Gym showers

“Open" showers, like the freedom of nudity itself, are not so much sexual as sensual; it's a simple pleasure to walk, rather than take one step, into a warm, and wet environment with absolutely nothing clnging to your body, or to to strip off your swim gear under a hot shower, and to have the freedom to stetch or bend without bumping into a wall.

My junior high and high school both had open showers. This was around 1972-1978. The 7th grade was my first experience with the mandatory showers and thankfully I had started puberty in the 6th grade. I quickly realize that my genital size and body hair distribution was much more developed than my peers. I took this all in as a badge of honor!

When I school, showers were not mandatory, so not used. Now that I'm older (30s) I've recently started going to the gym / pool and found how much I enjoy the showers. Our local YMCA is not big on modesty, so we have an open locker room (just lockers, benches, and plenty of mirrors) and communal shower room (with a couple stalls with only dividers) and an entryway with hooks. Missing out on the early years, I'm adapting to the public nudity. I cover as least as possible and make sure to shower thoroughly. I've always known I'm small, but the group showers are verifying this. However, the variety of penis size (me on the small end of the spectrum) makes this somehow more enjoyable.

My wife and I have been making a point to go swimming regularly. Her friend and husband are members as well, and should be joining us sometime soon. I'm hoping her husband is open as I am about the locker room and joins me in the showers, preferably the fully open area. I've never showered with another male that I actually know. I'm hoping to see how we match up look forward to being on full display for someone that I know and will interact outside of the gym.

I always try and pick the most open shower at the gym or pool

Had to revive and comment on this. Why are people more afraid of being seen nude in the shower than how gross most shower stalls, curtains 🤢 truly are. It's so much harder and labor intensive to clean them than a group or communial shower that you can hit quickly with some sanitizer and a power washer. So obviously they aren't done well. Let's drop the prude, get back to the nude and more sanitary conditions. Not to add more gross to it for us men you know what they are doing in their private shower as well.

We has gym uniforms including t-shirt , shorts, and jockstrap which required nudity in the locker room, but I avoided the gang showers. Large tile room with shower heads on the walls. No privacy whatsoever. But I gave up on privacy for swimming classes. We all lined up naked to grab a swimsuit and walk through the gauntlet of shower heads.

Society and American society in particular have gotten prudish within the last 30 years or so which is contradicting considering how pornographic things have gotten in the entertainment media and in how people dress in public. I don't think many public showers being built these days are truly public cause it's all about feeeeeelings. We can't have anyone who doesn't like their body exposed to others, less they'll feel inferior, but we don't dare criticize them if they wear something inappropriate in public cause that's "body shaming." It makes no sense but that is how society has descended.

I can't speak for the ladies but the boys/mens showers at my schools, the neighborhood swimming pool and the local Ys were simply tiled areas with nozzles sticking out of the wall. No dividers. No curtains. Nada.

It is ridiculous that institutions like these are incurring costs to renovate their locker rooms and shower areas in particular so that oversensitive people don't have to have an anxiety attack.

When we were growing up in the nineteen fifties, nudity was a part of daily life, something we didn't think twice about. My first experience with public nudity, was swimming at the Y. During the summer, when we stayed with our grandmother a good bit, our aunts (moms two teenage sisters) would take us to the Y to swim. They took us in the girl's locker room to change and shower before and after swimming. Both the locker room and shower area were open bay military style. So, there wasn't any expectation of privacy. In the beginning, like us, neither girl wore a swim suite. That continue until around age eight, when my brother and I, had to start using the men's pool and locker room. Swimming nude was still required, but separated from the girls. I don't recall exactly, when swimming at the Y changed, from nude to wearing a bathing suit. But it was sometime late in our teenage years. As for, why the YMCA changed, I have absolutely no idea. It was something, we all enjoyed and missed, when the change was made.

@Rick6981

I remember nude swimming at the YMCA very well. I’m now 78 years old, but it seems like yesterday. I joined the Y in 1955 when I was 7. At first, I was stunned with the nude swimming, but soon I decided I wouldn’t want it any other way. My brother (who is about 18 months younger), and I spent many days at the Y in our youth where it was an education, too. I learned why penises looked different (cut/uncut). The only female who visited our pool area was the older lady from the front desk who was almost like a mother to all of us. She would occasionally bring a message in to the swim coach, who DID wear swim trunks. In the mid 1960’s, I went off to college leaving my YMCA days behind. In the early 1970’s after graduation, I rejoined the Y only to find that swim trunks were now MANDATORY — except for one day a week for adult men only — and that didn’t last very long. I never understood why the policy changed. I’ve read many accounts as to “why” but none of them made any sense to me, anyway!