Naked in the locker room …
Do you feel comfortable changing in your gym’s locker room?
It’s January, and if you’re still sticking to your ‘new year, new me’ mentality, you’ll have spent a fair amount of your week wriggling out of your clothes in a cramped locker room. There’s something about being naked in such a public setting that leaves some of us feeling uncomfortable, unless… you know… you’re into that. But for those of us who aren’t entirely confident in getting starkes in front of strangers, it’s not something we’re eager to do. Why is it that we’re loud and obnoxious in our every day lives, but then revert to scared school kids during PE once we step into a locker room? And how do we change that?
https://www.qxmagazine.com/2017/02/the-qx-definitive-gay-sauna-guide/
Let us take you back to those school days of changing from your itchy school uniform, into your hand-me-down sports kit. A mist of body odour and Lynx Africa assaults your nostrils as you sit looking at your stomach folds slipping on your footy socks. Your eyes linger downwards to avoid catching someone’s eye or getting caught out staring at the handsome guy in your year who’s already developing some abs. All you hope for is to be left alone to change and not be the butt of some joke about you being a queer. It wasn’t funny the first time and sure isn’t the 145th time. But still they laugh and you feel just like Carrie crawled up in on shower floor having tampons thrown at you as they shout “pug it up”. No? Just us? We must have watched that movie way too many times.
Now a fully grown adult living in London, doing your own laundry and everything, those days are far behind you, but unfortunately, sometimes those feelings aren’t. You can’t just erase six formative years of sitting bare-assed on a school bench struggling to lift up your Spiderman briefs.
In the locker room
You walk into your gym’s changing room, full of stiffs changing out of their suits and chatting about data consulting, and suddenly you feel compelled to perform the napkin dance with your tiny towel. Your wondering eyes are still causing a problem, with the big hunky trainer changing right next to you don’t dare look at anything other than his feet. ‘If only I were into feet’, you think to yourself. Hunched over with the towel draping over you like a chubby woman in a renaissance painting, you know you look ridiculous but at least these men can’t see your shame. Having your flaccid, shrivelled member out is bad enough, but it’s better than the alternative if you get a good look at that trainer…
But how do you change that? How could you become one of those older men who could give zero fucks about you seeing their dangly bits? The truth is a shift in mindset. You know that the less you judge, the less you feel judgement on you, and the same’s true of being in that locker room. You feel you should cover up because your eyes wander. If you know you don’t want to look at men in there, you know none of them wants to look at you. Liberate yourself, honey. No one’s there to do anything other than change unless it’s one of those kinds of places. Everyone’s in there to take off one set of clothes, shower and put another on. That’s it. They didn’t come to judge, they came to change. It’s a locker room, you’re not at a cattle sale.
