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Comment by ultrarunner | Hacker News Reader

Straight guy here: I never think about that. Now that I am, I still don't care. Anecdata, and maybe I'm just not the brightest or something, but I really doubt that "the gays will ogle me" is the kind of culture-forming collective epiphany that would bend this practice.

(aside: I really appreciate alternate theories (and you posting yours), and I don't want this to come off as overly dismissive; in this case I just don't agree)

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Not assuming everyone is straight seems like a generational thing. However you feel in co-ed change rooms should mirror your feelings in single sex change rooms. Men and women may/may not check you out.

Shouldn't the issue rather be the reverse? How you feel in single-sex changing rooms should be how we all get to feel also in co-ed rooms. There is no shame in Scandinavia to be together in a sauna with any age or gender - you don't flaunt what you got, but you also don't need to hide it unnecessarily. This was the norm in most places, certainly all around the USSR and famously you find that most (or maybe by now just 'many') beaches allow nudism while the west has some too it's clearly less.

Definitely a large part of this is that the prudish American ways have spread in Europe through (mainstream/Hollywood) films and series. Violence is normalised, while the body and sexuality are shamed and hidden and in that process made taboo and erotic. If you watch some non-UK European movies you really see this very visually, e.g. French movies are all about emotions, German movies are all about mystery and social issues, or e.g. Estonian movies are exploring character. All European films will have some nudity built in, but it's rarely 'sexual' and more just to show that the characters have intimacy/a private moment.

Yes, going to Japan and experiencing their public onsen was unusual for an American like me — to be nude among strangers. To be sure the place I went it was gender divided, but still strange for an American.

Yah, Hollywood. Married couples sleeping in separate single beds. Kisses without tongues. Bras made of cast-iron.

Seems naive to me to assume that a generation or so ago straight men had no clue that gay men existed ... among them!

While it may be in the open now, societally, I assume straight men always knew there were gay men everywhere. For all of human history.

>Seems naive to me to assume that a generation or so ago straight men had no clue that gay men existed ... among them!

The parent is maybe 20-something and thinks of 2000 as some distant past filled with savages?

Straight men knew gay men existed among them (including in locker rooms) since the time of Socrates...

> but I really doubt that "the gays will ogle me" is the kind of culture-forming collective epiphany that would bend this practice.

So why would people care if there were women there? Is it different?

I’ll go a step further and say I think the entire concept of a single-sex changing room may be outdated.

Frankly, my main concern would be that women would see me as "predatory", for lack of a better term. Put a different way, I would be uncomfortable with the idea that I would make them uncomfortable in some way. I guess in some way, not assuming someone's sexual preference (that is, adhering to what is statistically very probable) allows everyone in the situation to save face in accordance with politeness theory [0]. Maybe this isn't entirely logical, but it doesn't seem too far off to me.

This is one example of a situation that would explain the incongruence; I'm sure there are others from different perspectives.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politeness_theory

I'm not sure it is entirely logical, but certainly somewhat logical in the context of nudity being something forbidden.

>Frankly, my main concern would be that women would see me as "predatory", for lack of a better term.

That was outdated too during the sexual revolution (when people would get naked far more casually, including at concerts and nature, and few would bat an eye), but somehow came back to fashion as the boomer generation grow older...

And I'll go another step farther--I don't normally do things that involves changing rooms in the first place. However, the times I have been naked around someone who isn't an intimate partner has more often been mixed-gender than single-gender.

I haven't done it enough for it to not feel a little weird going against the cultural conditioning, but it didn't bother me beyond that.

As a man, I don't have problems changing around women. From anecdotal experience, I think women generally feel more strongly about this. There are surely some women who don't care and men who care.

This would remove a safe space for (mostly) women and (some) men who don't feel comfortable with this.

Same as allowing transgenders to change with the gender they identify with.

> This would remove a safe space for (mostly) women and (some) men who don't feel comfortable with this.

And what of the LGBT people who don't feel comfortable?

Anecdotally, I remember two separate gay classmates in high school telling me that locker rooms made them feel super uncomfortable, once they began to discover their sexuality. Both were girls, for whatever that's worth.

Relatedly, I'm also sympathetic to straight cisgender people who are uncomfortable seeing the opposite sex's genitalia in their single-sex changing rooms.

Getting rid of these gender divisions might be the only way to put everyone on a level playing field. Either you're comfortable with everyone seeing, or you're not. If you're not, use a towel.

> So why would people care if there were women there? Is it different?

Yes, it's way different, obviously!

> I’ll go a step further and say I think the entire concept of a single-sex changing room may be outdated.

You're definitely in the minority there. Having been a 13 year old boy myself, and knowing how 13 year old boys behave, there's no way in hell I'd allow a room full of them to be in a room with my 13 year old daughter naked.

>Yes, it's way different, obviously!

Obviously if one is from a puritan culture and that's all they know.

Hasn't been as obvious in nordic countries, Germany, etc.

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