The end of naked locker rooms (opens in new tab)

> Today, the only naked bodies that many Americans will likely ever see are their own, a partner’s, or those on a screen. Gone are our unvarnished points of physical comparison—the ordinary, unposed figures of other people. In their place, we’re left with the curated ideals of social-media posts, AI-generated advertising, and pornography. The loss may seem trivial, but it also may change how people see themselves.

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.

I stayed at a ryokan in Japan recently, and of course the baths and pools are 100% nude, and people strip down naked in the changing rooms to enter them. Men and women separate at all times.

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.

Naked locker rooms were well on the decline (at least for youth) in the '90s. I attended a martial arts gym with adults and kids, where men would regularly walk out of the shower naked and change all while holding conversations with each other.

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.

Decades ago, University of Toronto had floors in the frosh dorms which were unisex, including the washrooms/showers. I don't recall any big protests over this - people just got used to it.

I never heard of any problems, though I doubt the University administration would have publicized any problems.

It is, I think, indicative of a broader trend. When you drive past the National Cemetery on Wilshire Blvd in Westwood, there is a large statue of a naked woman (personifying victory or the glory to be accorded the fallen?). I believe it was placed there shortly after World War I. I can't imagine a similar statue would be erected today.

> Compounding these issues is the omnipresence of cameras and social media, which has made privacy more precarious.

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.

For the last year and a half I've been living off grid in rural Colorado. I have a membership in the community rec center (which is very nice) and town service (also very nice) so I can use their gym, but mostly to use the shower and hot tub.

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.

Upending convention for one identity category while reinforcing body-shaming is privileging selective discrimination and inconsistent. Oops! Perhaps not forcing or shaming/guilt-tripping people into hiding themselves in changing stalls would be the moral thing to do and those who are offended can close their eyes or look elsewhere. I'd be cool if those stalls were entirely optional. I'm ambivalent about gendering or ungendering changing/shower rooms and WC's, but the user group of the space have to agree on a convention, hopefully one that doesn't double-down on another form of social bullshit while only addressing (no half-pun intended) one dimension.

> the prevailing trends in locker-room design is privacy, a way to make “a diverse user base” feel comfortable.

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.

In Seattle I believe this is being done to make it less controversial about which locker room trans people use… there’s one.

Anyone know which Seattle gym the author visited with an all-gender locker room?

Maybe most men don't want to see other men naked? Does this have to be any more complicated than that? It always struck me as really weird tbh.

As a foreign national living in US. It amazes me that public urination could land you in jail (specifically indecent exposure) however being naked in a locker room is supposed to be considered normal.