After yesterdays post about my problem with Swedish swim halls, let me turn my attention to American swim halls.
I forgot to mention yesterday that the shower area in Swedish locker rooms is just one giant room. No place for privacy. In America, everyone is so terrified of seeing another stranger naked that most of the places I’ve encountered have seperate stalls with curtains. On the surface, this could sound nice, but for some reason, it just seems dirtier and nastier when you are enclosed in a tiny damp space used constantly by naked strangers. If you even touch the wall or curtain, you might be contaminated!
Also, it seems that in America, if you don’t use the private stalls for showering or changing, you must be some sort of person who likes to expose themselves. Luckily, I warned my Swedish husband about this when he took one of our boys into a changing/shower room at a pool facility. I ran after him shouting, “You have to use a stall!”
“But why?” he asked. “They’re all full and kind of nasty.”
“I know, but that’s the way it is here. Otherwise you’re a pervert in this country!”
I lost my modesty years ago in Sweden. Really, no one cares if you’re naked around here. Nobody is interested. I think America is too obsessed with Hollywood airbrushed models and thinks everyone wants to stare. Seriously, no one in a public pool hall has a model body or skin. I think we can all agree that I don’t want to see you and you don’t want to see me.
I don’t know what the solution is. Both methods don’t work for me. I suppose for me it would be best to already arrive in my swimsuit, walk through a cleansing waterfall on my way to the pool and jump on in.
