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12 march 2002

the second half of the whitestrips review. snazz up yer pearlies for spring.

naked

Don't ask me how these discussions get started. Somehow, I just seem to end up in the middle of them.

So I'm chatting with a friend this weekend, and he asks me,

"Do women in the YMCA locker room sprawl naked all over the couches like they do in the men's room?"

Duuuude! I'm eating here. Quit that.

As it turns out, he apparently is not kidding. At his particular gym, men are making themselves at home, baby! They're just parking their au naturel selves on the leather couches (ed. note: leather couches in the locker room? gross) and hanging their boys out to dry. Or something. Sounds very Russian bath house to me. Da.

He continues to ask me how women behave in the locker room, concerned that he belongs to the not-normal Y. He hasn't asked me if we have naked pillow fights yet, so I decide to take this line of questioning seriously.

Well, yeah...we walk around naked. Is that what you want to hear? But that's not enough. He's got an image of Ladies' Locker Room that is, to put it lightly, all wrong, but in the opposite direction than I suspected. Far from believing that we're sprawled all over rocks and seashells like a Botticelli painting, he just assumed that we dart and dodge about, utterly concealed. Hands over breasts, tightly clutching enormous bath towels, embarrassed.

Right. Welcome to the land of the average, the nude, and the indifferent. I'll be your tour guide.

I hate to tell you this, but the ladies' locker room ain't so exciting. At my Y, they give us two towels upon our arrival. They are the size of a placemat. Regardless, it saves us some laundry, so you rarely see someone packing their own Egyptian cotton. You throw your stuff into your locker, workout, return, and disrobe.

Now, regarding the disrobing part, we don't do this behind a curtain or in a stall, but in the open, conveniently next to the locker. Most women wrap the placemat around their waist, throw on the flipflops, and head to the showers topless (versus Topless, cue burlesque music.) We greet one another, make eye contact, and have even been known to carry on complete conversations in this somewhat naked state. It's about as exciting as shelling peanuts. You got boobs? Yeah, me too. Woo.

I stop before explaining further. So what about you? What's it like in the guys' room?

He tells me that he generally wraps up a bit, and there's no way in hell he sits on those couches. He's okay with the naked guys, but merely requests a bit more decorum. Like, cross your legs. Cut the naked time by 15 or 20 minutes. Maintain a three-feet distance. It happens that the older guys are the worst.

It also happens that the older women are the most comfortable, as well. I am happy for them.

If, when I am older, I have a third of the muscle tone that I see in some of the neighboring 60-year-olds, you bet your bippy I'm strolling around naked. I earned it. I already walk taller than I did a couple of years ago, and why not?

This is what I've learned in the Y locker room: Women look about the same. Women look quite a lot different.

Generally, we've all got the same equipment. The sizes and proportions vary. You've got your big on top, tapered at the bottom. Then you've got small on top, easing into more substantial hips. Even better, I'm learning that gravity isn't the enemy you'd think it is. Sure, a few things drop a bit, but not to the extremes we fear. Not if you stay in shape, that is.

Am I killing the mystery for anyone? You'll forgive me, but I spend nearly every morning in a room filled with women who look like real women. I hate to tell those of you who subscribe, but no one in the Y locker room looks like last month's centerfold, or that woman on the cover of Cosmo. In fact, those women don't look like that, either. You can thank computer-generated effects and erasers for those non-human objects.

Every day, I also see beautiful women who might not have all the requisite equipment. They don't throw a towel over their scar, or scars. They didn't reconstruct one side to match the other. We stroll among one another in various stages of nudity, somewhat indifferent. In my mind, it's not a matter of "good" naked or "bad" naked, but rather "true" and "false". I don't know what my physical future holds, but my skin will always tell my story. At the very least, it will keep me honest.