Poll: Mixed Gender Showers

[LAN MAC]

Hell, speaking as a guy, I know that my john has "risen to the occasion" at moments in which I didn't want it to, no matter how hard I tried to beat it down.

WHY? WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOUR DICTION THAT YOU THOUGHT THAT WOULD BE A GOOD WORD TO USE IN THAT CONTEXT?

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

There is no option that includes my view. I like the idea of nudity being sexualized. Everything should be done in moderation for it to have the most effect. If you sit around all day eating the tastiest foods you can find, then food as a whole will be less enjoyable to you over time. Overstimulation of anything causes it to become more boring and normal to you, and I would rather not have that happen to the female form(nor visa versa.)

Gender segregation only supports the idea that men and women are inherently different.

The genders are inherently different. You can argue that they aren't different in a meaningful way. Eg. we all strive for the same things, we have the same fears and desires, ect. But you can't argue that there aren't inherent differences. That's just plain silly.

 

[Yuuki]

Gender segregation only supports the idea that men and women are inherently different.

Err...the very fact you said "men and women" makes that sentence self-contradictory lol.

Mentally we're not all that different (well, it's still being researched) but physically we are worlds apart, even the cavemen knew this 10,000 years ago

 

[mitchell271]

All the dorm bathrooms here are co-ed. Whoop-de-fucking-do. Nobody cares, but then again, it's a fairly liberal school (it's in Ontario, Canada). I have no issues with mixed bathrooms in res but in other public places, it's a little weird. I wouldn't want to whip it out for a urinal in front of a girl.

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.

Hadn't considered that and it's definitely an issue. The washrooms here have locked stalls for the showers and, to be honest, I thought all dorm bathrooms were like that. I think that there should only be co-ed bathrooms if there are locked shower stalls. I understand how girls could get especially uncomfortable with the idea of sharing a bathroom with rowdy, horny guys.

 

[Jadak]

This depends on the topic, it seems to be referring to something that is fine, communal bathroom. However, I voted no as my first thought was dirty and jumped to 'communal showers', which likely isn't the case.

I have experience coed bathrooms, it's really not a big deal.

 

[Happiness Assassin]

Its all fine and dandy until someone gets a boner and as all guys know, you can't exactly control them 100% of the time.

 

[Soxafloppin]

Its fine by me IF there is cubicles.

If there isn't, nope.

 

[Jedi-Hunter4]

IF we were used to seeing nudity of both genders, it would be normal and thus not cause any fuss about seeing nudity but to get to that point we have to start seeing nudity and thus over come the fuss which would be a really unpleasant phase that not many would want to go through.

I mean during Victorian times, seeing the bare ankle of a lady was the same as watching a stripper these days... but these days ankles are no big deal...hell except for 3 points of reference there is barely *koff koff* any part left that is private.

Is there a significant lumber and brick shortage coming up or something? In all honesty, I want to shower by myself. It's not about nudity at all, it's about general privacy. I don't care what people see of me as long as I'm in control to reveal how ever much at my own discretion (an public decency laws), which is to me a right everyone is entitled to.

I mean does anyone really want to see somebody else having to deal with the mother of all spots? Maybe one person enjoys flossing while their drying down, are these things most normal people want to share with the world? Probably not....

But as others have said, just plain nudity is hardly linked with sexual intentions or urges. Want proof? There are thousands of tribes out there where both women and men wear little or no clothing. In many tribes the breasts aren't considered sexual AT ALL and you don't see the males walking around with boners, because they have been raised in such a way that nudity is just a regular part of life like eating and sleeping.

Equally couldn't you argue that it's the other way round? That they are the ones under societal conditioning and have been desensitized to nudity due to constant exposure?

I've heard lots of theory's from scientists in various media who also tend to believe that breasts in particular have developed the way they have in humans to attract mates.

http://www.lifeslittlemysteries.com/2946-why-men-love-breasts.html this is an interesting theory as well, absolutely HORRIFYING though why we are wired like this if your a strait male who was lucky enough to have a mum throughout child hood.

 

[In Search of Username]

People can shower with whoever they want, but privacy should always be an option at least. Some people (and I include myself in this) are shy and don't want to shower with anyone else, regardless of gender.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I don't see this working in Japan, where women have their own subway lines because frottage is a thing with men.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Man, I don't want to shower with anybody else unless I'm comfortable with them seeing the jewels, regardless of gender.

this. bathrooms/lockerrooms are generally never comfortable regardless of sex, unless they were super designed for massive amounts of privacy, then i just can't really see it being better than what we have now.

plus on those "bad days" where you end up taking a big ole donkey sized shit with orange gas farts, and a female not a foot away? that's some gossip i'd prefer to avoid.


also, i am a janitor for a living, and i promise you, i prefer men locker rooms over women 1000x over, the blood stains on those seats...sweet jesus you'd think someone spontaneously exploded on the toilet.

 

[digital_critic]

Yes, if the showers/toilets had chest-high or neck-high dividers between them.

 

[MagunBFP]

show me an ideal society, and i'll support this concept. there's nothing fundamentally wrong with it. in fact, with appropriate social structure, it would be better than sex segregation. however, i don't live in an ideal society, so i know it wouldn't turn out well here, specifically.

You do realise that you build the ideal society one thing at a time right? Imagine if 50/60 years ago people said the same thing about racial segregation "show me an ideal society and I'll accept blacks and whites living as equals, until we have that ideal society it just won't work". We're not just going to wake up in an ideal society one day, if it happens it'll be because people saw that something wasn't ideal and they changed it, and then they or someone else changed the next thing so society kept getting closer to that ideal concept.

 

[Therumancer]

It comes down to what your used to honestly, when the order your used to suddenly changes it makes people uncomfortable. For the most part I tend to support the idea of seperate bathroom facilities for men and women, in part for comfort factor, but also because bathrooms are generally a place a lot of people go for gender privacy and certain hygiene needs.

I'll also say that the number of truely attractive people, the hollywood standard, are pretty rare. When you get down to it most people your going to see in a communal shower are very average, or beyond average in apperance, and unless someone is hamming it up taking a shower or whatever isn't inherantly hot. It's quite possible for a guy to be around naked women and not get a constant stiffy unless they have a serious problem.

I've done it both ways over the years, and really I prefer gender segregated showers and bathroom facilities, but I suppose in an absolute sense that's a luxury, and one of the first things that can go when space is at a premium like with a dorm arrangement.

When it comes to transgenders, my opinion isn't exactly PC, but I personally feel that basic acceptance doesn't mean special rules that apply only to them. If there are segregated facilities, you use the bathroom that matches your genitals.

 

[AlexWinter]

So apparently coed showers are actually a thing:
http://jezebel.com/5431431/on-coed-bathrooms-and-showering-with-guys

Spoiler: For those who don't like links

A student at Green Mountain College is suing the school because her dorm had only coed bathrooms ? which reminds me of the year I showered with dudes.

According to Scott Jaschik of Inside Higher Ed, freshman Jennifer Weiler's suit says all the buildings in her college should have separate bathrooms for men and women. When she first complained about the coed facilities, Green Mountain designated a women's bathroom in her dorm ? but men kept using it. The bathrooms had shower curtains and stall doors, but according to Weiler, men often disregarded these partitions. Says her dad, "The men just disrobe in the middle of the room." Jaschik writes that transgender students have argued in favor of coed bathrooms, but Williams alum Wendy Shalit has complained about the "forced proximity" of male bodies, and even linked coed bathrooms to "the decline of traditional dating." And while I can't say I know much about traditional dating or its decline ? I suspect the idea that people always loved, fucked, or hooked up in a certain way is total bullshit ? I do know something about coed bathrooms.

When I was a junior, I lived in a co-op with a giant, communal, coed shower. There was an individual shower stall downstairs, but it was mainly for the purpose of Americans with Disabilities Act compliance, and I didn't know anyone who used it. Instead, everybody observed a certain basic etiquette ? you were supposed to knock on the shower door, and the occupant had the opportunity to ask you not to come in. No one ever did this, and I sort of got the impression that it was bad form. On the other hand, people tended not look each other directly while showering, and there was an unspoken rule that you should face the showerhead at all times. Even so, I saw a lot of dicks in my time at the co-op, and every male resident there at some point saw me naked.

The story of my communal showering year tends to surprise people, especially women, to the point that it may actually be the most shocking thing I did in college. On the one hand, I don't totally understand what the fuss is about, since I got used to it pretty quickly. The general line on the shower, and on the co-op's pro-nudity policy in general, was that being naked didn't have to be sexual ? and it's true that while shower sex was, in other dorms, a go-to solution to the roommate problem, I never saw or heard of anyone fucking in the communal shower. Nobody ever came onto me or made me uncomfortable, and I was generally relatively at peace with the whole thing. In fact, the experience so desexualized the cleansing process for me that I didn't shower with a boyfriend for years after that, mostly because it didn't even occur to me.

On the other hand, I did know several women in the house who were uncomfortable with the arrangement. Unlike Shalit, they weren't bothered by the proximity of dick. Rather, they felt that coed nudity was inherently unequal, that being seen naked would always be different for a woman than for a man. In a way, I agree with this. Women are disproportionately the victims of sexual violence and stalking, and the male gaze is much more frequently threatening to women than the female gaze is to men. Still, I remember the day when I came back from my appendectomy with strict instructions not to face a showerhead directly for three weeks. I prepared myself to explain to everyone why I appeared to be showing them my bloody abdomen in violation of all shower protocol. When the first guy entered the shower with me, I mumbled something like, "Sorry-I'm-not-trying-to-show-you-my-tits-I-just-have-all-these-stitches-and-I-can't-get-water-in-them." Rather than razzing me or, probably worse, turning away shamefacedly himself, he smiled and pointed to his own appendectomy scar. The moment was so innocent and relaxed that it made the shower feel like ? cheesy but accurate ? a safe space.

I don't think anyone should be forced, either by lack of alternate facilities or by social pressure, to use a coed bathroom. And I do think communal showering poses problems, especially if it provides opportunities for harassment. But I will say that I briefly experienced what the hippies hoped for when they built the shower in the first place ? a breakdown of the woman-as-sex-object-man-as-predator dichotomy, an instant when I was a human being with a (slightly broken) body, and not an image to be evaluated for attractiveness. And I wonder if allowing young men and women to piss and shit and shower together (if not, perhaps, as close together as I experienced), might help them view each other as a little more fully human.

Oops! I accidentally reported you for this. Bloody Kindle, sorry brah. OT: I don't really want anyone seeing me naked unless we're going to bang tbh. And I don't really want to see loads of other people naked either. Thinking of your 400lb behemoths here.

 

[Zombie Sodomy]

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.

Then whatever you do, don't turn around.

 

[Ryan Minns]

Personally I've had near perfect control of my penis since before even being a teenager so I wouldn't have cared about embarrassing issues like random erections but I am still ashamed of my body as a whole. 150kgs which I apparently hold well given my physical strength but I always see it as 150kgs of completely wasted potential and it shames me quite a bit so I don't like being seen by strangers or even my girlfriend sometimes.

I do think this is a good idea though. Who cares if a guy or girl uses it to have a perv sometimes. It doesn't really have an effect as long as their is no abuse.