I don't know what the community considers the younger generation but I'm in my low 30s, went to HS and college from the late 90s to mid 00s and in my experience most of the guys I was around in athletic groups, teams or even just PE were not all that prudish. Am I in the minority?
PE for example was filled with guys from all levels: the dumb jocks to the smart jocks, the dumb nerds to the smart nerds. We were all mixed in there. After most PE events we didn't have time to shower, we changed from our school clothes into our PE uniform, and back at the end of class. We all wore compressions or jockstraps; the coach would do a check at the beginning of every class, no boxers. Everyone took off their boxers to put on their supporters, no one wore a towel, no one went into a stall.
The only time we would shower would be if we did swimming for PE. The pool water stank. Made perfect sense. We all wore trunks that we brought from home during the swim session. After swimming we'd head down to the showers, gang style, 20 heads along two walls, parallel. I was never afraid of being naked but there were some intimidating dudes in my PE class, I was intimidated by them. They were big guys, played football and were very used to being naked. Most of them relished in it. I wasn't friends with them, but I put up with it. Got naked. Everyone did. Wasn't a big deal if you could avoid the jock's attention. Well, not for me anyway. One dude was tiny and unfortunately had a tiny prick. He was the laughing stock of 2 jocks, they had lot of fun at his expense (just verbal, thankfully). Needless to say he lived through the ordeal too.
I was a swimmer and track runner in HS. I was not all that talented, not super athletic, but definitely not the worst guy on the team either. In swimming we wore speedos. After meets we usually didn't shower unless we were traveling far from home. But during practice and at away meets we always showered after. We wore speedos in, peeled them off, rinsed them off, scrubbed, shampooed, walked out ass naked. No problem. Went to our locker, grabbed our towels. There were no towel hooks near the showers and the nearest lockers were 10+ feet away. So we did the naked shower and the naked walk. Unlike the football players (from my PE experiences) we swimmers weren't really showy nudists. We did our thing, had typical banter in the shower, complained about early morning practices, the usual. By the time we toweled off we had our towels wrapped back around us, got our clothes back on, went to school or home.
Track was the most prudish in HS. Half the guys showered, half didn't. Frankly I only showered about half the time myself. The guys who did shower consistently were the throwers and the jumpers. In other words: the buff dudes. Kind of interesting reflecting on it now. The guys who had pumped and trimmed bodies were the ones showing it the most.
It might be because I went to a liberal school for college, but when I swam in college it was completely different, There was very little prudishness. The girls were sans clothes too. We often had naked events, naked swims, naked mile runs, and of course naked showers. I didn't do track but I remember the cross country guys did naked miles all the time too and we could hear them in the shower after practices (our locker rooms were adjacent to theirs) and they were loud and goofy in their locker room (soap and shower games, all that nonsense). My roommate did ultimate frisbee and they did naked tourneys too.
I mentioned this in another post, but in my experience I don't see many other young guys basking in the freedom of the birthday suit because I don't see many other young guys in locker rooms (or other acceptable areas) at all. After I graduated I didn't do a lot of working out so I wasn't in a lot of gyms. I imagine a lot of <25 guys are the same as I was a few years ago. Now that I'm older and have a little more money I'm in gyms and spas more often. Most of the other 'young' guys I see in those venues are my age.
I don't know if that makes sense or not, but that's my take on it. Maybe I was fortunate enough to grow up in a reasonably free environment. I think as guys get past 25 they find themselves in situations where they can get naked in public more often. Additionally, as they mature and gain life experience, they get a little more into it. Not to sound too diplomatic about the whole thing, but I think it's a common result of maturity and for the time being anyway, most guys who get back into the gym/spa/shower/nude atmosphere are going to be above 25.
