Men shower together in public
When I was in high school, our shower room was a three walled enclosure with two rows of showers along the opposite walls. I have no idea how the girls’ shower room was set up. Obviously, I had never been inside and I had never asked any of my female friends.
In the MTC, the showers for the elders consisted of a room with 2 poles running from the floor to the ceiling. At the top of each pole were 6 showerheads. The elders would choose one of the 12 showerheads to use. It is my understanding that the showers for the sisters consisted of individual stalls.
At the gym at the University of Lethbridge, the set up is similar to the MTC. Again, I haven’t asked any of the women I know at the U of L how it set up. At Mary’s gym, however, the showers for the women are separate stalls.
Why is this? Why are men’s showers communal while women’s showers are separate? I could understand why women’s showers would be separate if they were co-ed showers. Have women always demanded separate showers, or was this something that has always been?
Sure, it would be nice to have my own separate stall, but I have no qualms about sharing a communal shower either. I am comfortable sitting in the steam room or in the shower or even towelling off with other guys around. Mary tells me that women never talk to each other in the shower. I talk to guys all the time while showering, drying off or even getting dressed.
What is the difference?
I’ve actually wondered the same thing. And yes, women’s showers are always in seperate stalls, even in school. At my women’s college locker room we had a choice of shower stalls or the communal pole. The conclusion I came to was that this is because women are culturized to be modest and ashamed of our bodies. The message is that women’s bodies visually are powerful sexual stimulants. It doesn’t matter if we are only with other women, it’s a lifetime of shame making us want to hide. And I think part of that comes from the seperate shower and bathroom stalls. It’s institutionalized modesty. The other aspect to it is that 99% of women are ashamed of their bodies because we don’t look like models, we’re lumpy and out of proportion unlike everyone on tv. Most of us are embarassed to show our bodies to other women because of that. Just my two cents. None of this is scientific.
in my highschool and when I went to Nursing school the showers were communal with one long wall or a room with shower heads placed every so many feet. The gym we go to here also has a woman’s communal shower as well as the rec centre where we go to aqua classes or just to swim. I don’t think I have ever been to a place where the women’s shower were seperate stalls.
The MTC is open to prevent self defilement
Its not just showering, I know girls in college who will not even change in front of anyone, not even their roommate. I walk around freely in my bra and underwear and cause a stir in my own apartment (member of the opposite sex are never around, this is BYU after all). I think too a point girls are taught to be ashamed of their own bodies and it is something that they never get over.
JL,
You make a very valid, powerful point. Women—or more precisely, their bodies—have been sexualised in our modern culture. Your assumption intrigues me. If what you say is true than the sexualisation of the female body has not only affected men, it has affected women.
Which brings up another question. If woman does not shower communally because she is afraid others will ridicule her imperfect body, does this mean she compares others’ bodies to the imaginary ideal herself?
Also, in recent years the sexualisation of the male body has been on the rise. Should we assume that the same phenomenon will become present among men? My wife was saying the other day that on one of her mailing list, men have said they are uncomfortable showering in public. Could this be why?
Mum,
Your experience brings up further questions. Why do you suppose some female shower rooms are communal, yet some are not? I could see why showers in your high school were communal because it was quite a few years ago. But what of the others? Why are they communal while so many female shower rooms today are not?
a,
That thought makes some sense, but there are some problems with that.
First, does this mean sister missionaries are free to masturbate? Does it mean that elders are more prone to masturbate than sister missionaries; that elders are less trustworthy than sisters? I am not sure I can answer these questions in the affirmative.
Second, if prevention of masturbation was the cause of communal showers, then why are showers not communal in missionary apartments in the field?
Third, this still does not address why male shower rooms are communal elsewhere.
Jenna hits it on the head for the most part, though there are other issues.
I would hate to be a boy in the 8th grade. What those kids must go through.
We had to shower together in gym when I was a sophomore and I just would never get naked in front of anybody, so I rode home on the bus probably smelling it up.
When I was in New york and we went to the Victoria’s Secret store (Sarah’s favorite), women were changing and trying on bras all over the place.
I got some strange looks for my garments, but I didn’t really take it in till after. It just never occurred to me that it might seem odd.
Although I looked up once and saw a young guy staring at me with horror as I tried on a bra. That didn’t bother me much, either, I’ve had three babies. I just moved over a bit. He’d wandered in by mistake.
LOL, that’s too funny :)Maybe next time he’ll read the sign on the door.
At the VS store, there isn’t a door per se, there’s a long hallway with stalls. It’s sort of like what you would expect.
I feel worse as I think of it that I totally didn’t think about my garments. The more I think about it, the worse I feel. Although no one was rude.
What MTC did you go to again? My husband wholeheartedly does NOT recall that there were group showers. Just wondering.
K.
Provo. 1992.
Funny, that is the same year that my husband went to the MTC in Provo.
K.
Here’s what they look like. I have no idea if all the buildings had them, but mine did.
Well, great. My husband would like to know where the shower stalls went that he frequented every day. Perhaps those are not included in the pictures. Interesting.
K.
I know the sister misisonaries in our district had stalls (not communal showers), so maybe some of the elder dorms did as well.
Most likely.
K.
When I was in the MTC The showers were communal, This was 1980 though. Most public pools are communal,for men at least.
I graduated from High School in 1991, and all of us girls had a communal shower room, and showers were still mandatory.
Like someone else above already mentioned at their school there were polls that had 4 shower heads each which meant that you were always facing another girl directly accros from you.
And the shower room in the women’s locker room at my gym is communal.
In the fall of 1992, the MTC went through an organizational change in preparation for upcomming renovations to accomodate growth.
I may have this backwards… it’s been a while, but before the change, our floors and buildings were organized according to the language being learned. Most dorm buildings were designed for male occupants. I believe there was one building for the female missionaries.
After the change, we were all moved into different buildings and were mixed in with elders learning other languages. I remember that for my district, our new residence was the building that was previously occupied by the female missionaries. In the place of the public showers, there were 4 shower stalls that really didn’t provide any privacy at all, but were more private than the other showers in the other buildings. I have no idea what the showers are like in the newly constructed dorms.
On my floor in 1992, there were English-, Mandarin- and Italian- speaking missionaries.
Then that must have been after the change. I can’t remember exactly when the change happened. It may have been the spring of 1991. I was actually in the MTC on 2 different occasions and I don’t remember during which stint the change was made…. I may have to dust off my journals to jog my memory.
Ummmm …
I was in the MTC in 1998 and my building still had the communal, tree-of-life-style, showers.
… I’m so embarassed.
I just had to see why this thread was the most popular one to be viewed. I was amazed that it is 2 years old and has so few post on it. So I have to ask – Is this one viewed so often because the people looking at it are closet perverts hoping to read something juicy that happened in a Public Shower?
So how does it feel to be LDS and realize you are a CLOSET PERVERT?
It’s popular because of how well it ranks in Google. Most of the visitors to this thread are likely not LDS.
Closet pervert?
If I saw this headline in the paper, you can be damn sure (sorry Mary ;) ) I’d read the article and look for the associated pictures.
It’s salacious so it draws attention.
I hope you don’t get any catalogues in the mail, Bill. I hear there’s ladies in their underwear in them.
Darn those closet pervert home shoppers…
Looking information for naked men in showers is one thing, women on the other hand is different. Better jump over to the garment thread.
How is one any different than the other?
You need to ask the difference between men and women?
He means looking for information on naked men in the shower and naked women in the shower. How are those different? Not how are men and women different.
I was in the MTC in 1981. In my building our showers were in separate stalls. My district found out another building had communal showers and one night we all went over to the other building and used the communal shower and showered together. I can’t remember why we decided to do it, I guess it was a male bonding thing. I remember we were all singing to the top of lungs top 10 tunes. It was a lot of fun.
Male bonding while showering together?
Hmmm, strange. lol
I’m not sure whats more disturbing… the fact that you all had a group shower, or that you felt the need to post about it twice!!! (Just kidding) ;-)
He originally posted his comment on a different post. He must have not realised I moved it over for him.
I figured it was something like that (thus the just kidding and the winky smiley)
It seems strange to me that men would shower together at the MTC and sing top ten songs?
Are we talking about Priest or Elders?
Its just a pun.
lol- i just felt like I had to share that wonderful story. Yeah, maybe Top 10 songs were not appropriate in the MTC but we were just newly ordained Elders, still green behind the ears. Looking back, it was strange we all decided to go shower together for the fun of it, I think it was one of the Utah boys that came up with the idea…..
Was the Utah Elder Gay? Hum – Doesn’t Gay mean Happy?
Did he also want to help everyone wash thier backs?
I bet he thought he had already reached heaven. All those naked wet men and him.
Are you sure he was really an Elder?
Can any Utah people confirm if naked men showering together is a normal activity in Utah?
If so, get ready for a flood of real happy men. See above.
I am not comfortable walking around nude in the women’s locker room but I admire those women who are able to do so in comfort and I wish I had the confidence to do so.
I remember reading an article once where they said that Jennifer Aniston is perfectly fine with being nude in public locker rooms, and that if she’s naked and some women ask her for an autograph she will just stand there nude while she signs it for them. But I guess when you look like her you do have that naked confidence?
What do you mean by “when you look like her”? Does she have the ideal naked body?
Well, I’ve never seen Jennifer Aniston completely naked, but I would say that she has a great body. It’s a lot better than mine for sure!
If I did look like her I think I would probably have the confidence to be nude in a locker room like she is?
For me, it wouldn’t matter how “good” my body looked, I wouldn’t want to be nude in a locker room. Just me though. Naked is naked is naked.
My body doesn’t look anything like hers and I have no problem walking around nude in a public shower or locker room.
not long ago i played tennis at a public tennis court that had a locker room with a communal shower area. i went inside to use the restroom i was shocked to see almost all the people nude in the showers.next time i went back it didn`t seem so bad maybe i had gotten used to it. next time i go back i would like to take a shower.
iwould my comment to appear with just kim b
I’m not an LDS, but recently this conversation came up between my wife and our friends. I think there are four situations:
So, why? I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that the ladies more often than us men have to care for the kids. So, they would bring their daughters and sons into the locker room and with the sons there, would need more privacy. Personally I have no problem with the open showers and have carried on conversations with other men while showering.
Hi there,
I’m from the UK. To me showering naked isn’t really a big deal. I went to a state secondary school in 1983 and it was mandatory to take a communal shower naked after P.E. lessons. I’ll admit that I was a little shy the first time doing this but after that I was fine. I was really skinny as a kid and also I started puberty late-ish at around 13 or so. t.b.h. I just wanted to get clean and I had no problems even at 13 of the other boys seeing my ribs or my penis/lack of pubic hair etc. No one made any comments and they just got on with showering too.
A few years ago there was an outcry in Britain as to why school pupils should shower communually (same sex) due to reactions from parents of Muslim children who said it was against their religion to be nude in company or something like that. Since then state schools have had to refurbish their shower areas and put in separate shower stalls/cubicles which I think is going a bit overboard when most children would probably be ok with nude showering. Why don’t they have a rule that states children may shower either naked or with swimming trunks/costume on or something like that?
I feel that kids need to be naked in front of same sex kids for showering activities as it must surely help with gaining confidence with their bodies.
While communal showering may not be a big deal for some people it is for others, myself included. I don’t understand why some people aren’t more understanding of this? Modesty should be respected as a personal preference not as a hang-up for schools to cure through same-sex group nudity. It’s one thing to argue for showering in schools for the hygenic value of showering, but it’s quite another thing when it becomes an argument for same sex group nudity because it supposedly builds charecter. School bureaucrats making kids be naked together in order to psychologically condition them sounds like something right out of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.
Just to set the record straight. The Bill that wrote on this thread is not me. Please do not confuse us.
It’s pretty obvious it’s not you.
George
We are well aware of that, believe me.