I think the theme of "how we see ourselves" is the defining theme of our age. Never before have we been bombarded with so much imagery while at the same time being seeing so little of real life.
It was a new experience for me but it also felt 100% natural and by the second night it was totally normal and I didn’t feel modest or anything. There was an unspoken understanding that we’re all there to just relax and recover and help our bodies feel good. Nobody made me feel weird or self conscious, nobody stared, no one made comments or really even said much of anything outside of a few funny jokes that we all laughed at that had nothing to do with the setting.
> due to varying interpretations of terminology and local ordinances, rare instances of mixed bathing still exist at places like Tsurunoyu Onsen where the water is opaque.
I learned the hard way at band camp in high school that such casual nudity among a single-gender was socially unacceptable among my own generation, and after the first day changed my clothes under my towel like everybody else.
I never heard of any problems, though I doubt the University administration would have publicized any problems.
https://sfstandard.com/2025/09/30/embaracadero-naked-lady-st...
But temporary and not publicly funded.
Apparently a Texas school district banned the Virginia flag for the same reason.
Buried in an article about shifts in attitudes towards nudity and porn is the actual cause. As a child of the 70s I've never given nudity in the locker rooms a second thought but now, no thank you. For my daughter? Out of the question.
I'll bring up the third rail. I am, despite all my ultra-liberal blue sensibilities, uncomfortable with individuals with XY chromosomes in my locker room. I can put in a bunch of qualifiers - if they're on hormones, if they're post op, if there's really no physical difference then I'm not concerned but there is no guarantee of course. If I look over at the locker next to me and see a penis, I'm out.
Personally, I think that being in locker rooms has been healthy- it's a good reminder that some day I am going to be super wrinkly if I live that long. It's been an interesting experiment in existing in public spaces.
If you're uncomfortable in those kinds of siutations, I wouldn't tell you what to do, but honestly "getting over" being weirded out by old naked folks is definitely a thing you might find worth while to work out.
One thing that annoys me about this article is the subtle stab at woke / gender identity as a reason for this change. Both Germany and Sweden has a much higher percentage of transgender people compared to the US, and neither have these kinds of locker rooms.
Living in Germany where all-gender nude changing rooms, nude all-gender saunas and nude beaches are very normal and very much not sexualised, it is striking how different the underlying culture is here - Germans find nudity practical and sanitary, and at the same time they very much insist that you wear special bathing shoes.
https://www.washington.edu/ima/locker-rooms-and-pool-nominat...
"The University of Washington’s Intramural Activities Building (IMA) underwent a comprehensive renovation to modernize its locker rooms and swimming pool, untouched since its 1966 construction. Utilizing a progressive design-build process, the project doubled the swimmable area and created one of the nation’s largest gender-inclusive locker facilities. The collaborative effort prioritized equity, accessibility, and universal design principles, resulting in three fully accessible, gender-inclusive locker rooms."Ever considered that folks who maybe aren't so into it were, in fact, traumatized by someone with their exposed body parts?
Having had a high number of uncomfortable experiences in nude-allowed locker rooms, it's nice to know there are spots where I don't need to be subjected to it if I prefer not to.
Don't look then? No one is forcing you to look anywhere else than what you're doing. It always struck me as strange that people seem disgusted/disturbed/annoyed by something yet they're unable to look away and focus on their own business instead.
I walked in on that the first time I ever used a public gym and that shit is seared into my memory--that was enough to turn me off of the locker room for some time and you know what, I don't miss it.
More often than not, pub[l]ic nudity is innocuous, nothing remarkable, but there will always be the outlier that spoils the rest of the bunch by doing weird shit with their genitals, be it drying them where theyre not supposed to be dried (see above), touching themselves in a sexual manner (seen it in a few different locker rooms, and of course the old naked men who are more than friendly to younger, naked men.
I for one say good riddance to the nude locker room. Fuck that shit.