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Comment by elric | Hacker News Reader

Not just the nude beach. Also the gym shower. All older sporting facilities in my neck of the woods have communal showers (typically gender segregated, though I've seen some exceptions). People used to get naked and wash (as one does in a shower). More and more, (young) people have started showering with underwear. Newer sporting facilities have started catering to this trend by providing individual shower cubibles. Which seems a bit silly, as you're far more likely to take a long time in a cubicle, thus wasting more water and more time. In a communal shower, you can just give someone the stink eye if they're taking too long ... no such luck in a locked cubicle.

I don't think this is a good thing. If you're not seeing any "normal" naked bodies, and are only ever exposed to idealized movie/porn bodies, aren't you more likely to get all kinds of body issues?

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> I don't think this is a good thing. If you're not seeing any "normal" naked bodies, and are only ever exposed to idealized movie/porn bodies, aren't you more likely to get all kinds of body issues?

I agree and it’s a vicious circle ; the reason this happens in the first place is because people are already self-conscious about their bodies in ways that previous generations weren’t (of course this is specific to time & place and there were other issues back in the day!). Getting to see the variety of naked bodies that exist IRL would surely help, but that’s exactly what one would be avoiding.

> In a communal shower, you can just give someone the stink eye if they're taking too long ... no such luck in a locked cubicle.

How do you know someone else is taking too long unless you also have been in the communal shower too long?

The frustration builds when you're waiting in line for the communal shower.

At my local gym, there were 12 communal showers, but it was common for a class to be scheduled with an end time at 6:00 or 6:30 on the dot, so in addition to the steady traffic from the pool, weight room, or the ergs, you'd have a sudden exodus of 20 or 30 guys (or 50 in January) all waiting in line for showers so we could get to work on time. Then (in spite of signs prohibiting phone use in the locker rooms) people started using their phones for messaging/emails, usually conspicuously held within the locker or otherwise aimed so that they couldn't be used for photos...then they converted the showers to 8 private cubicles.

Even with 8 instead of 12, it was no big deal if people were taking 3 minutes to rinse off the sweat. Whether you left at 6:33, 6:36, or 6:39 was not a problem. But if 10 or 20% of people were treating the shower like a sauna, luxuriating in the steam until their fingers and toes got wrinkly, throughput went down the drain along with those gallons and gallons of hot water... you might have to wait until 7:00 to take a shower after your 6:30 spin class.

Putting a lightswitch which had a 10-minute timer outside the cubicle, plus a sign urging users to conserve water and take showers shorter than 5 minutes, was a big improvement. However, lots of people would do everything they could to minimize perceived awkward nakedness in the communal showers, getting clean in record time, but feel no such pressure in a cubicle.

Back in the single-room houses of yester-generations, wives and husbands would have sex with their children in the room. There was no stigma to doing so. Queens and kings had sex while people watched to make sure it happened. It really hasn’t been until the last few generations or so where sex and nudity were looked down on. I don’t know what caused it, never cared to look into it. I just find the behavior interesting.

Why do you care about other people wasting time?

probably because the number of showers is limited and they're making other people wait?

Limited hot water

> If you're not seeing any "normal" naked bodies, and are only ever exposed to idealized movie/porn bodies

False dichotomy. How about only seeing "normal" naked bodies within the bounds of marriage, and banning porn?

Sounds like a recipe for an unhappy marriage.

Happy marriages require porn? That's a new one.

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