Naked Truths
The locker room at the health club is the last bastion of all-maleness. A manly manor where only men are allowed to enter and be men among other men. Here it is okay to scratch and fart and be our generally, hairy, lumpy, lint-pickin' selves. It is the one place, it's acceptable for guys to let it all hang out. Literally.
Despite this freedom, there are still several rules of etiquette that should be adhered to if one is to avoid certain mental images that will horrifically burn themselves onto the back of your retinas for all eternity.
First off, do not stand in the hallway chatting to a colleague about investment returns or their daughter's high school graduation party while starkers. And no talking on the payphone nude unless you can use your crank to dial. That's just plain impressive. Otherwise, wrap a towel around yourself.
Secondly, the one advantage we have over the females of the species is that we care less about what we look like. Despite the metrosexual agenda, we still don't give a grande latte's worth of damn about how we look. So do not stand in front of the mirror primping and preening the streaked spikes of your hair before you go out to exercise. Tool.
Cleanliness may be next to godliness, but there's no need to lather up your jumblies like you're Pete Townsend playing a guitar solo. Or bend over so far your proctologist could re-enact a scene from Das Boot in your colon. And you should never take the showerhead right next to someone else unless no others are available. No one is going to wash your back and drownings are rare enough that we don't need to be on the buddy system. And it doesn't matter if you walk around in the buff--even if you aren't buff--but don't lay your junk on the sink countertop like its being auctioned off at Christie's for an Elton John fundraiser. Keep the bangers and mash off the plate, boys, people set their toothbrushes there.
And be very wary of the jacuzzi. I refuse to be a flesh biscotti dipped into that human frappiccino. You may as well stick a straw into Howard Stern's loofah and take a draw. Ever wonder why the water level never seems to go down? You know guys can't be trusted when the ladies aren't around. And you don't want to get a funny feeling from the bubbles right before the jets shut down and you're the one sitting closest to the controls. Admit it. Yeah, I thought so.
Despite the above guidelines, I've never had much worry about being buck-naked (I even have a couple successful streaks on my resume), but apart from European beaches, medical emergencies and certain parties at Tommy Lee's house, most of us aren't exposed, as it were, to nudity around total strangers.
Some people freak out about locker rooms because either they, other people, or, heavens forbid, both of them are nude at the same time. These are the people who get cold kidneys at trough urinals in sports arenas. The people who would rather burst blood vessels holding it in until they can get home instead of taking a dump at work. We all know the type.
Is this a bad body image issue? If it is, I again blame the metrosexual agenda being forced upon us. The first subscription card that fell out of the first issue of Men's Health signaled fall arriving in the Garden of Eden. I agree that turnabout is fair play in the battle of the sexes and that, as a country, we could be in better shape, but now there's a whole generation of dudes staring at male magazine models wondering why they can't have 1% body fat and abs you could grate cheese on. Look, I don't know if the hair gel has finally soaked through into your brainpans, but there's always someone in better shape and in worse shape than you and someone with a bigger and smaller dong than you. (If you're the dude built like Brad Pitt and hung like a musk ox or the tub of goo with a half-roll of Mentos down under--or the other way around--I apologize.)
Speaking of dongs, which, oddly enough, we were, some people have an issue separating nudity from sex. Locker rooms are where people are most likely to see others, aside from strippers and significant others, in the nude. Since the locker room is all guys, this brings any thoughts of sex around to the way of the gay. And with one out of ten supposedly swinging on the rainbow, chances are you're naked with a gay guy. Granted, the Target Center Arena Club, where I'm a member, was where Governor Ventura's aide, Steven Bosacker, was caught getting some hand shandy from a guy in the steamroom. But that's fortunately rare enough to be news. If you're worried about some guy hitting on you, just look at yourself in a mirror. Would you do yourself? Exactly.
More often than not, you'll be nude with either good friends or total strangers whom you'll never see again. But I will admit to some feelings of surrealness when encountering people I know through the casual tangents of friends or business dealings. They are suddenly very out of context. Especially when it's the 80-year old ad agency CEO you just showed your portfolio to a couple days ago in hopes of getting a job.
And that's one of the things that's good about being nude: you can't hide behind a suit or a fancy house. No matter what kind of shape you're in or what your business card says, you're just another dude. Human. We're all pretty much the same. If you can be confident in your own skin, that confidence carries over when you're back in your clothes, because you're able to see beyond all that societal camouflage. You've got nothing to hide. You can just be you. Pick your metaphor, they all apply.
I'm not about to burn my Ben Shermans or anything, but being nude is liberating. Honestly. It's conquering a silly fear. Naked is how we came in to the world (Well, minus all the crying and epidurals and getting hung upside down and spanked part). Remember, slipping into something less comfortable is how Adam and Eve got the boot from Paradise. Try it sometime. Do housework naked. Go deep into the woods during a thunderstorm and strip down. Make love with the lights on. You may not ever be allowed back in that McDonald's again, but I can guarantee you'll feel exhilarated.
10:11:23 AM 
|
