Nakedness

There is a woman at the club who baffles me. She doesn't close the curtain on the shower when she's washing up after her workout. The shower stalls are all quite large and all are equipped with shower curtains. I don't know why she doesn't close the curtain. I'm guessing it is because she doesn't care if everyone sees her naked and shaving her legs.

Part of me doesn't understand why I care. It is a locker room; naked women abound. We undress and walk to the shower naked but once at the shower we step inside and promptly close the curtain. Some of us will make a quick stop at the scale on our way to the shower to get the most accurate and favorable weight measurement - naked and in a semi dehydrated state after sweating in a workout. We NEVER weigh ourselves after the shower because well, duh, wet hair is heavy.

I'm not puritanical in my views of nudity. If someone wants to go to a nude beach I could care less. If that same person wants to parade around their home naked, more power to 'em (although I would not like to sit on their couch as a guest in their home). If a woman wants to breastfeed in public I don't care - heck, I've done my fair share of breastfeeding outside of my home. I know breastfeeding is not the same as nudity but some people out there get really worked up if they see a baby attached to a bare breast. I'm not of the group that thinks seeing a woman breastfeed is like seeing the face of God but I'm also not of the group that would say, "Sure, it's a natural process but so is defecating." Ryan was really uncomfortable when I was breastfeeding Gavin on an airplane without using my cover. He kept asking me if I wanted my cover. Finally I told him if he wanted me to us it then I would. It took him all of 2 seconds to fish the cover out of the back pack that was shoved under the seat.

If someone saw me feeding Gavin and caught a glimpse of me way over by the window while they were looking for their seat where's the harm in that? I am pretty discreet when feeding him. I see lots of women at church feed their babies, one woman went sans the cover. Brave. I'm not quite there to do it without a cover in church because I guess I'm a hypocrite. Why do it on an airplane but not in church, the house of the One who made the boob?

Several years ago I went to the Olympus Day Spa in Lakewood (down by Tacoma) with several girlfriends for a day of pampering in the women's only spa. There was a large room filled with soaking tubs and saunas and an area for massages - all clothing was prohibited. We stripped down, took showers then went from tub to tub that had various herbs, and potions and whatever in them and each one was a different temperature. It was a little uncomfortable at first but after a while the woman who weighed at least 300 pounds didn't seem so misshapen and the skinny girls didn't seem so stick like. We all became human and our flesh was there merely to house our souls.

About 6 months after Ryan and I were married we went to Vegas right after the New Year for a long weekend. Since we aren't big gamblers (read: penny pinchers who can't bear the thought of throwing away money) we saw tons of shows (one could argue that we threw money away on shows, too). We stayed at the Venetian and walked everyday down to the other end of the strip and spent most of our time at the Tropicana because they had the best players club deals that we could find. After getting our players club cards we gambled for 2 hours. Boy, are we ever high rollers. I took my $20 that I set aside for gambling, I think Ryan's mom gave us each some cash as a Christmas present for gambling in Vegas, and went to the penny slots. That was fun. I really turned up the heat when I went to the nickel slots and won $60 on a nickel at the Yahtzee game. When I got a Yahtzee! the dice the came rolling out the cup on the screen stood up and started dancing; those dancing dice were so darn cute!

Our objective for the two hours was to rack up points for 'free' entertainment from the Tropicana, 'free' t-shirts (both of which we still wear - at the gym, while painting and doing yard work), 'free' cards and of course, 'free' food. As I played with the pennies in my bucket and enjoyed ordering 'free' drinks from the cocktail waitresse my fingers turned black. Ryan's fingers stayed pristine white because he preferred to stick a bill in the machine then just push buttons. Your pennies last a lot longer when you have to put each one into the machine.

This story does get back to nudity, don't you worry.

Of the shows we 'won' for 'free' one was a burlesque/french review show. I was adamant about going to the 7 pm family friendly show but it interfered with another show, I think the medieval jousting dinner theater we already had planned, so I finally relented and we signed up for the 10 pm adults only show.

Boy, did we ever get more than we bargained for. We were seated front and center of the stage. And I mean front and center. I was butted up against the stage at our table and Ryan was right next to me. We had to crane our necks to the see the show. Of course it was a little weird at first seeing all of these women dancing around topless. After a few minutes it was even weirder because the women dancing around topless could have been men for all we noticed their breasts. After the show Ryan said to me, "I'm not just saying this to make you happy but didn't they seem like guys after a while?" Too bad he couldn't have enjoyed the show more than he did. OK, not really. I was pretty happy the dancers turned into asexual beings after just a few moments. It turned out to be one of my favorite shows.

I feel like I should not be bothered by the woman at the gym seeing as how I enjoyed the French review show, breastfeed in public, and went to a women's only clothing forbidden day spa. Maybe the woman's inability to close the shower curtain doesn't bother me. Maybe I just find it curious that she doesn't care what other people think about her.

Or... she thinks she all that and wants everyone to see. Too bad for her there aren't co-ed locker rooms. I wonder if she would close the curtain then?