YMCA's did not allow swimsuits up until the 1960s believe, when it became co-ed and swimsuits became mandatory. It is hard to for my modern mind to comprehend this, with all male-only spaces mostly destroyed, and everything so hyper sexualized and homo-sexualized. It makes it hard for me to realize what all was lost with the sexual revolution.
The sexual revolution per se didn’t affect this. I was raised in the 80s and in my country we had those social/sport clubs that looked like resorts where I would go with my family in the weekends to swim in the pools, play tennis, soccer and relax in the sauna.
Locker rooms and saunas were strictly segregated by sex and everyone would be naked. No awkwardness at all.
What fucked everything was the homo plague since the 90s.
I had a convo years ago with my wife about male affection going away generally with that same trend. She showed me some article that was full of photos from as late as the 80s but going back to the turn of the 20th century of dudes with their arms over each other's shoulders or even around the waist, and it didn't look gay, it looked brotherly. And I was like man, weird, I never even stopped to think how weird it feels now to touch another dude even in a joking way. Like in those old 90s TV shows when a guy would lean on another dude's back and make some comment under his breath, or goad him into doing something stupid as a prank. Men just don't touch each other now without something being suspect.
Teenagers seen to miss the irony. They think that going to extremes to avoid being seen naked prevents anybody from looking, as if anyone cares. It's the opposite though. By caring so much about it, they're acting like their own body is inherently gay, as if you need to cover up in the shower to avoid being found out.
The fear of being perceived as gay is one of the biggest things making young men afraid to be social with other men. It's not just in the locker room. A lot of men are afraid of being too close with other males out of fear that they will be percieved as gay. They really think that having a male best friend who you like to be with a lot is a sign that the two of them are going to get together.
I played ice hockey through high school and for my university's club team. In hockey there is a big locker room culture and it's a great way to have a good time with your teammates. I've made a lot of friends over the years hanging out with my teammates in the locker room after practice.
The problem with gyms today is they aren't places where you can have a workout and hang out with the men. There's tons of women there who are doing a bunch of stuff. If you are chatting with some guy at the gym and maybe you say something non PC and one of the women hears you, you can be reported and have your life ruined.
I used to go to a popular gym near me to ride the exercise bike and read a book while having half an hour of peace. Well the bikes were right infront of this spot where a lot of women would do lifts and stretches. They'd just bend over in front of me in their yoga pants and I could see the outline of everything. I'm no prude so I didn't mind but then it hit me that a lot of my neighbors were there and if I got caught seeing something and if it was one of their early 20 something daughters or nieces I could be wrecked in my community. So I stopped going. Gyms just aren't a good place for men to hang out and socialize anymore.
I posted that note after having to take my son to a public shower while camping. I was in there with a friend who was also washing his son and it struck me that 1) both boys were stripped naked for the purposes of showering without the adults or the kids caring and 2) how little I cared when I also stripped naked and did whatever I had to do to wash my son and myself. I basically didn't have any of that youthful insecurity, none of that inhibition. I was squatting right in the middle of the changing room, no concern if anyone's looking at my hairy ass or hanging balls.
Obviously, part of this is becoming a parent. Your priorities change, and I don't really give a shit if someone is looking at me and thinking thoughts. I have a mission to clean this dirty-ass three-year-old who's about to sleep in the same bed as me.
Very few things desensitize you as much as small children. After the nth time you're covered in shit or vomit or he's done something to humiliate you in public, you stop caring.
I suspect it starts with men asserting the right to maintain male-only spaces. I think male-only gyms would be very popular. We have conceded too much and all to keep the peace.
But would there be some feminist who would sue anyone trying to create such a gym (or, rather, get the Department of Justice to enforce the Civil Rights Act)?
Of course. But it is exactly these machinations we need to stand up to. We must enforce our right to free association without which we become a totalitarian society.
When I was a kid in Brazil saunas in middle and upper class social clubs where segregated by sex, man of all ages would get naked in the locker rooms and in the sauna propers and as a young kid I distinctly remember that being there made me feel more like a man and less like a boy. Now even talking this makes me afraid someone will think I am homo.
Also, most trendy bars and restaurants are getting rid of urinals, and I have the distinct impression that young guys feel anxious when urinating in an urinal and prefer the closed stalls. As more and more space is taken from urinals towards closed stalls now in some night clubs you have the unheard of phenomenon of lines for the masculine bathroom
In the mid 90s I went to a middle school that was, at that time, already 80 years old. I never saw the group showers used, but there they stood, relics from a forgotten culture, only to be mocked. I remember one kid saying "did everyone used to be gay?" lol.
Graduated high school in '83. Saw a mix of showers that never got to be used, mostly the pole type, and PE teachers that herded us through the showers as quickly as possible. At least quick enough that nobody had time to stand around staring, lol. Long gone days.
I was thrown into the deep end with group showers and naked dudes in Basic Training. It was a culture shock for about 5 minutes, but you get over it quickly when you have a Drill Sargeant standing behind you in the shower yelling at you that you ARE DONE!
I don't shower at the gym though, and that's mostly becausr I struggled with athlete's foot throughout that early portion of my military service. It seemed inevitable with sharing a shower with 100 dudes so I stopped doing that as soon as I could.
Interesting insight into mens' private spaces and the social changes us oldsters have lived over the decades. So much has changed in what seems like no time at all.
I definitely remember how insecure everyone was in the 90's and had to shower with bathing suits on, being careful to strategically place their towel so that nobody would see anything out of the corner of their eyes. Naturally, you can't just say that people were acting like babies. It would be like a tactical nuke on your own reputation.
Is it really? Sounds like an apologetic for anti-intellectual jock culture, which is the last thing the right needs right now. Can you imagine an intellectual National Socialist like Uncle Adolph participating in such peasant rituals? Peasant rituals are not for rulers.
Seems to me we've had nothing but trouble thanks to "intellectuals" with aristocratic pretensions, who consider their comfort with books and abstractions an a priori merit to rule. I can easily imagine the type, clutching his towel about his secret jewels, caved in upon himself and whatever fantasy house of cards he's built up in the safe privacy of his head.
This piece merely laments the loss of an opportunity to "hide nothing." When you're not hiding that you are a body, it's more natural not to hide more important moral facts as well (maybe). An open, comfortable, unpretentious peasant solidarity is preferable to the modern day fragile, narcissistic so-called intellectual, holding forth with great authority upon the Earthlings from his ice cave on Pluto.
But being a girl, perhaps I'm peeking in on your conversation. I'll sneak out now and leave you boys alone.
Yes you are my intellectual inferior, yes people like me employ people like you and treat you like the slave class cattle meat machines you are genetically cognatively inferior subhuman.
Ironically even given the constraints of your own argument you yourself have been a poor ruler and the peasants which use are supposedly superior to our complaining of your insufficient rule.
Good article had to take time to reflect on this lol. I remember having some issues with this when younger but I was just incredibly shy. I don’t think the being perceived as gay or worrying about gay guys checking me out really ever came into my thought process. I eventually had to deal with it in college and just got over it. I think this practice started dying when we got away from wanting anyone especially young men to experience anything deemed uncomfortable. Young men in the past always had to go through things that were tough and uncomfortable and that tends to build character or erase fear and shyness which is a valuable part of growing up as a man. You also have to be realistic in the sense that young probably don’t have the urgency about hygiene any more after working out because they are likely not going to go socialize with women in public directly afterwards. Most guys are going home and if they meet up with the opposite sex it’s going to be prearranged through the smart phone. The guys aren’t usually knocking off after a workout or practice and hanging out at the malt shop talking to chicks. The more insular and managed a society that we have become really doesn’t require the urgency in hygiene that calls for showering with a bunch of guys to be able and go have impromptu interactions with the opposite sex. Whether this is good or bad isn’t certainly up for debate but it is what it is now…
One point to consider: Men in the 1960s saw other naked men and they knew what was 'normal'. Boys in the 2010s saw porn stars on their phones and they think that 12 inches is 'normal'. They are embarrassed at their size and don't want to be compared.
I remember this much as you point out - that growing up there were naked old men at the pools' showers. Also at boy scout camp a group of boys from Kansas were instantly naked in the showers while we used swim suits.
Now, I'm old enough to realize it's a reaction to the hyper prudish/sexualized sensibilities of our times. Either it's all about sex or you need to avoid the human form. There's no middle ground, no room for intimate friendship without sexuality. Either it's about sex, or nothing. This permeates the arts as well, where any naked body must be phonographically sexualized.
I don't think that you can overcome the way people are raised, and their sensibilities, on a mass scale. All you can do is raise children that are more comfortable with these things, and hand the baton off to them, hoping for a more real, grounded life for the next generation.
YMCA's did not allow swimsuits up until the 1960s believe, when it became co-ed and swimsuits became mandatory. It is hard to for my modern mind to comprehend this, with all male-only spaces mostly destroyed, and everything so hyper sexualized and homo-sexualized. It makes it hard for me to realize what all was lost with the sexual revolution.
The sexual revolution per se didn’t affect this. I was raised in the 80s and in my country we had those social/sport clubs that looked like resorts where I would go with my family in the weekends to swim in the pools, play tennis, soccer and relax in the sauna.
Locker rooms and saunas were strictly segregated by sex and everyone would be naked. No awkwardness at all.
What fucked everything was the homo plague since the 90s.
I had a convo years ago with my wife about male affection going away generally with that same trend. She showed me some article that was full of photos from as late as the 80s but going back to the turn of the 20th century of dudes with their arms over each other's shoulders or even around the waist, and it didn't look gay, it looked brotherly. And I was like man, weird, I never even stopped to think how weird it feels now to touch another dude even in a joking way. Like in those old 90s TV shows when a guy would lean on another dude's back and make some comment under his breath, or goad him into doing something stupid as a prank. Men just don't touch each other now without something being suspect.
Teenagers seen to miss the irony. They think that going to extremes to avoid being seen naked prevents anybody from looking, as if anyone cares. It's the opposite though. By caring so much about it, they're acting like their own body is inherently gay, as if you need to cover up in the shower to avoid being found out.
The fear of being perceived as gay is one of the biggest things making young men afraid to be social with other men. It's not just in the locker room. A lot of men are afraid of being too close with other males out of fear that they will be percieved as gay. They really think that having a male best friend who you like to be with a lot is a sign that the two of them are going to get together.
I played ice hockey through high school and for my university's club team. In hockey there is a big locker room culture and it's a great way to have a good time with your teammates. I've made a lot of friends over the years hanging out with my teammates in the locker room after practice.
The problem with gyms today is they aren't places where you can have a workout and hang out with the men. There's tons of women there who are doing a bunch of stuff. If you are chatting with some guy at the gym and maybe you say something non PC and one of the women hears you, you can be reported and have your life ruined.
I used to go to a popular gym near me to ride the exercise bike and read a book while having half an hour of peace. Well the bikes were right infront of this spot where a lot of women would do lifts and stretches. They'd just bend over in front of me in their yoga pants and I could see the outline of everything. I'm no prude so I didn't mind but then it hit me that a lot of my neighbors were there and if I got caught seeing something and if it was one of their early 20 something daughters or nieces I could be wrecked in my community. So I stopped going. Gyms just aren't a good place for men to hang out and socialize anymore.
I used to go to a very serious powerlifting gym. I took my wife one time and even though she dressed modestly, she got a lot of unwanted attention.
Then you have the women dressing like you describe. They know what they're doing.
It's been a dream of mine to open up a male only serious gym. Enough with the drama, just separate the sexes.
Where did you play your uni hockey?
Great piece and thanks for the shout out!
I posted that note after having to take my son to a public shower while camping. I was in there with a friend who was also washing his son and it struck me that 1) both boys were stripped naked for the purposes of showering without the adults or the kids caring and 2) how little I cared when I also stripped naked and did whatever I had to do to wash my son and myself. I basically didn't have any of that youthful insecurity, none of that inhibition. I was squatting right in the middle of the changing room, no concern if anyone's looking at my hairy ass or hanging balls.
Obviously, part of this is becoming a parent. Your priorities change, and I don't really give a shit if someone is looking at me and thinking thoughts. I have a mission to clean this dirty-ass three-year-old who's about to sleep in the same bed as me.
Very few things desensitize you as much as small children. After the nth time you're covered in shit or vomit or he's done something to humiliate you in public, you stop caring.
I suspect it starts with men asserting the right to maintain male-only spaces. I think male-only gyms would be very popular. We have conceded too much and all to keep the peace.
But would there be some feminist who would sue anyone trying to create such a gym (or, rather, get the Department of Justice to enforce the Civil Rights Act)?
Of course. But it is exactly these machinations we need to stand up to. We must enforce our right to free association without which we become a totalitarian society.
When I was a kid in Brazil saunas in middle and upper class social clubs where segregated by sex, man of all ages would get naked in the locker rooms and in the sauna propers and as a young kid I distinctly remember that being there made me feel more like a man and less like a boy. Now even talking this makes me afraid someone will think I am homo.
Also, most trendy bars and restaurants are getting rid of urinals, and I have the distinct impression that young guys feel anxious when urinating in an urinal and prefer the closed stalls. As more and more space is taken from urinals towards closed stalls now in some night clubs you have the unheard of phenomenon of lines for the masculine bathroom
In the mid 90s I went to a middle school that was, at that time, already 80 years old. I never saw the group showers used, but there they stood, relics from a forgotten culture, only to be mocked. I remember one kid saying "did everyone used to be gay?" lol.
Graduated high school in '83. Saw a mix of showers that never got to be used, mostly the pole type, and PE teachers that herded us through the showers as quickly as possible. At least quick enough that nobody had time to stand around staring, lol. Long gone days.
I was thrown into the deep end with group showers and naked dudes in Basic Training. It was a culture shock for about 5 minutes, but you get over it quickly when you have a Drill Sargeant standing behind you in the shower yelling at you that you ARE DONE!
I don't shower at the gym though, and that's mostly becausr I struggled with athlete's foot throughout that early portion of my military service. It seemed inevitable with sharing a shower with 100 dudes so I stopped doing that as soon as I could.
I hate athlete's foot. It is torture.
LOLL You were standing at parade rest, butt naked in the shower!
Interesting insight into mens' private spaces and the social changes us oldsters have lived over the decades. So much has changed in what seems like no time at all.
I definitely remember how insecure everyone was in the 90's and had to shower with bathing suits on, being careful to strategically place their towel so that nobody would see anything out of the corner of their eyes. Naturally, you can't just say that people were acting like babies. It would be like a tactical nuke on your own reputation.
That’s when the gay stuff became so prevalent. Ten years before nobody would care
This generation is having less sex than any previous generation. They're all uptight.
Very important topic and well discussed here.
Is it really? Sounds like an apologetic for anti-intellectual jock culture, which is the last thing the right needs right now. Can you imagine an intellectual National Socialist like Uncle Adolph participating in such peasant rituals? Peasant rituals are not for rulers.
Seems to me we've had nothing but trouble thanks to "intellectuals" with aristocratic pretensions, who consider their comfort with books and abstractions an a priori merit to rule. I can easily imagine the type, clutching his towel about his secret jewels, caved in upon himself and whatever fantasy house of cards he's built up in the safe privacy of his head.
This piece merely laments the loss of an opportunity to "hide nothing." When you're not hiding that you are a body, it's more natural not to hide more important moral facts as well (maybe). An open, comfortable, unpretentious peasant solidarity is preferable to the modern day fragile, narcissistic so-called intellectual, holding forth with great authority upon the Earthlings from his ice cave on Pluto.
But being a girl, perhaps I'm peeking in on your conversation. I'll sneak out now and leave you boys alone.
Yes the stupid people should rule, right?
Erm… aren’t they?
(Nope, I'd be stupid to think that if something's rotten on high, then the only choice is to go down low. :)
This guy could’ve benefited from being shoved into a few more lockers in gym class. Also Uncle A has quite a reputation regarding showers.
Yes you are my intellectual inferior, yes people like me employ people like you and treat you like the slave class cattle meat machines you are genetically cognatively inferior subhuman.
There’s a happy medium between jock bullying culture and actually being comfortable that naked male bodies are not a big deal.
Dude it’s all the same subculture. True aristocrat rulers do not engage in this sort of boorish peasant behavior.
Ironically even given the constraints of your own argument you yourself have been a poor ruler and the peasants which use are supposedly superior to our complaining of your insufficient rule.
Good article had to take time to reflect on this lol. I remember having some issues with this when younger but I was just incredibly shy. I don’t think the being perceived as gay or worrying about gay guys checking me out really ever came into my thought process. I eventually had to deal with it in college and just got over it. I think this practice started dying when we got away from wanting anyone especially young men to experience anything deemed uncomfortable. Young men in the past always had to go through things that were tough and uncomfortable and that tends to build character or erase fear and shyness which is a valuable part of growing up as a man. You also have to be realistic in the sense that young probably don’t have the urgency about hygiene any more after working out because they are likely not going to go socialize with women in public directly afterwards. Most guys are going home and if they meet up with the opposite sex it’s going to be prearranged through the smart phone. The guys aren’t usually knocking off after a workout or practice and hanging out at the malt shop talking to chicks. The more insular and managed a society that we have become really doesn’t require the urgency in hygiene that calls for showering with a bunch of guys to be able and go have impromptu interactions with the opposite sex. Whether this is good or bad isn’t certainly up for debate but it is what it is now…
I think even third space was a symptom of the society where home, work and fun ceased to be practiced within one space the community shared.
One point to consider: Men in the 1960s saw other naked men and they knew what was 'normal'. Boys in the 2010s saw porn stars on their phones and they think that 12 inches is 'normal'. They are embarrassed at their size and don't want to be compared.
I went through HS in the late aughts and only the wrestling team maintained the old ways of the locker room and showers.
I remember this much as you point out - that growing up there were naked old men at the pools' showers. Also at boy scout camp a group of boys from Kansas were instantly naked in the showers while we used swim suits.
Now, I'm old enough to realize it's a reaction to the hyper prudish/sexualized sensibilities of our times. Either it's all about sex or you need to avoid the human form. There's no middle ground, no room for intimate friendship without sexuality. Either it's about sex, or nothing. This permeates the arts as well, where any naked body must be phonographically sexualized.
I don't think that you can overcome the way people are raised, and their sensibilities, on a mass scale. All you can do is raise children that are more comfortable with these things, and hand the baton off to them, hoping for a more real, grounded life for the next generation.
When people has classical educations they were able to make a distinction between philos and eros.