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The End of Naked Locker Rooms

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/2025/11/naked-locker-room-end/684907/
17•loughnane•1h ago

Comments

constantcrying•1h ago
A direct result of top down enforcement in new social norms regarding sex. Casual nudity works only if there is no sexuality involved.

As soon as there are homosexuals or people who want to be perceived as the opposite gender involved, the social contract which made casual nudity work ceased to function.

Nobody wants to change in a locker where they might be stared at as objects of sexual interest. I would not want to be nude in a changing room with homosexual men or women. At the same time of course women do not want to be nude around homosexuals women or men.

mrtesthah•55m ago
Europe has no problem with mixed gender nudity in many similar situations, especially communal bathing. For example, nude beaches, saunas, the century-old German FKK movement, etc. Don’t project your own hangups onto the rest of the world.
DwnVoteHoneyPot•44m ago
I think you're misunderstanding what he is saying. I believe he is saying other people have projected their hangups ("top down enforcement in new social norms") which has caused casual nudity cease to function.

And you're saying in Europe people haven't projected sexuality onto nudity, therefore it still works. So you guys are saying the same thing.

soperj•42m ago
> As soon as there are homosexuals or people who want to be perceived as the opposite gender involved, the social contract which made casual nudity work ceased to function.

> I would not want to be nude in a changing room with homosexual men or women.

I don't think they are.

TimorousBestie•38m ago
It’s funny: unless they very rarely go to a public changing room, they likely have disrobed in front of a non-straight person. Likely several times, and presumably without incident. The baseline prevalence of queerness in the world is simply not that low.
microtherion•50m ago
In many European countries, it's not at all controversial to have nude mixed-gender saunas (and concerns about homosexuals recede once it's possible to be ogled heterosexually in such spaces).
dezgeg•36m ago
It has taken a turn back in the last couple of years, now in Finland even university students go to sauna in swimsuits.
nxor•9m ago
Why?
nxor•4m ago
You need to understand that straight women don't fear gay women the way straight men fear gay men. Additionally, concerns might recede for men, but I wouldn't think for women. Straight men ogle them more than gay women ogle them. Very different situation.
perfmode•46m ago
Mixed nude saunas and resorts are normal in the Netherlands. I got used to it after a few hours.
TimorousBestie•45m ago
> As soon as there are homosexuals or people who want to be perceived as the opposite gender involved, the social contract which made casual nudity work ceased to function.

Doesn’t make sense. The Weimar republic is an obvious counterexample.

mjmsmith•36m ago
Where did gay men get changed before the new social norms?
mystraline•16m ago
Naturally, they were all straight! /sarcasm

Remember, it was illegal to be gay in a lot of western countries. So, 'dont ask, dont tell' was the safe and legal norm. So it wasn't ever a concern to even be discussed.

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=fpas&q=A+map+of+the+years+when+hom...

Is a reddit-cached map of years when homosexuality was legalized for Europe. Had to use this link cause the reddit /r/europe mods censored it.

sonofhans•35m ago
This is such a modern, Puritanical take on nudity. Casual nudity exists everywhere in the world except where it is explicitly repressed. The relationship between sex and nudity is strengthened by prohibitions against nudity.
mcphage•34m ago
> As soon as there are homosexuals or people who want to be perceived as the opposite gender involved

They've always been here, they've always been involved.

Balinares•26m ago
German saunas are nude and all-genders and no one minds. So please kindly don't blame the prudes' harmfulness on queers. We can handle our and each other's naked bodies fine, thank you.
zapzupnz•18m ago
> Nobody wants to change in a locker where they might be stared at as objects of sexual interest. I would not want to be nude in a changing room with homosexual men or women.

That sounds like a you problem.

Plenty of people around the world getting in the nuddy just fine, not thinking about such thing, not nearly as repressed as your post or tone.

neuralRiot•17m ago
I think sexuality is a too complex issue to get a consensus in a handful of posts, but to me no amount of regulation, if you want, can modify personal perception, you can take places where burkas are law as an example. If you feel sexualized (we all are at some point) in a locker room you will do so in any space with extrangers. This I believe is a result of the loss of social interaction of our times.
xg15•6m ago
The Stonewall riots were in 1969. At the latest since then, queer movements as political and cultural forces are a thing.

If locker room prudeness was an effect of that, it had a lag of half a century.

guywithahat•5m ago
It's really frustrating. So many women are getting abused in dorms now and nobody can talk about it; a friend of mine complained that a man was hanging out in the women's bathroom for hours on end on friday/saturday nights and the RA threatened to write her up. Rape/abuse rates are around 300x higher (depending on the numbers you use) for trans/non-binary people than women yet nobody cares, and just trying to do high-quality research on the subject can get tenured professors fired. It's frustrating because it's this enormous problem and we can't even have good research on the topic done, let alone address the crime numbers which have come out we can all see.
loughnane•1h ago
> 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.

pinewurst•52m ago
https://archive.ph/Hu1qP
pirates•48m ago
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.

Rendello•12m ago
Interestingly, onsen were traditionally mixed sex until relatively recently (Meiji Restoration). As of now, mixed bathing is banned [1], though hidden in the Wikipedia notes is this:

> 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.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onsen#Mixed_bathing

iancmceachern•11m ago
One can have a similar experience at the Wii spa in LA. It's great, and there is even food on the top floor!
garyfirestorm•34m ago
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.
baal80spam•31m ago
How is this even comparable?
patja•34m ago
Anyone know which Seattle gym the author visited with an all-gender locker room?
canucker2016•19m ago
The article mentions "university gym" - a quick web search with the name of the largest university in Seattle, University of Washington, reveals:

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."
pmdulaney•31m ago
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.
canucker2016•12m ago
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.

sp527•1m ago
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.