'No nudity' rule in the surf club changing room - Australia

Yes! Non-sexual, sex-segregated, (no trans) nudity is healthy. Some may avoid looking, but don't ban it for the rest of us!

See. I grew up with very open beach showers so showering in my togs and my thongs to get the salt and sand off and then going somewhere to change was standard. Generally you went to a concrete shell of a 'hut' that had no showers but was single sex and you got changed there. I guess it is what you are used to.

Terrigal must have some comfy change rooms compared to other beaches.

Grew up in the 70s, went to an all girls' school. Then later uni, women's gyms, saunas. We showered, changed and got naked. Big deal. And like the others responding it was really good to see women's bodies, their variety, not fake magazine air-brushed bodies.
Too see women's bodies in a natural non-sexualized way is very healthy.

I couldn't agree more.
To be clear, I am absolutely pro-single-sex changing rooms – no men, however they identify, in women's spaces . But I think women and girls naked in a space where being naked is appropriate and useful is completely healthy. I don't want to shower with my cozzie on, thanks, and in my gym there are only a very few cubicles, which are usually occupied and in any case are tiny enough that I regularly bang an elbow or knee on the side if I do use one.
I don't like the posts on here talking about women 'marching around' in changing rooms, it being about exhibitionism, etc. Sure, a minority might, but generally it just isn't true. I personally do not 'march' about naked in a changing room and none of the other women I see naked in there do so either. We're just showering, changing etc. Talking about women strutting or marching about naked is body-shaming.

Like a PP, I think the answer lies in this quote:

"We're not strutting around naked, we're just having a shower and putting on our clothes or having a chat."

Standing around chatting while completely naked will make some people uncomfortable. I'm guessing the club made increasingly formal attempts to get the women to cop on and cover up a bit, starting from a quiet word and then escalating.

I thought it was generally considered healthy for women to be exposed to a realistic and wide range of naked-ish female bodies from time to time? To counteract the filtered and male-gaze centred images that saturate all media?

Which is a very good reason to ban nudity of course. Won't somebody think of the livelihoods of those poor plastic surgeons?

I've seen the odd woman seemingly oblivious to the convention of being naked the least time possible.
Most of us try and stay partially clothed, or naked for the minimal time. A very few use the hairdryers for their nether regions, and massage body lotion (fake tan?) slowly and carefully over every inch of themselves . It does look odd. Perhaps a European upbringing, or an assertive body confidence thing?

Everyone has had a towel slip/drop while trying to wrangle a bra on after swimming.
I don't think men who only need a towel around their waists understand how different getting dressed under a towel is for women.

But of course I don't think teens are that worried about a woman's boobs briefly being on display. Can't imagine that is what caused complaints.

I think it is rare that women take the extreme of doing the things I mentioned, such as sitting naked on a stool and blow drying themselves all over. I only have seen that a couple of time and it could have been the same person both times. My main issue is the sitting on the stool without even a towel underneath.

No one should feel the need to dress with a towel on. That is the extreme the other way and it really is not practical. If you choose to do this yourself, fill your boots but don’t expect others to do so.

Interesting responses. I work in women's/sexual health, so may have a skewed level of 'meh' towards seeing nudity, but I actually think it's really healthy and important for children and teens to see non-sexual examples of normal (i.e. not airbrushed, filtered etc) bodies of their own biological sex.
Obviously the trans issue complicates this, and there's clearly some context on this particular story that isn't made plain, but some of the responses on this thread seem to suggest that there's something wrong even with biological females showering, changing, chatting etc nude in a women's changing room, particularly if children or teenagers are present. I'm about as far from cool or woke as you can get but I think, for girls growing up today, exposure from a young age to normal, biologically female bodies - fat, thin, hairy, shaved, big boobs, mastectomies, stretch marks, six-packs, the whole gamut - in a non-sexual context would be a welcome antidote to the pornified images that are at present their only point of reference as to what women's bodies look like.
I found it really refreshing when I visited Iceland that women and girls did chat while they were showering and changing - that doesn't sexualise the female body, it normalises it. And anyone who didn't want to see other women's bodies (or men's, in the men's changing room) had the option to face the wall when they showered or changed, and to change under a towel - which is what DH did, I believe.

This!
Someone at my gym showers naked then stands naked in front of the full length mirror while she dries and styles her hair. Nudity doesn't usually bother me but this sort
of behaviour is just unnecessary.

Depends on your gym.

The more expensive the gym, the more the acceptance of public nudity I find.

Bit common to be doing the towel dance.

‘flaps out’ everyone! Flaps out!!

What a way to speak about a woman’s body!

no to naked showering isn't totally unreasonable in a dressing room with unaccompanied kids in it.

changing under towels seems fairly ludicrous to me but hey.

One absolutely does not!! 😂

It's so cringe when people march around with their bits out in changing rooms. Literally no need for it at all.

Just shower in your swimsuit then struggle to dress behind a towel, like a normal person!

There's a woman at a local spa with a popular pool who will actively ignore free changing booths so she can freely march about with her flaps out and stays naked way longer than necessary. It's attention seeking and weird.

I have encountered women who do walk around naked in communal change rooms in gyms. It is something I ignore, but I can see why some children or teens might find it uncomfortable. It is rare though. I mean there really is no need to blow dry your body in a communal changing room. Or to sit naked on the stool provided for others to sit (usually fully clothed) to blow dry their hair.

Thankfully I only saw it a couple of times and that was a gym where it was mostly adult women and children were usually there.

From the combination of the "I feel more comfortable in my skin that I ever have" comment and the "numerous complaints". It is clear that their behaviour is unusual, intimidating and upsetting the women and girls trying to use the changing rooms alongside them. Some women are exhibitionists, hell some women live in nudist colonies, so whilst I recognise it isn't the only explanation I nevertheless suspect the most likely explanation is that she and possibly her friend are the kind of exciting new cool special women I could never aspire to be.

I did wonder about the genders involved too. Nuts that you can't trust that an article is accurate, but that's where we are now. My automatic response about anything to do with loos, changing rooms etc is "but what gender are they really?"

I would too. The woman in the BBC article I read talked about standing around chatting and being comfortable with her body or some such thing. It did make me wonder exactly what she was doing in the changing rooms. I imagined making a big show of being naked and making people uncomfortable, but that may not be it at all.,

Yes, I had forgotten to state my other assumption which is that it’s stupid expect people to change under towels in communal single sex changing rooms. Lunacy!

Showering in your togs, ok. But changing under a towel as an adult? yeah, Nah mate! Ain’t got a towel big enough for that!

What a thing to insist on!

It is hard enough to juggle putting your clothes on without them getting wet from puddles on the floor left from wet togs and making sure your bra is not inside out.

And a big NAH! to getting changed in the toilets which usually has incredibly wet floors.

It’s really bizarre and as PPs say, Australia’s adherence to gender woo and associated double speak means it’s impossible to be sure of

1. the sex of the people who are expected to use communal changing rooms together at this pool

2. the sex of the people whose nudity is being objected to and whether they were in the correct changing room for their sex

the simplest solution (assuming communal changing rooms are a given) would be to say if you are male you go in the men’s, if you’re female you go in the women’s. How you identify is interesting for you but not relevant to where you change

We close on Tuesdays for children’s lessons and the only people who get naked in front of children here are other children of the same sex and age

but gender woo prevents such simplicity

@ArdeteiMasazxu I agree! However this bit "Best way to do that is to slap disciplinary measures on the first older woman who gets changed in there knowing that no one currently present is interested in leering at her and just wants to get changed. " It sounds more like she raised the issue in a meeting and this is what led to her being the person issued with a warning/made an example of a bit further on. Although of course that is just her side of the story.

The whole things so weird.

I have never showered nude in a communal shower area. It’s not like I’m dirty after I’ve been swimming in a chlorinated pool! I shampoo and condition my hair, rinse my body off then walk to my cubicle at which point I take my swimmers off.
I can’t recall even seeing anyone else nude apart from very small children.