Why are so many Young Men so shy about Nudity?

[Zapped]

I thought about this thread the other day when I was at an Equinox gym in London.

 

I overheard a young(er) member complaining to the front desk about 'naked guys in the locker room.' I guess he had his skirt in a twist over the fact that some men didn't have a towel on when they were shaving at the sink or whatnot. I found it funny.

 

I don't know what the front desk did about it, but fuck... It's a men's LOCKER ROOM.

I don’t have the time to find the link right now, but there is a YMCA in Pennsylvania (I think) that actually banned nudity in the locker rooms.

 

How things have changed. 60 years ago, even 50 years ago, high school and college men’s swim classes were done in the nude. Colleagues told me that until sometime in the 1970s there were sex-segregated swim times for the college pool, and the men swam nude.

 

Now I have at least one younger colleague who wears shorts to shower in the common shower area.

[fedssocr1]

maybe in perceived public places they are shy but they're all naked on Snapchat and others in the "privacy" of their own rooms...despite the fact that their pictures and videos are everywhere

[Zapped]

maybe in perceived public places they are shy but they're all naked on Snapchat and others in the "privacy" of their own rooms...despite the fact that their pictures and videos are everywhere

 

Yup. It’s the enigma of our time.

[+ bashful]

These last few years, the only ones that have seen me nude are a few escorts, and a few masseurs. I've never really been overly self-conscious despite not wanting all the pounds I have, and wanting more inches. I guess I've always been around nudity. I had all brothers. My high school swim class was all nude, and we all showered together before going to the pool area. As a kid, we'd vacation in northern Michigan, and stayed at a cabin where the only place to bath was the sauna. Dad and my brothers would take a sauna together every few days. Women had their own time. When in northern Sweden, took a sauna with 2 uncles, and the boyfriend of one uncle's daughter.

 

It's the quickest way any guy will learn that not all men are created equal. Accept what you can't change.

Edited September 13, 2018 by bashful

[+ WilliamM]

k

 

 

I lived in a space in tbe Army where the communal shower was only steps away from the be.

Want to add: I knew two of cutest soldiers. That is why I remember tbe nudity so well decades later.

[Guy Fawkes]

Because we're a nation of prudes?

 

Was at a nude/clothing optional beach today. Every age, body shape and flaccid size imaginable!

 

Four young men (early 20s?) came down. They wrapped a towel around themselves while pants still on (not even down to underwear) and then went through amazing contortions to get pants & underwear off and bathing suit on UNDER the towel. Ridiculously amazing.

 

What goes? Why? I have heard friends mention similar at the Gym.

 

Anyone know why this is?

[+ bashful]

LOL - Beach was crowded nude guys, with every age, shape, flaccid size this is — There was plenty of eye candy — SOME REAL HOT , uncut, French Canadians! (my heart be still - and my cock stay flaccid!) I noticed because the four of them walked through all the nudity, found an empty spot and then proceeded to do this ridiculous, awkward and hilarious towel dance! Would I have looked discretely - sure, like I see all naked men in non-sexual situations like this was.

 

I've seen the towel drape dance to change many times. In Hawaii, California, and the Midwest. Nice to watch as they are usually buff.

[LivingnLA]

It would take many pages to unpack everything going into the very complicated cluster of issues surrounding the rise in "nudity sensitivity" among American men under 40, though there are some veins of these issues in all Western cultures nowadays. It's the result of the highly managed parenting done by Boomers and GenX. It's the result of the Sexual Revolution & Gay Rights succeeding in raising the awareness of Objectification, Youth Worship, and other powerful ideas. Add all of that to the growing awareness of just how prevalent sexual abuse, assault, and harassment are in the USA coupled with decades of "child predator" scares. All of that overlaid on the general hum of anxiety and worry most millennials experience given "terrorism" and massive inequality along with the end of the "American Dream" for many and it's no surprise how millennial men aren't big on "public nudity" but are fine with "private nudity."

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/fashion/mens-style/mens-locker-room-designers-take-pity-on-naked-millennials.html

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/05/26/the-stark-difference-between-millennial-men-and-their-dads/

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/09/07/study-two-thirds-millenials-sleep-nude/1225852002/

 

https://www.sfgate.com/weird/article/Old-nudists-boomers-naturists-millennials-7423088.php

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/15/millennials-anxiety-generation-y-housing-careers

 

[MEDIA=reddit]nudism/comments/6io627[/MEDIA]

Edited March 12, 2019 by LivingnLA

[FTM Zachary Prince]

I’m shy about nudity because I pass as cis when I’m clothed, I don’t when I’m naked, and people tend to treat me more poorly once they realize that I’m trans. Objectification, inappropriate questions, inappropriate anecdotes, ungendering, and more. If I keep my clothes on then I’m just a cute guy and things feel pretty normal. I guess in some ways I am LUCKY for whatever this general shyness seems to be, because it means that a lot of men don’t find it horribly strange that I just want to suck dick without taking my clothes off.

 

Of course that’s all in my personal life. When I’m getting paid it’s another story. My clients are well aware that I’m trans in advance and I’m more than happy to get naked when I’m getting paid, since it has no negative repercussions on our interpersonal dynamics.

[Guy Fawkes]

Child, when you're around me go ahead and run naked. You'll still be a cute guy to me.

 

If they treat you poorly when you're naked they're not the people you want to be around. When you show up in Las Vegas and I'll take you to a bar where you can present however you want and you won't be the only one.

 

Tits don't make a woman; Dicks don't make a man. It's all skin!

 

I’m shy about nudity because I pass as cis when I’m clothed, I don’t when I’m naked, and people tend to treat me more poorly once they realize that I’m trans. Objectification, inappropriate questions, inappropriate anecdotes, ungendering, and more. If I keep my clothes on then I’m just a cute guy and things feel pretty normal. I guess in some ways I am LUCKY for whatever this general shyness seems to be, because it means that a lot of men don’t find it horribly strange that I just want to suck dick without taking my clothes off.

 

Of course that’s all in my personal life. When I’m getting paid it’s another story. My clients are well aware that I’m trans in advance and I’m more than happy to get naked when I’m getting paid, since it has no negative repercussions on our interpersonal dynamics.

[Gadfly22]

This thread reminds me of when I switched gyms from NYSC (where guys were definitely not prudish - saw a lot of skin) to another place and was shocked at how prudish the guys were. This is the first place that I saw guys actually showering in their underwear and using the towel ballet in a place where nudity is permitted. More surprising is that this place was in a Latin neighborhood; most of the guys were Latino - who I thought were culturally less prudish than Anglo's. Anyway there was this one guy who caught my eye, very cute, seemed friendly, no idea if he was gay, but I digress. Consistent with the prudishness of the place the showers were off in a corner and there was only one shower stall you could see from where the lockers were. This guy would always use that particular stall, leave the curtain open and face outward so you could get a full view. So one day I'm in there minding my business when I look over and see him all soaped up - what a dick this guy had, huge for a guy his height/weight. He catches me peeking, makes eye contact and puts on the biggest shit eating grin you ever saw. I'm a little scared being caught but kind of excited at the same time. What happened next still has me scratching my head. When he came back to the locker area his personality changed completely. He became shy, quiet, looked down, didn't smile, didn't talk, and most surprisingly he used the towel trick to put his boxer briefs on without having to show his junk! This pattern repeated itself several times after that. Turns out I never even spoke to the guy and still wonder today what the deal was. He was definitely younger and better looking than me but I didn't think so much so that it wasn't possible he might be interested (if he was even gay).

[+ azdr0710]

I may be wrong and it may've been mentioned upthread, but I think (??) the 'towel dance' has origins with 1950s/1960s surfers who had no place to change in and out of wetsuits...they'd huddle behind an open car door parked next to the beach to change......

 

this video shows the classic method used by surfers for decades, though this is some product the guy developed

 

[bnm73]

That's why I stick to the poolside bar.

 

So you can drink until they're pretty?

[+ sniper]

Well yes AZDR, and I and others have done similar at things like races in Central Park. But in a locker room is silly. You just get your underwear wet.

[+ poolboy48220]

I may be wrong and it may've been mentioned upthread, but I think (??) the 'towel dance' has origins with 1950s/1960s surfers who had no place to change in and out of wetsuits...they'd huddle behind an open car door parked next to the beach to change......

 

this video shows the classic method used by surfers for decades, though this is some product the guy developed

 

A fellow swim team member called that the "deck change".

[Zapped]

I was briefly talking about this yesterday with a good friend who is 42 (I'm 60). He said he is "uncomfortable" being naked in a locker room. I didn't ask, but I imagine he's young enough that he didn't have to take group showers after gym class. He was disbelieving and then incredulous when I told him nude swimming classes were common in high schools and colleges, at least for men, into the 1970s.

 

We had to take showers starting in junior high (the hell now known as middle school). Most of us got over it and got comfortable with being naked with other guys (and a few were, I'm sure, genuinely traumatized). We internalized that walking around a locker room naked was normal, usual, expected, etc. To cover up was seen as a sign of weakness. You were strange if you walked to or from the shower with a towel wrapped around you.

 

Guys who never had to take group showers? They never got over it.

 

And now there are young men whose dads never got over it.

 

The thing I miss about it is that for most of us, it was comfortable. I may have had body issues, but I wasn't uncomfortable about taking my clothes off in a locker room. I feel sorry for all these guys who are stressed out by changing after a workout.

[+ sniper]

Eh, I had never taken a group shower before I was 22 and I got over it fairly quickly once I did it. And I'm, I think, below average in ability to "get over" things...

[Zapped]

Eh, I had never taken a group shower before I was 22 and I got over it fairly quickly once I did it. And I'm, I think, below average in ability to "get over" things...

 

So how did you get through changing for gym class in school? No showers? And how did you come to finally be in a group shower at 22?

[+ sniper]

So how did you get through changing for gym class in school? No showers? And how did you come to finally be in a group shower at 22?

 

There were showers in high school, but in all four years I took gym pluse was on the track team I saw exactly 3 boys use them, and only once each. We didn't shower after class so we never got totally naked, people kept their underwear on as they changed.

 

After college when I went back home I joined the local YMCA which at the time just had a big shower room with 8 shower heads on the wall. About 10 years ago they put in clunky stalls around the shower heads, which was extremely annoying since there really isn't that much room and taller people are continually banking their elbows on the walls. I have since joined a different gym with larger shower stalls.

[fedssocr1]

young gay me enjoyed it immensely when we had to take showers, which was actually rather infrequently in the first half of the 1980s. I remember taking a handful of showers in Jr High. But mainly I guess we weren't doing things that got us very sweaty. Same in HS. Only the semester of swimming my sophomore year required us to shower. (That was a fun semester...I think I've mentioned the story here before about colliding with a boy as I was exiting the shower and he was entering. He was a tall, handsome basketball player with a sizable appendage that struck my wrist.) Even in those days though showering was just not really done much. We also didn't have much time between classes and squeezing in a shower would have been tough. The sports teams all showered after practice and games though.

[510guy]

I am in 40's and we never showered at school. I was one of those who did the towel dance and sort of still do and won't be caught walking around naked in a locker room. I have never gotten over being naked in front of people. Part of the reason I won't get naked in a locker room at a gym is the fear someone I know will walk in. I definitely am not worth looking at so you can't unsee that image.

 

If I am traveling and have no chance of seeing someone I know then I am more likely to able to get naked.

[Zapped]

I am in 40's and we never showered at school. I was one of those who did the towel dance and sort of still do and won't be caught walking around naked in a locker room. I have never gotten over being naked in front of people. Part of the reason I won't get naked in a locker room at a gym is the fear someone I know will walk in. I definitely am not worth looking at so you can't unsee that image.

 

If I am traveling and have no chance of seeing someone I know then I am more likely to able to get naked.

 

Fascinating. I’m comfortable these days around other guys my age who are comfortable being naked. With younger adult guys, and especially if there are children, especially children without a adult with them, then I’m because they may be.

 

Changing cultural norms. It’s too bad they changed to make everyone uncomfortable.

[beachboy]

As a kid in school communal showers were the norm & although a few guys were shy most just let it all hang out.

It was a kind of macho thing- ' I'm comfortable with my sexuality so have no issue with other guys seeing me naked.'

As a closeted gay lad after getting over initial shyness I enjoyed the sight of fit naked guys!

Eventually it led to hot BJ's with a couple of lads-happy days!

[BasketBaller]

My experience in school was mixed-- showers not required, some boys took them, some didn't. I know a lot of them just wore their underwear under their PE gear so never got naked. But it was different on my various basketball teams. I think everyone showered after practice or a game, and at our school that meant an open room with showerheads on the walls. Some other schools we played had those shower towers. I was fine with being naked with everyone but as I began to fight harder against my sexuality I kept it pretty quick and learned to keep my eyes to myself, harder to do at those towers. Still changing and showering was what "normal" guys did, so I did it too. Ironically, once I acknowledged my attraction to men in my 20s I relaxed a bit in the locker room, although I still reflexively keep my eyes under control.

 

At my sons' school I have no idea if guys showered after PE class, probably not these days. On their teams, I remember some kids were out of the locker room almost as soon as practice or a game ended, and others took some time, I assume showering. My boys, growing up in an all-male household and sharing a bathroom their whole lives, couldn't care less, and I know they showered because I washed the towels!

Edited September 24, 2018 by BasketBaller

[rvwnsd]

After skip-reading the various posts I think an answer is emerging. So many young men are so shy about nudity because they do not want to be ogled by old men. Or any men, for that matter.

 

Perhaps that should be respected.