Poll: Mixed Gender Showers

[someonehairy-ish]

Also, associating nudity and genitalia with sex is hardwired into the brain. It would require extreme amounts of indoctrination to overwrite that. It's just not feasible.

No it isn't. Our distant ancestors would have been naked all the time, remember? Plus it wasn't unusual in some more recent societies (greek?) for everyone to be naked around each other basically whenever, and definitely for bathing.

Basically you've got it the wrong way round. Thinking that nudity = sex/inappropriate is the result of societal indoctrination which is a holdover from more prudish Christian-controlled times. It isn't hardwired at all; being naked is basically the natural state for human beings, covering up is essentially a practical thing designed to prevent your junk from getting sunburned or scratched by thorns or frozen or whatever.

OT: This could work but provided there were some option for more self conscious/prudish people to shower alone.

 

[Morti]

I ticked the "Yeah" option as it was closest to my thoughts.

To be precise, I think that it is a good idea (and that in a utopian society you could be nude whenever and wherever), but societal change takes time, let's stop making such a fuss over nudity first. Also, college is probably about the latest you would be able to introduce this, the older people get, the harder it is to change ways (but not impossible). Ideally, you would want to get to people when they're young. From what I've seen, parents don't seem to mind co-ed pre-schoolers as there's still barely any difference at that stage. The trick would be trying to keep them co-ed as they grew up.

In short: not yet

 

[Vareoth]

Also, associating nudity and genitalia with sex is hardwired into the brain. It would require extreme amounts of indoctrination to overwrite that. It's just not feasible.

No it isn't. Our distant ancestors would have been naked all the time, remember? Plus it wasn't unusual in some more recent societies (greek?) for everyone to be naked around each other basically whenever, and definitely for bathing.

Basically you've got it the wrong way round. Thinking that nudity = sex/inappropriate is the result of societal indoctrination which is a holdover from more prudish Christian-controlled times. It isn't hardwired at all; being naked is basically the natural state for human beings, covering up is essentially a practical thing designed to prevent your junk from getting sunburned or scratched by thorns or frozen or whatever.

OT: This could work but provided there were some option for more self conscious/prudish people to shower alone.

You are partially correct. While it is true that the Greeks were a lot less prudish concerning the human body, they wore clothes when appropriate.

Also, while there were a lot of occasions where men would be naked the same can't be said about the female sex. More often than not women were portrayed clothed.

I will, however, completely agree with you that today's society is far to prudish about the natural beauty of the human body. And the reason that I think that nudity is at least partially associated with sexuality on a basic biological level is most likely because I'm somewhat of a pervert and don't know any different.

 

[A Weakgeek]

Yes. I like showing my weewee to people. Its so hard to do it nowdays without negative results. This would be one more legal way to do it.

It's like holding the olympic torch, and shining its brilliance for all bystanders to see.

 

[Me55enger]

Gender equality is a loaded phrase as it is anyway.

Desegregating showers is not the way to do it.

 

[spartan231490]

The only thing I can see this doing is causing a lot of misery for young boys

 

[kgpspyguy]

OK, lets spend Billions of dollars remodeling every bathroom in the country to satisfy all the Weirdos that demand change for the sake of change...that was sarcasm leave things the way they are.

 

[generals3]

I personally have nothing against coed bathrooms however i can understand why people may not like them. Hence why i think they should have separate ones and coed ones if they truly feel like having coed bathrooms.

And i'm also gonna add that coed bathrooms won't affect gender roles in any way. At best it might make people less prude.

 

[General Vagueness]

Your poll is missing the "no it would not work because the men would get constant boners" option.

That doesn't make it not work, it just makes it uncomfortable, and it's not even consistent *who* would be uncomfortable about it.

 

[mattttherman3]

I would probably get an erection from seeing an attractive person of the opposite sex, and therefore be a perv somehow. that's assuming there are no dividers between people of course. If there is, cool

 

[DarthSka]

I honestly don't know how to feel on this topic. At the dorms I lived in, each suite or room had it's own bathroom so I never had to deal with showering with others, not to mention that the dorms were male only anyway. It would probably be best if we got over nudity being a big deal, but at the end of the day I don't want to see other random people naked and I don't want them to see me naked. I plan to stick to private showering as long as I can and seeing as I'm past the point of living in dorms, I'm probably in the clear.

 

[nexus]

It would discriminate against the ugly, the ones who are truly oppressed in this world.

 

[Lightknight]

Why would coed bathrooms change our society's perception of genders? What kind of new lesson do you believe can be learned from regularly seeing eachother naked or pooping together?

It does sound like a good way to put women in dangerous situations though. Rape and sexual assault doesn't decrease just because availability and opportunity increase. The opposite happens.

 

[Lrbearclaw]

Yeah christ I think I'd often end up with awkward boner syndrome going to one of these, haha

Not sure I'm in favour myself, but I suppose if others don't mind it its ok for them

Until you walk in on an 80 year old granny showering....

 

[boradam]

Your poll is missing the "no it would not work because the men would get constant boners" option.

'murica

& every teenage boy to ever live

 

[Raine_sage]

I lived in a Coed dorm where guys and girls lived on the same floor. In theory we had separate bathroom facilities and the showers were not communal but the only thing separating me from some clueless idiot who apparently doesn't think the steam and sound of running water meant "occupied" was a flimsy curtain. No locks no doors just a curtain.

My campus is also one of the... rowdier ones when it comes to sports so every football season guys and girls alike would get completely hammered and the halls would get trashed. It actually got so bad once that the management actually had to enact a curfew because they were tired of cleaning up the messes. Before the curfew I was terrified to take a shower because tailgating went on all day and the number of times drunk frat guys made a pass at me while I was still fully clothed is alarmingly high. I didn't want to chance what would happen if the same drunken lout stumbled into the girls bathroom by "accident". Whenever I thought I could get away with it I used the handicapped bathroom because it was the only one with a shower that locked.

Even when football wasn't going there was always some stupid guy who got hammered and passed out in the wrong bathroom (to be fair this also happened to girls too). And I doubt that college students getting drunk and doing stupid things is a phenomena unique to my campus.

I'm a private person. I don't like being naked next to other people even other women. The idea of communal showers in general is not my favorite one but coed communal showers would be terrifying. I like having something solid between me and other people when I'm at my most vulnerable.

 

[Cheesepower5]

The long-term effect would probably begin and end with people showering together regardless of sex. I don't think such an act would make a perfect, gender-neutral society. Actually, I don't thinl gender neutrality = a perfect society, either, but I'm not opposed to it. It's just another way of life.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

Personally, I like having coed bathrooms at my dorm. On average cleaner toilets is worth the trade for having to deal with the occasional unflushed bloody mess. Granted, the showers don't have men showering with women at the same time, seeing as we have individual showers. Granted, I would be pretty uncomfortable with ANYONE in my shower.

This.

Back at my dorm, we technically had a "men's room" and a "women's room" on the floor, but since the floor was coed, the bathrooms very quickly became coed too. I used the men's room plenty of times, and guys used the women's room - it basically came down to "which one is closer?" and "are all the showers occupied?"

Like the woman writing the original article, I saw plenty of dicks. And as someone else mentioned, many of them were erect because I was naked or nakedish.

And you know what - big whoop. **shrug** No harm was done.

So yes, I approve of official coed bathrooms. Make em all coed, I say. Gender segregation only supports the idea that men and women are inherently different.