Hm - ignoring various images coursing round my mind - I'm not sure that is correct. You are a confident and genuine person, I'm not sure modesty, as a primary personal characteristic, comes into play in this discussion. Isn't modesty a characteristic in the eye of the beholder?
Ditto. I'm perfectly comfortable with my own body and have no hang ups about gang showers myself. But there are millions of people who don't feel the same as I do. People are too quick to jump to conclusions here. Kind of "if you say this then you must mean that". Not at all, but I find judgmental postings like these to be arrogant.
Coincidentally, Sky TV is running a three part documentary tonight called "Naked Britain" which investigates Britain's attitude to nudity. If you're interested and don't have access to SKY I'm sure you be able to watch it on youtube.
When the revolution, or merely the next conservative period, comes its the "I shower in communal shower" types that will be the first to be put up against the wall. Acceptance is a two way thing and experience shows that whilst liberals are prepared to accept the foibles of conservatives, the reverse rarely holds.
You know one complains about American inter-personal relationships and that is exactly where this is going - to the stage where one has to approach people so openhanded that it is actually easier not to form personal relationships than to deal with any and all issues the other person chooses to make public. There is a certain cowardice in making the character-effects receptor responsible for you and your behaviour, in the name of tolerance, rather than the generator.
Robert Graves wrote of the behavoural residues of his service in Flanders. the first was a tendency to swear all the time, the second was to relieve himself whenever and wherever he felt like it. Didin't seem to affect his career.
I disagree. This thread is evidence enough of that.
Sorry, I haven't a clue what you're talking about in this paragraph. I'm talking about individual choice to not get changed in public, to not drink alchohol. God knows what all that receptor stuff's about.
I once went to a wellness weekend and met an overweight man in a sauna. He was completely naked, sitting on his towel, with his legs spread apart. Not a pretty site.
At dinner that night, we were seated next to him. If I had first met him clothed, my impression would have been different and more positive.
Moral of the story: if you're going to be naked, be decent about it.
I find this statement pretty judgemental. The way it is written (five exclamation marks dramatically and indignantly placed at the end) intimates that the poster finds something wrong with women entering a mixed sauna voluntarily.
Just because this poster is against putting her own body naked before others in a similar situation doesn't mean it is wrong for anyone else to do it.
If these sorts of statements pop up, the originators of them shouldn't be too surprised or dismayed if judgement is meted out to them with the same sweeping brush.
exactly. the point isn't what someone looks like...it's how someone feels nekkid around strangers.
the first time i went to a sauna i was at a jewish community center in brooklyn. i think i was 14. it was me and about 4 86 year old women talking about food rationing and the last thing on their minds was how they looked, how i looked or anything like that.
the point being that if you are comfy enough to be in these places nude or around nude people, it's because you're not judging their bodies and you're not worried about them judging yours. the point of a sauna is relaxing- maybe he relaxes with his legs open?muscles at rest and all that.
Personally I come from a "relaxed" country and family, so being naked is..just being naked, no big deal. Everybody has a body after all. So some beliefs and opinions here are quite surprising for me - just wondering, if you teach kids that they should not be naked in front of even their family members, what is the reasoning behind it? I'm not trying to claim here it is somehow wrong of course, just curious and trying to understand. Because in my opinion, that would mean that kids grow up thinking that their body is something bad, sinful and should be hidden at any costs, no? But as obviously a lot of families have decided to bring up their kids this way and have been brought up like this themselves, they must believe that you should not be naked in the company of other people because...? Or is it just something that is not proper (or as it was said in Gone with the Wind, "just ain't fittin'")
To OP, as said previously, people are more relaxed about being naked here than in many other places. But if you are uncomfortable, there still are options - I have seen gyms with at least shower cubicles or as others recommended, if the gym is close, you can just go home to shower. But believe me, as also said before, showering in a bikini would draw way more attention to you. And if attracting attention to your (semi)naked body is something you want to avoid, I wouldn't recommend it. For example, I still remember the girl I saw a couple of months ago who sneaked into the shower cubicle fully clothed, undressed there, showered, got dressed in the cubicle and only then came out (no idea how she managed not to get the clothes wet while showering). If she just showered like everybody else, I would not even have noticed her.
Was someone forcing you to automatically look at the crotch area? Usual protocolr in areas of public nudity is to kind of not do that sort of thing. You glance, see a body, then either look at the face or look away. Not take a good gape at whatever bits are hanging out at the bottom.