pretty darn well) then naked time is take care of business time….not chat up the new stranger. Just my two cents
Yeah, I don’t wander around naked in front of people. More for their safety than my modesty.
Oh no….that’s just so, so very wrong. I would have been climbing inside of the locker to escape the awkwardness of that situation. Just because you CAN walk naked in a locker room doesn’t mean that you SHOULD.
I think there are three levels of nekkid gym goers…the third level is the one you fall into…
3. we do not like to share our nekkidity for any reason!
2. I don’t really like this, but hey, it’s the gym and everyone else is doing it, maybe they won’t notice me anyway
1. Oh yeah. Look at me. I think I’ll go ahead and do some cool down stretches, even though I am totally nekkid.
Yeah, you’ve seen #1. *shudder*
I don’t think I could shower in a gym. I’ll do that when I get home, thanks very much. I don’t WANT to see naked men, I don’t want them to see ME naked. Too many flashbacks about junior high gym class. Ugh.
I, too, am completely freaked out when changing in a gym. I just don’t like a.) my body or b.) the potential for mildew surrounding me.
However, I am totally entertained by naked bitches who have no shame. Yes, it makes me uncomfortable, but that’s a small price to pay for the circus freak entertainment value of the situation.
And the whole big nipple/tiny nipple thing is so frigging fascinating!
I kind of take a ‘getter done’ take on the locker room nudity situation. I don’t mind seeing naked people or being naked while in the transition for workout clothes to regular clothes or to/from the shower, but there’s no need to prolong it, converse with others during it, or to do time-consuming activities (such as putting on make-up) with in the state of nekkidness.
[...] Apparently because of this post and this one I now rank very high for “locker room naked” and its variations in Google. [...]
I’m a very outgoing person and I’d be totally uncomfortable talking to a nekkid chick. Even when I had a “good” bod, I wasn’t one that could do the locker thing well either.
As for being able to ID her colon in a line up- it that’s typical, I will not be entering a locker room again any time soon.