To be annoyed that my gym only has open mixed sex showers

Across the world? What’s that got to do with council pools in the UK?

Bubble of privilege? I live in one of the most deprived boroughs in the country. That just so happens to have single sex changing facilities in its pools.

I can see from this thread it’s not unusual - I’m saying that it’s unusual to me having swum in council pools in several boroughs over the years.

You also don’t seem to get that not everyone returns home after having a swim. When I swam in my work lunch break the pools were chocka - all people returning to work after their swim.

You seem very angry that some of us are pointing out that thinking single sex spaces exist and are a good thing and it’s a shame (and wrong, in my opinion) they don’t exist everywhere.

Do you really think that's the norm across the world?

It's astonishing to you because you are in a bubble of privilege.

It's not unusual to just rinse off in your swimsuit and have a proper shower at home later.

Along with a hefty dose of urine no doubt

I know now to appreciate my local pool all the more. Separate changing rooms, lockers are free but no one uses them they just leave their stuff on a bench in the changing rooms. Oh and about 30 separate cubicles in the single sex changing rooms. There’s also family changing.

Well, for a start I don’t want to return to work reeking of chlorine.

But what does it matter? The point is that I have been able to have a proper shower at every council leisure centre I’ve been a member of.

You're not meant to have a full on nude shower in those. It's for rinsing. Yabu.

How much cleaner do you need to be than having bathed in chlorine for half an hour?

ok, so you don’t have any. Strange, if you were asserting there were “so many” you’d think you’d have the numbers in your head.

When I was growing up, the local pool only had showers by the poolside used by everyone and in full view of everyone using the pool.

It's not a new thing at all

No, the pool has a changing village with open plan showers.

Then there are separate changing rooms at the gym, for use by gym users. You’re not mean to walk through the building in your swim suit. If you’re going swimming, you use the pool changing village. If you’re going to the gym, you use the single sex gym changing rooms.

Every council leisure centre in South Lanarkshire is like this. (Well, I’ve been in around 9 of them and they’re all like this. There could be a couple that aren’t).

I have never even thought about this - I use a leisure centre with unisex showers by the pool - I just use them in my swimsuit - no problem.

There will be. But that’s the changing room for people coming out of the gym. It’ll be somewhere near the gym entrance, and will be single sex and have showers but it isn’t connected to the pool area as it’s for gym users.

Pool showers are not for washing yourself, they are for rinsing off chlorine. Mixed is fine for this with swimsuit on.

I wash my hair and use shower gel and a body polisher yoke, in mixed showers with swimming cozzie on. No problem at all, I choose to do this, but really only rinsing off showers are all that needs to be provided.

Pretty standard to have communal showers at a leisure centre. Just shower and wash your hair with your costume on like everyone else.

Like I said upthread, I’ve swum at lunchtime quite often over the years, in various council pools, and always had access to female changing rooms and showers, and have had a proper shower in a private shower cubicle.

So I’m not going home, I’m going back to work. And I’d like to be clean when I do so. Which I’ve always been able to be.

At my local pool there is a similar setup. I have a dry robe type thing and flip flops that I wear between the two changing rooms. Normally I go to the gym pre swim so my stuff is in that changing room and I’m just nipping in to do a few lengths / sauna.

Do people not plan their day, activities around the facilities they have access to?

if you know you prefer a proper wash and want to use a place that only has these facilities you make sure you have enough time to get ready at home after your workout?

unless I’m at one of my fancy gyms I wash at home. I would only shower at the leisure centre if I was desperate.

a communal rinse off shower is the leisure centre making it clear it’s for a RINSE.

My local has to put up signs telling people to stop dyeing their hair and wash their undies. No wonder they’ve opened everything up.

This is because a lot of leisure centres get homeless people coming to use them for a wash.

and then beginning the changing rooms. So I think they’re phasing them out. But also it’s to just get people in and out rather than spending 45 minutes getting ready. And doing a full hair wash routine.

Nobody gets their clothes off though, it's a rinse off after the pool. You hardly do an intimate wash, you do that when you get home surely.

That’s because they’re meant to be rinse off showers. Not get ready for a full day shower.

usually the gym sections will have a proper get ready shower. You are supposed to arrive clean for swimming (having used soap or some other cleaning product for your body)

so you should rinse off anybody seat when entering and rinse off the chlorine water when leaving.

Which shows how easy it is to make women believe they aren’t entitled to their own spaces. You’ve never known it so you don’t think it’s a thing or even should be a thing.

I thought they were all like this anyway.

You literally have your swimming costume on though? Thinking back I can only ever remember communal shower areas and everyone was in the same big open area one. Never thought anything of it tbh.

It's pretty arrogant to call the op daft and assume she doesn't understand the layout of HER OWN gym, when you yourself have never been there!

As pps on this thread have said, I have also been to leisure centres where there is one mixed changing "village" usually near the pool area AND separate male and female changing rooms, often in a different part of the building (i.e. near the gym), and no option to get from one to the other without going through the public areas which could have reception, a coffee shop, in one place I visited a library in - thus pretty understandable you might not want to wander across dripping in your swimsuit.

My leisure centre asked for feedback after their big refurb when they changed from separate sex into mixed village - they said there had been a lot of mixed feedback but essentially every new public leisure centre built in the last decade has followed the same design- nowhere is building new public centres with only single sex facilities. That's why some people have never experienced them and some have only experienced them, all depends how old your centre is.

Otoh all the private gyms with pools I've been in - David Lloyd, virgin active have all still had single sex changing rooms.

As in morning or evening?