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

[JellySaurus]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-65133860]]

Curious what the background to this is. Safeguarding children is of course critically important, but are children actually put at risk by briefly seeing women's bodies while showering and dressing in the women's changing room?

The article carefully does not mention anything about whether this is a women's changing room or a mixed-sex room. The swimmer's reaction seems excessive. What exactly made who feel intimidated and uncomfortable? And why is this even news at all?

Hmmm...

That's really odd. I'd like to know the full story.

I have to say I felt uncomfortable in the gym changing room the other day when I realised that a couple of the others in there were in fact secondary school pupils. I'm not sure why but it does feel a bit weird to me - maybe because I've done a fair bit of voluntary work with children and young people and safeguarding is always (rightly) so emphasised in the training that I've done - in every context that I've ever volunteered in it would be forbidden to be changing in the same room as teenagers. So maybe my frame of reference is skewed?

Very strange.
One expects to be nude in a swimming change room.
There are open showers, for instance, with kids lined up after swimming lessons.
Therefore any one in there will see nudity - should they look about - as kids might.
Not an issue.
People do not swim nor shower fully clothed.

Surely its a better idea to have set times where its kids only or have parents manage their children and what they see rather than people be unable to use the facilities for their intended purpose.

I thought this was a standard set up in things like public pools. Group change options where women take their children in with them.

I wonder whats happened to create this situation

It's madness. But it's the sort of madness that will become more common as authorities try to navigate the transgender agenda.

@user1492757084 everywhere I have showered post swim, you do so in your costume. But changing under a towel seems unreasonable.

The principle of safeguarding is that you don't assume anyone is "safe" and have rules in place such that even if someone in a situation is not trustworthy, they still aren't given regular opportunities to do harm. And yet, in many institutions, male people are now allowed in the female changing rooms if they have the appropriate gender identity. So, clearly if you're going to have adult males and teen girls in the same place a "no nudity" rule is very important. And must be publicly and vociferously enforced to ensure people stick to it. 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. On the plus side, her having been punished this way means that when a male person with AGP is in there wanting to get a kick from self-exposure, there will be no "discrimination" case to answer, everyone is being treated the same.

See, all we have to do is give up on the idea of safe single-sex spaces and adapt the rules we live by to take account of being in a mixed sex environment at all times, and after that minor adjustment everything is Totally Fine.

I thought this too. If no one is allowed to be naked in the changing room then it removes the issue of men who identify as women doing it . Everyone has to be totally covered, end of problem. I think it's very sensible. I don't personally want to see anyone ,apart from my husband,naked for the rest of my life. Its not prudery, its just not necessary .

The club CEO is quoted by the BBC as saying "[the club] received complaints from some junior members about being intimidated and uncomfortable. And the story says, "A club spokeswoman said it had received "numerous" complaints about changing room nudity".

The CEO continues "Instead of just putting a blanket "no nudity", if the signs explained why people should refrain from being nude while children were in the change room..."

I note the word 'people' here.

It may be a mixed changing room. But this is Australia. Even if it's called / labelled a women's changing room and shower area, "women" is no longer a biologically based term Down Under.

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.

@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.

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

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.

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!

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.,

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?"

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 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.

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.

One absolutely does not!! 😂

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.

‘flaps out’ everyone! Flaps out!!

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

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.

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.

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.