Bath Leisure Centre, naked men in ‘changing village’

Hi all, I've spoken to radio Bristol on behalf of Debz who wrote the original tweet. She's not comfortable for personal reasons with public speaking. We are in the same city and this issue affects all women in B&NES and wherever else they've introduced "changing villages". What may not be a problem for some women is clearly a problem for others, particularly those who've suffered previous trauma or who for other reasons are uncomfortable to be in a state of semi undress around naked males. There were two naked males in the short time Debz was in the unisex facilities walking between lockers/showers and cubicles. She found this distressing.
The interview will be broadcast at 6.35am Monday and a live interview at approx 8.05am. Bath Echo have also taken an interest but BathLive/Chronicle, Banes Council or Cllrs have ignored or blocked us.

Ours are different to that. The individual cubicles are laid out in various configurations but they are all in big rows. All of them have larger family cubicles. The lockers are then within the room. Separate male/female toilets. All have locked shower cubicles.

There is then usually some area to do your hair/dry feet etc.

No one walks about naked. The most I have done is walk back from the toilet with a towel wrapped round me as there is nothing worse than trying to put a wet costume back on.

Wah! Nope, nor comfortable with that. If I it was very quiet I’d feel very exposed.

If it works, you are still exposed to the risk of smart phone cameras being held over the top hence the bars above in the initial photo.

Penguin. It’s a large room with individual cubicles in for changing. Each cubicle has a door in from the door into the large room and a door out which leads out to the lockers, showers and pool. You enter fully clad, lock yourself into a cubicle, change into your costume and then leave out the other door, putting your things in a locker as you go and heading out to the pool. So everyone in their should either be fully dressed or in their costume as thy would be in the pool. So you should never be exposed to anyone naked, male or female.

So what’s a ‘village’ then?

So when I go to my chiropractor or for a mammography why is it like an airlock system with me going into a small ante room to disrobe then enter the surgery through a door in the back of the (locked) room. Oh, for my modesty and comfort (and feelings of security).

Not wanting to derail but I went for a mammogram recently. Went into the room with the radiographer (female) who told me to get undressed and put my clothes on the chair, while she stood there with me. I found that strangely uncomfortable. Even when I go to the GP they send you behind the screen to undress. I did feel like my modesty had been disregarded just because we were both women.

Nobody walks around in underwear or in a towel (well other than a towel over a swimsuit) in a changing village. I’m beginning to think people who are accustomed to undress-completely single sex changing can’t imagine what properly unisex changing is like. Far more privacy ime as lots of cubicles - including family ones which are great for, well families.
The man in Bath was totally out of order but the villages aren’t unacceptable per se.

When I used to do martial arts there was a men’s changing room and a woman’s. The men’s one was once out of service and it was just me and the sensei (male) needing access to get changed often as I trained at lunchtimes.

He was a lovely, gently and kind man but there would be no way I’d change with him in the same room and he felt the same.

This was a man I knew and trusted (and I was fit back then so would be confident at self defence, should I need to kick anyone in the nuts and make a run for it).

I know - and that's why we need to tell these people this. I know you know this: I just don't want you to think I am defending it.

But I don’t want to be walking through a changing room in my underwear or wrapped in a post shower towel with strange men! No thanks.

Yes Penguin, that is what is expected. But usually in a changing village it's very clear that no nudity is permitted, so something or someone is going wrong in Bath.

So the expectation is that I go into an area to strip off and change. There will be men there too, who may or may not (since their is no guidance and left up to common sense) we walking around starkers.

Ok

So when I go to my chiropractor or for a mammography why is it like an airlock system with me going into a small ante room to disrobe then enter the surgery through a door in the back of the (locked) room. Oh, for my modesty and comfort (and feelings of security). Well that doesn’t matter then does or.

I called Bath Leisure centre this morning to enquire about this, explaining I wanted to swim there but was concerned about stories about naked men.

The person I spoke to started by saying, exasperatedly, 'Oh for Heaven's Sake' at my question (a great start I thought for a customer service person being asked a question by a customer, but presumably reflecting that they have had a lot of heat and ire about this). She went on to say she had never seen anyone naked there, that it was a mixed sex facility like many others and no-one should be naked there. She said reception had had no complaints.

if this is true, that's good. But action needs to be taken to ensure if this was an isolated occurrence that it doesn't happen again.

I asked if there were signs telling people to remain clothed and she said she didn't know. She said she thought it was common sense that you should, but agreed to talk to the Duty Manger about having signs put up.

The trouble is, as we know, that the people who go against common sense are exactly the people women don't wish to be exposed to in a vulnerable place.

I told her I would view being exposed to a naked man as being sexually assaulted and if it happened to me I would call the police. She confirmed so would Reception.

I think they need more customers to ring them and make sure they act to prevent this.

Not the pools I’ve been to in central London!

Every council run pool I’ve been to in the last ten odd years has had a changing village, so they probably seem more normal to me because of that.

Lordprof single sex usually means changing in the open which I hate, I’m sure a lot of women and probably men do so too. I can’t face changing fully in front of anyone outside of my family. I also like being able to be near my ds (11) while he changes rather than him being off in a communal men’s bit. I think the pool in the tweet needs to clear up whether nudity is ok in the mixed sex bit or not. The answer will be no; problem solved - or at least you’d feel able to challenge or report said man as you’d know it wasn’t allowed. Completely inappropriate.

In two of the centres I use (one new the other an old building) the 'dry side' changing rooms are single sex, but then communal changing areas. The poolside I guess most people shower in their costumes.

I don't know about the other two as I have never looked for them.

There has been an update.

In correspondence with the complainant, the management said that there were some singles sex changing facilities. So she returned to the Leisure Centre today and got directions. You had to walk through the mixed sex area (where the naked men had been sauntering around yesterday). She found the door.

There was a notice on the door. it said that between 9am and 5pm Monday to Friday, members of the public would need to use the communal area because the single sex rooms were reserved for schoolchildren.

There was a man reading the same notice and looking for a more private changing facility. He said that he felt very uncomfortable in the shared space and needed an alternative to mixed sex provision, too.

Floralcup I get dried and dressed in the shower cubicle. There's a dry bit near the door and a little bench to put your dry clothes on or sit down to dry your feet. I have noticed some people moving from the shower to the cubicle wrapped in a towel, couldn't be bothered to do that myself.

You wouldn’t need bloody floor to ceiling walls if it was single sex.

The man/men should have been removed by management, no one walks around naked in a changing village you just don’t. I suffer one on a weekly basis with dc and everyone keeps their suits on. The cubicles go down to the floor and have bars over the top to stop anyone standing on the seat and looking over. Not sure what the answer is to having the bars used to balance a phone on, if the roof was made opaque every cubicle would have to have its own light.

Were the cubicles poolside so no nudie shenanigans possible?

I remember my local swimming pool as a child in the seventies being like this. Come out of pool, straight into shared shower area and rows of changing cubicles, female one way and male the other with family change in the middle.
Only everyone had the decency and decorum to keep their swimsuits on when showering...