NEED ADVICE about GYM

[The-Bigger-the-Better]

Couple years back I wrote a post about a father who would come to the gym with his young son. The kid wasn't majorly young but def. a minor. I thought it was odd and uncomfortable for me to see this kid there while naked men ...hung or not...just walked around. I think we should not hide "real world" experiences from our kids but I also think they should be kept innocent as long as possible. No need to rush a child into maturity. Well I made a stink about how minors shouldn't be allowed in the gym and eventually left. Well now my new gym membership is up and i miss my old gym. Would anyone go back to a gym you left on bad terms with?

Any for those that don't know the back story:

1. This kid was a minor.....I think because of nudity you should be 18. You have to be 18 to get into a rated R movie.

2. His dad was part of the squash league and hung out nude half the time so the poor kid stayed there waiting while he talked.

3. And yes I did change my work out hours at the time so I didnt have to be there at the same time...til it got too inconvenient and I left.

Should I apologize even if I feel I was in the right? BTW the gym is invitation only for memberships.

 

[B_RedDude]

Keep them innocent from what? The nudity of other males?

Dude, I don't see a problem at all. The "minor" is still a male, and if he doesn't already, he will soon look like the older guys in the locker room in terms of secondary sex characteristics.

Seriously, what is the problem? Is he being obviosuly checked out/cruised by the older guys? If so, the older guys really need to be more careful around him.

Interested to know what country you live in and how that might correspond to your attitudes toward nudity. I always like to remind people that the ancients ran the Olympics in the nude. What's the hang-up if guys aren't fooling around in front of this kid? Nudity does not = Sex.

 

[D_Jared Padalicki]

I disagree. I started gym at age 15-16 and showered there, nude...
No one was bothered, there were even guys age 13 there. It's just a male shower at a gym, not a place to make porn or have sex or so.
And I think it's good to be already comfterable being nude around others. I never saw my dad or brother nude and at gym it was the first time I saw nude males. And I learned there to be more comfterable with my body and nudity around others, and not being so uptight like my dad and brother were. So in this case I have to disagree with your point of view. It's just nudity, there isn't a need to keep them innocent.
So if you want to go back to that gym, you should apologize yourself and be less uptight about minors being there.

 

[nakedone]

A young male needs to see older naked males, and he has the right to! What better place than a gym locker/shower area where it is completely natural for men to be naked, and, as in this case, where his father is right there.

Any guy who is bothered by younger males looking at them has, in my opinion, a problem. Let's not make the younger guys feel guilty for looking!

 

[cyclistlarge]

I don't see anything wrong with it. I've been swimming since i was like 7 and probably showering and changing in the locker room with older men (father included) since I was probably 9. wasn't ever a big deal. I think it probably leads guys to be more comfortable with themselves if anything. I wouldn't have paid it any attention. as for it being awkward to go somewhere you left on bad terms that's your call. I wouldn't sweat the guy with his kid. it's not even like he's an unattended minor.

 

[Wish-4-8]

Here is a similar thread:
http://www.lpsg.org/169686-should-there-age-limit-locker.html

 

[SparkyNYC]

i kinda agree with Bigger, the men at my gym are pretty predatory, its one thing if they are gawking at grown men, but true minors.......kinda yucky

 

[coachreffn]

Equating a locker room with an R rated movie is just not the same thing. For most of us, our experience with locker rooms has had little or nothing to do with sex. I have seen a mild cruising very rarely. Nothing overt or really noticeable. That too is a part of life. He is there with his father and is not vulnerable in the least. Even if he were not, I don't think that anyone would allow a predatory male to be near a kid like that. WE have gotten far too sensitive about nudity among men and teen boys...

 

[B_jeepguy2]

I can't see what is wrong with it. The kid was in there with his father. Hell when I was 7 years old my mom used to drop me off for swimming lessons at the local YMCA and I had to change in the men's locker room with the older men all by myself. Hell yeah I checked them out too!

I guess if some pedophile had been in there he could have mollested me but I was such a horny little bastard (even back then) that I probably would have gotten off on it. LOL

 

[SparkyNYC]

Equating a locker room with an R rated movie is just not the same thing. For most of us, our experience with locker rooms has had little or nothing to do with sex. I have seen a mild cruising very rarely. Nothing overt or really noticeable. That too is a part of life. He is there with his father and is not vulnerable in the least. Even if he were not, I don't think that anyone would allow a predatory male to be near a kid like that. WE have gotten far too sensitive about nudity among men and teen boys...

REALLY? you know the sauna at my gym has been shut down 3 times this year by the the NY health dept. its a VERY sexually charged place

 

[petite]

I don't think there' anything wrong with children seeing adult nudity. When I was a child my mother took me to bathhouses al the time and all of the women were nude. It was normal. I'm talking about actual bathouses, though, not something kinky or sexual, of course. I don't think there was anything wrong with it.

 

[dude252007]

it's not the children they are fine to see nudity and so on. its mature adults seeing children and taking action on that. children don't equate nudity with sex but adults do.

 

[nudeyorker]

I have been in a locker room of some form or another since I was about five years old and subsequently have no issues with nudity.
I think you should find a new place to go work out. That being said I belong to a gym that does not allow members or guests under the age of 18. I'm not being a hypocrite but I also go to a doctor and dentist that do not have patients under 18. As an adult I don't want to deal with kids in the gym or the waiting room. Go to a place where you are comfortable and happy.

 

[sgtrock]

I think there is some confussion between nudity and sex... One doesn't predetermine the other, unfortunately us dumb Americans who fled to another country without religous restriction to become a nation of prudes.

Went skinny dipping a lot as a kid never got arroused or witness another kid becoming so. Played sports through out school and was in the Marines, been nude in many a place and never affected me.

 

[ferfed]

^ yeah what i believe also

 

[TheRob]

A young male needs to see older naked males, and he has the right to! What better place than a gym locker/shower area where it is completely natural for men to be naked, and, as in this case, where his father is right there.

Any guy who is bothered by younger males looking at them has, in my opinion, a problem. Let's not make the younger guys feel guilty for looking!

why does a young male need to see older naked men?
that sounds just basically fucked up to me

 

[wolf1bear2]

kids in Y is great. We have a man and his father oriental coming in every night. The father and son go nude (the kid is a special olympics kid), the other son wears shorts in the whirlpool. The kids, see, but, it doesn't effect them. Glad to be friends with the special olympian in Seattle. As a kid, I looked and was amazed, at people I saw naked, and they are in my naked bank, i couldn't take it anywhere at the time.

 

[cyclistlarge]

alot of asian cultures have vastly different standards surrounding family nudity too. that could have something to do with that guy.

 

[43698]

It may be uncompfortable for you but it is not your problem. Well maybe it is, your problem you can not allow yourself to be so fixated by it. Just go to another part of the locker room and move on. I go to the gym 4 days a week I was in the military and have spent much time naked around other males. I have been lifting weights since I was 10 and my father and I went to the gym together and used the locker room. There was other kids in there and in the gyms I go to now there are children in there from time to time as long as the kids are not of the oposite sex I do not care. I am not there to hang out or play around. I started dressing out in the locker room when I was a child. I agree that the father and son should not be hanging out like that but it is not my place to give a damn.

 

[TheRob]

a gym is not so important that you should be uncomfortable to go there
I mean pay me your gym fees and I'll throw a tack in your shoe and we can call it even