Nudity in the locker room; is prudery taking over?

Eighteen years ago I wrote this in an online diary….

A flashback within a flashback, so you actually need to add 18 to 11 to work out what year this described – 1987. And just to emphasise, this was a very busy, totally mainstream, Toronto health club, not anything in any way off beat.

Fast forward ten years, back in the UK, to when I was a member of a local health club in Surrey. With squash courts, a swimming pool, gym, bar and studio spaces for yoga etc, this was an equally up market affair. As in Toronto, the locker room had lovely wooden lockers, a communal shower area with no screens and a steam room. You would not be able to tell whether anybody might be a naturist or even an exhibitionist for everybody was naked. Nudity was normal.

Fast forward to Brighton in the present day. An extremely popular 24 hour gym full of fit young things, most with bodies to envy. Here the shower room is fitted out with prefabricated cubicles, each with a single shower head and a lockable door. Few men at any stage seem to be naked. Some are going for showers but at least half are heading there and back wearing damp underpants. Most of the remainder walk with a towel around their waist and then perform an inelegant ‘towel dance’ to maintain their modesty while getting dressed.

What is the message to me and how does it make me behave? I may be unconcerned about being nude but I am also not somebody who particularly wants to stand out in a crowd. So I walk to the shower and back carrying my towel in front of me, trying to be nonchalant and modest; I do not want to be considered brazen, although some might see me this way. In getting dressed I could be seen naked but not for long. I’m consciously making a point in a low key way with that being naked is no big deal. But I am very conscious of my nakedness, almost uncomfortable.

My self-consciousness of all this is borne out of my interest in people’s attitudes to nudity. Most of those there in that room will probably not be thinking about such things – but the majority are sub-consciously reinforcing on each other, that nudity is not OK, that the social norms that apply on a clothed beach should apply in that locker room. As somebody who thinks that we would all be better off if nudity was normalised in a greater range of locations, this is dispiriting. What hope a clothing optional environment on a mixed beach if a single sex locker room is becoming a nudity free zone? Where will be left outside naturist venues where people see other people naked?

Why is there this apparent change in attitudes? The large chains of gyms and health clubs in switching to private shower cubicles are probably doing so because they think the lack of private space might lose them precious signatures. So their financial insecurity feeds individuals’ body insecurity and the vicious circle continues. Some public swimming pools and even grander venues such as Bath Thermae Spa already have mixed sex changing facilities with cramped individual cubicles and we may see more  of that.

Now, to argue against this change is difficult. In today’s knee jerk environment, an easy response for many would be to could cast one as a voyeur or exhibitionist, or both. But this is important. If people in general do not get to see other people naked in real life then they will only pick up their idea of what ‘real people’ look like naked from computer screens. Inevitably this will lead to a further erosion in general body confidence because most nakedness seen on screen is unrepresentative of how real people are.

I’ve now joined another club that has a greater age range and there are lots of people who are comfortable naked around the roomy locker room. It has a swimming pool and more comfortable facilities. It costs 3 times as much but I will go more often because of the facilities but the nicer vibes in the locker room will be welcome.