One of the bloggers I read from time to time just posted this:
http://storytellerdoc.blogspot.com/2010/11/extra-cream-and-crescent-moons.htmlI find it odd that an ER doctor would be that grossed out by a locker room, but apparently so. Back when I was hanging out on the Runner's World forums (don't go there anymore; too many jerks), the grossness of naked people in locker rooms was a favorite topic of rants.
I don't get it. Isn't this the point of a locker room? Go in street clothes. Remove street clothes. Nekkid alert! Put on workout clothes. Go work out. Return to locker room. Remove sweaty workout clothes. Nekkid alert 2! Shower. Oh teh noes! Nekkid Alert 3, with drying off involved! Put on clothes.
Ok, so apparently old people spend an inordinately long amount of time getting dried off and dressed, and for some reason this is gross. Personally, I don't stare at other people in the locker room. I look at 'em exactly as much as I have to to avoid walking into them. If I talk to someone, I do so while looking at her face or while not looking at her. Now, I get if someone is shy about others looking at them. I know more than a few fat chicks who would rather die than use a public locker room. Ok, that's cool, whatever works, except it seems kinda' sad that being fat is an excuse for not working out. But this business of bitching about other people being nekkid in a locker just seems bizarre to me.
And the old people thing, to me, seems pretty easily explained by a bunch of factors working in combination:
1) They aren't late for work, daycare, class, or anything else. Personally, I'd just as soon take my time too, I just don't have the time.
2) They're stiff and sometimes sore. Maybe tired. I figure if some eighty year old lady works out for an hour, odds are she's more fatigued at the end of the hour than the average 24 year old.
3) One big commonality I have observed in old people is that they tend not to give a darn what other people think. Creeping dementia or earned privilege, call it what you will--it just seems pretty common in old people.
But ok, so old people spend more time than young people being naked in locker rooms. I will admit that kids sometimes bug me--they get underfoot and don't have much of a sense of personal space, which makes it hard to not look at them, and our culture is so freaking paranoid about kids that I'm always worried some helicopter mom will freak out on me for glancing at her nekkid precious snowflake. It is irritating when people hog the facilities--like the woman who somehow needs to spend forty minutes and eighteen different tools and products to do her hair in front of one of two sinks in the place. I imagine there is some male parallel, although I can't imagine what.
But just being undressed? That's about the most reasonable and non-intrusive thing I can imagine doing in a locker room. When I was a kid and steeped in excessive modesty rules, we all changed under towels, super-fast. That was great, I guess, except for being incredibly awkward and you never actually got dry. When it's 30 degrees out, I prefer to wear dry clothes.
Now, I realize there's gotta be some gender disparity in acceptable locker room behavior, but for the sake of curiosity, what is the deal with locker rooms and nekkid people? What do you think is ok, not ok, or downright gross, and why?
