I am a part of several sub-communities. Every day as I move through my life, I encounter the different communities that make-up part of my identity. I go to class and encounter other Spanish undergraduate and graduate students. I go to the library and encounter others striving to obtain a college degree. I go to the gym and encounter others hoping to improve their health and bodies.
The community of the ladies’ locker room is particularly intriguing. As my friend and I change into our gym clothes as modestly as possible, I quietly observe the other ladies. One is standing with her back to us, talking to her friend, topless in a pair of navy blue shorts. Her lack of concern over her nakedness is unusual in an environment where most other women attempt to minimize how long their nakedness is revealed. I wander off to pee and weigh myself and when I return to see if my friend is ready, the girl is still topless. I wonder if the friend she is talking to is at all uncomfortable with her girl’s exposed breasts in her face.
Don’t get me wrong, I have had my own naked moments but they tend to occur when I am drunk. I will flash people, strip and run up and down the block on a dare, or even possibly forget to get dressed after screwing my boyfriend and heading downstairs to refill my rum and coke. But my nakedness tends to take place within a sub-community that embraces it.
The gym is already an uncomfortable place. It is full of people who want their bodies to look good, people who are inevitably in better shape than me. I doubt I am the only one at the gym who feels this way. I suspect this is why most women spend as little time naked in the locker room as they can. When my friend and I return to the locker room after our workout, I notice another girl changing. She is wearing a thong. She wraps a towel around her lower half before slipping off the thong, avoiding eye contact with others while doing so.
My behavior would be more similar to hers’ than that of the topless girl. I would worry about things such as fat on my thighs and ass or legs that need to be shaved or how I shave my bikini area would be perceived. Too little or too much hair? Could it be interpreted as me being too slutty or too prude? Such personal details I would rather keep to myself and maybe a few sex partners, not something I want to flash around the locker room for other women to judge. Maybe this means I care too much about what others think. Maybe it means I am ashamed of my body to one degree or another. Maybe I am more of a conformist than I like to believe. But then again, is the ladies’ locker room really the place to rebel?