Hi all, I honestly believe I am going too far, and that while I’m not wrong, I’m not right either, I just want to gripe.
I’ve joined a gym, and it’s nice to walk in hollering Hellooo! to the women in the locker room. It’s not a big or busy gym, and I’ve never failed to get friendly Helllooos! back, and I love it.
There are two private changing rooms available in this locker room, like small stuffy closets fitting a single chair. It’s mostly the younger women and older girls using them, which is just fine. I was raised by Supercatholic and a traumatized mama, though, and was terrorized if I displayed anything “immodest”. I still remember the horror and shame of all the girls I’m my high school gym class being forced to shower together nude. Yes, I’m old.
Old enough, in fact, to no longer care. My elderly body is scarred, saggy, baggy, and speckled and hairy. Most of us older women will face our lockers while chatting and changing from bathing suits into street clothes, or back, and any actual nudity is neither flaunted nor a big deal.
However, last week I exited a shower with a tiny towel barely around my waist, and was confronted by two little boys staring. Bug eyed. Mouths open.
I’m ashamed to say I was triggered by 4 year olds, but yeah. Over age 4 they are not allowed in the opposite gender locker room.
I am not a monster, and if I were a mother, I wouldn’t want my little boy in the men’s locker room! I get it, ok? Absolutely, I get it.
Unfortunately, I can’t think of any solution. ‘Family’ locker rooms would necessarily be mixed gender, which misses the point. No way can my gym provide private, family changing areas outside the locker rooms; there is no space.
I do wish the moms would stop their kids from staring so rudely though, I have enough body image issues without being stared at like I’m half cryptid, half zoo animal.
And I truly mourn the last, the only women-only space being…not that anymore.