Another gym shower thread - this one's different, I swear

[musclebare9]

I am involved with the design of many schools. Most girls showers are open just like the guys in high schools. There usually is a private shower or two for the monthly issue. All that said, nobody seems to use them. It's not mandatory like it used to be when I was in school.

Guys do have body image issues just like women. They just don't talk about them.

 

[223790]

I have belonged to a lot of health clubs and I've seen it all. From open to open and stalls, to just stalls. My current gym has the glass partitions but no doors. I think a big reason why women want privacy is not because we get periods, but because we are generally ashamed of our bodies. I definitely an not speaking for everyone but most women, thanks to magazines and music videos have a lot of body issues that men generally don't have. Have you ever heard a man tell one of his friends that he doesn't want to go to the bar because he's bloated? Or ask if his jeans make him look fat? I think we are just more self conscious than guys.

It was done to keep us women modest.

I think there is a lot of truth to this, and unfortunately this notion of shame and modesty has been transferred to males by well meaning but misguided mothers. With young males lacking clear role models (AKA fathers that are present in their lives), mothers have had to fill the void. My mother always used to say to me, "I'm an excellent mother, but a lousy father", and she was right. She was a fantastic mother, but she couldn't possibly be a father to me as well and she knew it. My father pretty much disappeared from my life after my parents seperated and later divorced. With divorce rates being at an all time high, and the general attitude of society that being an irresponsible and absent father is acceptable, it's no wonder that young men are looking to their mothers for guidance in an area that traditionally was and still should be looked after by a father. As I have said before, the feminization and shaming of young men sadly marches forward...

 

[223790]

Guys do have body image issues just like women. They just don't talk about them.

You are correct that we do have body image issues as well, but it's seen as unmanly to verbalize them. I was just reading an article about body image issues and eating disorders that said that men are just as likely to suffer from these afflictions as women, but it is well hidden. Look at the men you see in these Men's Health type magazines. They have flawless bodies and faces (photoshopped just like women's magazines), so young men are trying to live up to an impossible standard. I went through this myself about 20 years ago. I had body image issues, and I was always trying to look like these guys I would see in magazines. I became obsessed with working out and I practically starved myself. I dropped about 50 lbs, I was in the best shape of my life and I still couldn't look like these guys. I got so thin that some of my friends were telling me that I needed to gain some weight. However, everytime I looked in the mirror, I saw a fat guy staring back at me and I only weighed about 148 lbs. For a 5'7" husky guy, that's incredibly light. Today with young men being inundated with images from the Internet of guys with what's called "trophy cocks" (something I didn't have to deal with), it must be a thousand times worse. If these guys would get over their fear and shower with the other guys, they would realize that what they have isn't small, it's average. In reality, it's the guys with the "trophy cocks" that are in the minority, not the guys with average size cocks who make up about 90% of the guys I see in the locker rooms and showers.

 

[D_Doe_Ray_Mi]

More evidence that no woman can teach a boy how to become or be a MAN!

 

[Stjamesmax]

Where I went to boarding school...guys had a big shower room with 6 shower heads, girls had separate little stalls. Those showers were designed in the 1960s and were probably based off a design that dated back to the 20s...when modern plumbing was introduced. I'm sure the gang shower was a matter of utility...it would have been expensive to create individual stalls. A luxury like that was considered appropiate for the delicate female psyche, but young men were tougher and more practical. I'm can imagine talking to a 1920s architect: "Why don't you supply boys with separate shower stalls?" Architect: "Are you crazy? We can't afford all of that haberdashery. Besides, I bet they enjoy the camaraderie and talking to each other about sports and other nonsense in the showers. You know how boys are."

Of course, those days are over. The health club I go to has little shower stalls for men and women - I know because I walked the building while it was being built. We are rich now, and can afford such haberdashery as tiled shower stalls. Women are no longer known to be delicate, so whats good for them is good for the guys too. Equality, you know. Besides, we have such things as homosexuals these days that actually enjoy checking out their fellow men. Throw in a few cell phone cameras, Abercrombie and Fitch ads, paranoid parents, and Viagra and its just safer to avoid male nudity altogether.

Right?

Sadly life with no intelligence is alive on the planet

 

[chadstallion]

Funny you mention that. But at my gym that was totally the same. Women got cubicles and men one room.

in mine the men have individual stalls with curtains. the ladies have individual shower stalls and several bath tubs.

 

[adequate]

When indoor plumbing came into being and the advent of war & army barracks came on the scene, my bet is the military had some influence in open showers.