The end of naked locker rooms | Hacker News Reader

The end of naked locker rooms

theatlantic.com

39 pointsloughnane97 comments

> 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.

https://i.imgur.com/YuVmKkE.png

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.

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

One can have a similar experience at the Wii spa in LA. It's great, and there is even food on the top floor!

Naked locker rooms were well on the decline (at least for youth) in the '90s. I attended a martial arts gym with adults and kids, where men would regularly walk out of the shower naked and change all while holding conversations with each other.

I learned the hard way at band camp in high school that such casual nudity among a single-gender was socially unacceptable among my own generation, and after the first day changed my clothes under my towel like everybody else.

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.

At my state college in the 80's, most dorms and showers were unisex but I never saw anyone naked outside my dorm room.

Stanford's Toyon hall had coed bathrooms and showers 20 years ago. I don't know if it still does.

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.

CGP Grey did a video on US State flags and added a mosaic to the Virginia flag, making a comment about demonetization. It, having the Seal of Virginia on it, contains a personifcation of virtue with a single breast exposed.

Apparently a Texas school district banned the Virginia flag for the same reason.

San Francisco just put up a nude woman statue this year:

https://sfstandard.com/2025/09/30/embaracadero-naked-lady-st...

But temporary and not publicly funded.

> Compounding these issues is the omnipresence of cameras and social media, which has made privacy more precarious.

Buried in an article about shifts in attitudes towards nudity and porn is the actual cause. As a child of the 70s I've never given nudity in the locker rooms a second thought but now, no thank you. For my daughter? Out of the question.

I'll bring up the third rail. I am, despite all my ultra-liberal blue sensibilities, uncomfortable with individuals with XY chromosomes in my locker room. I can put in a bunch of qualifiers - if they're on hormones, if they're post op, if there's really no physical difference then I'm not concerned but there is no guarantee of course. If I look over at the locker next to me and see a penis, I'm out.

For the last year and a half I've been living off grid in rural Colorado. I have a membership in the community rec center (which is very nice) and town service (also very nice) so I can use their gym, but mostly to use the shower and hot tub.

Personally, I think that being in locker rooms has been healthy- it's a good reminder that some day I am going to be super wrinkly if I live that long. It's been an interesting experiment in existing in public spaces.

If you're uncomfortable in those kinds of siutations, I wouldn't tell you what to do, but honestly "getting over" being weirded out by old naked folks is definitely a thing you might find worth while to work out.

Upending convention for one identity category while reinforcing body-shaming is privileging selective discrimination and inconsistent. Oops! Perhaps not forcing or shaming/guilt-tripping people into hiding themselves in changing stalls would be the moral thing to do and those who are offended can close their eyes or look elsewhere. I'd be cool if those stalls were entirely optional. I'm ambivalent about gendering or ungendering changing/shower rooms and WC's, but the user group of the space have to agree on a convention, hopefully one that doesn't double-down on another form of social bullshit while only addressing (no half-pun intended) one dimension.

> the prevailing trends in locker-room design is privacy, a way to make “a diverse user base” feel comfortable.

One thing that annoys me about this article is the subtle stab at woke / gender identity as a reason for this change. Both Germany and Sweden has a much higher percentage of transgender people compared to the US, and neither have these kinds of locker rooms.

Living in Germany where all-gender nude changing rooms, nude all-gender saunas and nude beaches are very normal and very much not sexualised, it is striking how different the underlying culture is here - Germans find nudity practical and sanitary, and at the same time they very much insist that you wear special bathing shoes.

In Seattle I believe this is being done to make it less controversial about which locker room trans people use… there’s one.

Anyone know which Seattle gym the author visited with an all-gender locker room?

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."

Thanks that rings a bell. I remember reading complaints about how the change reduced the overall shower capacity and led to longer shower waits during peak hours.

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.

Yes, pass on seeing or being seen

> Maybe most men don't want to see other men naked?

Don't look then? No one is forcing you to look anywhere else than what you're doing. It always struck me as strange that people seem disgusted/disturbed/annoyed by something yet they're unable to look away and focus on their own business instead.

Tell that to old Joe Dangly-sac using the hand air dryer to blow the water off his old sagging balls.

I walked in on that the first time I ever used a public gym and that shit is seared into my memory--that was enough to turn me off of the locker room for some time and you know what, I don't miss it.

More often than not, pub[l]ic nudity is innocuous, nothing remarkable, but there will always be the outlier that spoils the rest of the bunch by doing weird shit with their genitals, be it drying them where theyre not supposed to be dried (see above), touching themselves in a sexual manner (seen it in a few different locker rooms, and of course the old naked men who are more than friendly to younger, naked men.

I for one say good riddance to the nude locker room. Fuck that shit.

Sometimes I wonder how people walk through life so shielded from anything. You've seen another man naked for the first and only time, and it's "seared into my memory"?

I've been in locker rooms for 40 years, and have seen someone touch themselves in a sexual manner once, across 40 years. I've seen more people masturbating in public streets than in any locker rooms. Pretty crazy how people can go through life with so different experiences.

Then don't look? We're all monkeys who are naked under all these clothes. Just focus on yourself and do your business and maybe do a little personal work if you're traumatized by exposed body parts.

"do a little personal work if you're traumatized by exposed body parts."

Ever considered that folks who maybe aren't so into it were, in fact, traumatized by someone with their exposed body parts?

Have you? As in, ever considered how that doesn't actually matter? That the bad thing does not imply or justify this response?

Their victimhood, whatever form it happened to take, is not everyone else's problem such that a shared space has to cater to their problem.

How brutal and uncaring right? I think this kind of argument comes from a position of equating this consideration with wheel chair ramps and navigation aids for the blind, which are good and proper things. But this is not like that.

Anyone can have a psychological problem with literally anything. For everyone that was harmed by sex, someone else was harmed by cars or simple non sex violence or not harmed by anyone at all but they simply have a problem of their own like autism etc. I was beat up and made to feel powerless a couple times as a kid. Therefor gyms should not allow there to be more than one other person around me, no groups of 3 or more, way too threatening. And no one else can be larger or stronger than me. Obviously absurd. But I was actually at other people's mercy and totally powerless while other people violated my body.

But ok let's grant that sex is somehow a special problem that is worth giving special treatment even if we can't give everyone else with all the other infinite problems the same consideration, ... wait that is pretty hard to grant even just for the sake of argument just so we can move on to the next argument. It doesn't hold water and won't go away... F all the people with any other problem that just doesn't happen to stem from sex and move on ... because we're good considerate people?

Anyway the next and more important question is, ever considered that that trauma only happened in the first place because of a society that treats this topic in such a warped way? Instead of a frank, adult, conscious, lack-of-all-charge way?

No, this is just not a valid argument. And it's not from not caring about the victim. It's that it doesn't even help the victim or have anything to do with them or what happened to them or the process of dealing with it after.

Easy there cowboy, this isn't a 'safe space' argument, this is an argument for preference. You are more than welcome to gallivant around while publicly nude, while others are more than welcome to prefer not to. That's really the crux of it.

No, you tried to invoke trauma.

So apparently trauma isn't something that can inform preference?

You can't say "just a preference" and at the same time say "trauma", no. That is trying to have it both ways.

People who experience trauma can't have preferences. Got it.

Sure whatever you say. It doesn't matter what I actually said, you have so far decided to hear whatever you want. This is not communication, or sane.

If it's just a preference, then why mention the trauma at all? What bearing does it have, if not to try to give your "preference" the weight of a harm to justify getting your way when otherwise there would be no reason you should get your way?

"I can't control my reaction to someone else's body because trauma." has an awful lot in common with "I can't control my reaction to someone else's body because male biology."

This trauma argument is the same as dudes that claim breastfeeding is vulgar and intolerable because they just can't be expected to control themselves in the presense of an uncovered breast.

And of course, this is also not just a preference. It's an attempt to justify something by having a stronger argument than a mere preference, namely a trauma.

But let's just pretend you didn't try to wield trauma as a club. It's bad faith argument forgiveness day.

No few people have a "preference" that babies should not exist on planes or in restaurants because they don't like the sound of them crying or their smells.

All the men of whole countries have a preference that women just shouldn't exist anywhere out in public.

And of course the breastfeeding already mentioned.

I would call all of those invalid but hey I'm just a "cowboy".

I'd like to be the first one to add a comment in agreement.

Having had a high number of uncomfortable experiences in nude-allowed locker rooms, it's nice to know there are spots where I don't need to be subjected to it if I prefer not to.

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.

How is this even comparable?

They both involve nudity in front of the opposite sex (and by extension, children of the opposite sex). I really don't want nudity to become something that's normalized in more places then it needs to be

I (male child) was breastfed (female mother). Still haven’t recovered from that.

I think the problem with public urination is more that you're pissing on the street than that you're naked. The nudity is, at most, a side concern.

In both cases other people saw you naked. That’s the point of comparison.

One space is public and one is private. One space is optional/avoidable and one isn't. How could this be easier to understand?

When it specifically says it’s a public locker room how is it private? If other people can see you then is it really private?

The article never once says "public locker room", it merely says "locker room". These are, presumably, parts of private establishments such as pools, saunas, gyms, etc. That is, one has to make the conscious choice to enter such an establishment.

Even if it's a publicly-funded establishment such as, say, a municipal swimming pool, the conscious choice to enter into such a place versus walking through an open street aren't comparable.

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