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For many, the locker room is just a place to change clothes, but I would suggest to you that something more profound is going on, and if we miss it, it can change how we show up in the rest of our life. Let’s dive in.

History of Nudity – Changing Standards of Modesty

Most students of history and even the casual observer can realize our standards of modesty have changed over the years. But going all the way back to ancient Greek culture, there’s a time in which men used to workout and exercise completely in the nude. And even in a more recent past it was not unusual at the local YMCA to swim in the nude.

I’m a child of the 80s and that was before my time, but it was not unusual even for me to see experiences of group showers after gym class, or even once we got our own individual stalls to still dry off be naked and change in front of each other without much of an issue.

This is not the case anymore as many men choose not to the shower or change at the gym at all. And if they do change there they do this elaborate towel dance to make sure that everything stays covered and they expect the other men to do the same and much of this seems just like proper etiquette in our modern society who wants to see a bunch of naked men walking around, and if you do, is that suggesting some sort of sexual fetish is present.

A Case for Locker Room Nudity

I was recently reading Abigail Favale’s book on the Genesis of Gender, and she reminded me of the importance of these spaces…that they provide a type of physical education, that we learn something about ourselves, about each other, and who God has created us to be when we get to witness each other’s naked reality without pretense or fanfare.

While writing from a woman’s perspective, I think still helpful for us as men as well. She writes:

There is something sacred about these female-only spaces, even the swampy women’s locker room at the local pool. This is perhaps the only place where girls are able to see the unsung beauty of female nudity that is not at all sexualized, to witness firsthand the diversity of the female form, to have a concrete image that can contradict the harmful fictions displayed everywhere else: to see breast that droop, flesh that sags, pubic hair that hangs; to see and old lady perfunctorily washing between her rolls in the shower, unselfconsciously caring for the aging body she belongs to, the body she has always been.  (p. 163)

What’s true for her as a woman I believe is true for us as men as well…when porn and fitness magazines provide our primary example of the masculine body, where does that leave us in understanding our own sense of embodiment, our own sense of what it means to be embodied males? And what images are strong enough to contradict these stereotypes?

At Home in Our Own Bodies

I believe witnessing firsthand the diversity of the male form in the locker room provides the antidote…that part of what we receive in the locker room is reflected sense of ourselves as men…when I see the embodied reality of another man, in all is glory and many unflattering aspects I’m able to better appreciate these aspects, these realities within myself as well.

But when I cut myself off from these experiences, there’s a sense in which I’m also cutting myself off and bringing more distant separation between my own body and soul. And so my towel dance not only covers me from other men, it also, in a sense, blocks me from seeing myself and being at home in my own body.

Our bodies speak even when we don’t

As most of you know, I’m prone to take physical examples to make other relational and spiritual applications. And this is true here as well. On the one hand, our bodies speak and so the physical experience of the locker room as we read earlier gives an experience to witness to see the unsung glory of male nudity.

And as the proverb reminds us, the glory of a young man is in his strength or the glory of the old man is in his gray hairs. The body of a young man is speaking volumes even without him opening his mouth, and the same is true when we witness the body of an older man… that its speaking volumes even when he doesn’t open his mouth. And there’s something about seeing these bodies on full display in appropriate contexts, like in the locker room, that allows us to get a fuller revelation of the story that God is telling through our very bodies.

Bearing Our Naked Souls

At the same time more than just naked bodies, how do we bear our naked souls to each other? Perhaps this is around a campfire, when we’re on a road trip, or even just over a cup of coffee. How do we allow ourselves to fully be seen and known in each other’s presence at the level of the soul? The freedom and acceptance that this brings allows us to continue becoming the men that God has called us to be, iron sharpening iron along the way.

When the locker room becomes just a space for us to change clothes that we miss the power of our naked vulnerability and understanding ourselves…what it means for us to be men and how we as men reflect God’s glory and make an impact for good in the world around us. And so, whatever it looks like find your sacred space, literally or figuratively, and let it all hang out. You might be surprise of how much good this brings to your soul.