Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to find naked people in changing room unnecessary?

265 replies

CharlLaneoxo · 10/01/2013 21:14

Such as at the gym and the swimming pool etc.

I'm not talking about women who are comfortable with themselves and can get changed in front of strangers no problem.

I'm referring to the ones who will take leisurely showers, walk around, spend ages getting ready, drying their hair and stand chatting to their friends completely naked.

I know we're all women etc but I just find it unnecessary.

Or maybe I am a prude Smile

OP posts:
MooncupGoddess · 11/01/2013 22:27

I don't have a problem seeing random women naked in the pool changing room, or with them seeing me... but when I go swimming with friends we always engage in the most ridiculous contortions to avoid seeing each other in the altogether Grin

motherinferior · 12/01/2013 00:05

LLF - I suspect, with dread , that respectability has waylaid me along with middle age. The nuclear family and the NT sticker on the car.

scrumpkin · 12/01/2013 00:15

Cerealqueen I thought the exact same thing!

13Iggis · 12/01/2013 00:26

Are we supposed to go in for labia-trimming now too?
I don't even shower at gym to avoid all this!

WorraLiberty · 12/01/2013 00:33

Did anyone see Room 101 tonight?

Some woman (can't remember her name) wanted to send naked people who strut around changing rooms into room 101 Shock

SoleSource · 12/01/2013 00:45

Victoria.

seeker · 12/01/2013 00:54

God, who needs men when women can dispise each other like this?

Morloth · 12/01/2013 00:56

It is pretty bad isn't it?

Between this thread and the one about make up is paints a pretty awful picture of the pressure women are under.

Morloth · 12/01/2013 00:58

I don't remove body hair, I have sagging skin from weightloss and stretch marks from pregnancy/weight gain.

And my body is just fine. I don't spend any time at all trying to cover it up when I am getting changed in the change room.

Have a shower, get dried off, get dressed - I will be naked for some of that. It is a changing room, I get changed there. Not seeing the problem.

Thank God I don't have daughters is all I can say.

Hobbitation · 12/01/2013 06:23

I don't agree with the bitchy comments about what should be on display and what shouldn't.

Personally I wish everyone was confident enough not to cover up with a towel, regardless of what their body looks like.

But there is quietly getting dried & changed without covering up, which is fine, then there is doing it in an antisocial way by invading others' personal space etc. I just don't want anyone else's fanny too close to me, or persistently in my eye line, whether it's Beyonce or Anne Widdicombe :)

Hobbitation · 12/01/2013 06:32

And the OP's first post still stands to me, YANBU. there is one woman at my daughter's swimming class who every week comes and takes up a non existent 'space' next to us and I end up with her minge at eye level about 6 inches away as I sit helping DD2 with her cossie Blush

seeker · 12/01/2013 10:43

I did wonder why my teenage daughter and her friends won't even get changed in front of each other, and always queue for cubicles in shops even if there is a communal changing area. Now I know.

Bloody hell, it's as if feminism never happened!

IfNotNowThenWhen · 12/01/2013 11:16

Can I just say, that contrary to what some might believe, labia are not generally flat against the body and do sort of hang down a bit.
Thats is what labia are supposed to do.
Just thought I would mention that, in case anyone is worrying that their labia is too, er, dangly.
It's fine, so is mine.
Carry on.

Vagaceratops · 12/01/2013 12:50

I wonder if men have this issue?

alemci · 12/01/2013 12:56

I think it is different in a changing room as you are not usually removing your knickers. Also there doesn't seem to be communal changing rooms in shops in the way there used to in the 80's.

I don't want anyone else seeing me trying clothes on either as I know what suits me and what doesn't.

I don't think it is to do with feminism. Perhaps modesty. Is it such a bad thing.

theodorakisses · 12/01/2013 13:03

To the boob swinging gym lady of Wimborne, feel free to cover up, it used to put me off my breakfast. It's one thing just not being shy and quite another being a swingy boobed barmpot who is getting immense satisfaction from her exhibitionism even though she will have someone's eye out one day. Yuck.

theodorakisses · 12/01/2013 13:05

In my extensive experience of gym show offs (Wimborne again), I can report a 100% non shaving trend. I wonder if only shy people wax or shave?

Hobbitation · 12/01/2013 13:15

Don't worry, I'd have waited for a cubicle as well as a younger teenager. Put off by communal changing/showers at school [shudder] 17+ I didn't mind getting my bits out (within reason as I said earlier).

Everyone hated communal changing in shops though right? And some shops still have hideous mirrors/lighting. Still remember being mortified in Next by apparently having loads of cellulite/fat on my thighs which I'd never seen in any other light! And that was ten years ago, wouldn't like them to be open to such scrutiny now.

Hobbitation · 12/01/2013 13:19

I wonder if men have this issue?

I imagine they at least give each other some personal space and stick some pants and kecks on at the earliest opportunity. When they've finished slyly comparing nob size. Unless they are on some kind of competitive sports team, then all the back slapping/towel hitting/communal showering/bathing is all part of the male bonding experience.

shotofexpresso · 12/01/2013 13:23

I totally agree OP!

I can live with people getting changed but the the flapping around, bending over...argh! my eyes!

And its always older people shudder bare in mind I'm only early 20's myself its always a sight for sore eyes.

RubberBullets · 12/01/2013 13:34

I've never come across a communal changing room in a shop and only ever once at a swimming pool. If I had realised before then I wouldn't have gone. All other pools have only had cubicles and people leave their cossies on to shower. The only gym I've been to was in a leisure centre so the only showers were the ones by the pool. No nakedness on display, again I wouldn't have gone back if that was the case.

Maybe Cornwall is different in that way, I was shocked to read on here that schools expected pupils to shower naked after PE. We only ever had showers after swimming and that was with cossies on. Everyone then tried really hard to get dressed under a towel so nobody could see.

motherinferior · 12/01/2013 13:54

O no - not older people! How very terrible of them to have aged bodies on display all imperfect and wrinkly and saggy - and not to rush immediately into concealment!

I repeat - I really think you are projecting this idea of 'flaunting'. They are just naked in an unbotheredly naked fashion.

IfNotNowThenWhen · 12/01/2013 14:10

Ew! Older people! Gross!

That's it. I am totally getting out my bush, complete with big flapping labia, my cellulite, my slightly wrinkled tum and the black hairs that are, for some reason, beginning to grow behind my knees Shock next time I go swimming, and I am going to parade around just to frighten the young people.

Bwahahaha! Such fun!

SpicyPear · 12/01/2013 14:16

I'm generally of the sort that doesn't parade around or undertake contortionism to avoid showing a nip, but this thread is actually making me want to strut around and flash my labia in feminist solidarity.

seeker · 12/01/2013 14:19

There aren't older people who go swimming are there? How disgusting. I stopped going at 35 because I knew my aging body might upset the younger ones . I thought everyone did the same. It's only polite after all.