The W.O.N.G. Way

"Just because you can" doesn't mean that you should.

That's the mantra I want seared into your consciences. There are many things that are allowable but nevertheless should not be done for the sake of others, or for personal pride. Like consuming the equivalent of four square meals at an All-You-Can-Eat buffet, or failing to bathe before boarding a commercial airliner. There is one practice, however, that is so vile and disgusting so as to become the target of my ultimate contempt. I am speaking, of course, of aging, out-of-shape men who insist on embracing full frontal-and-behindal nudity in the men's locker room at public gyms.

This, my friend, is the W.O.N.G. Way. Wrinkly. Old. Naked. Guy.

I will not go into full detail, primarily out of a sense of propriety. But let me draw a rough...um..."picture" for those who remain blissfully in the dark. The men's locker room is many things. It is a storage facility. It is a restroom. It is a sweat lodge. And it is a changing area. Now, in the course of changing into your sweat-stained Georgetown Table Tennis shirt, navy blue socks, and snow white New Balance sneaker, there is an inevitable moment in time in which you will be temporarily in the raw. This incidental nudity is a necessary evil, and acceptable in the course of one's transformation from government analyst to graceful athlete. I am not a Never-Nude. However, such nakedness must be never be prolonged beyond a period of reasonable necessity. The men's locker room is many things, but it is not the Garden of Eden.

Unfortunately, a disproportionate number of fitness enthusiasts, including those at my branch of Washington Sports Club, display a hazardous, reckless disregard for these basic rules of social etiquette. For some inexplicable reason, they treat the locker room as a fat-friendly nudist colony, where nakedness is not merely a physical state, but a state of mind. They will lounge around in the buck, rubbing their butt-sweat all over the benches. They are also often guilty of "traveling", by literally picking up their pivot foot and milling about the place, engaging in otherwise routine activities like shaving, weighing themselves, or using the blowdryer, all with their manhood on full display. Some of them even engage in full-blown naked conversations:

MAN BOOBS: "Evening, Sam."

FRECKLED BACKSWEAT: "Jim, how are ya; how's Diane?"

MAN BOOBS: "Fine. Fine. Your kids in college now, right?"

FRECKLED BACKSWEAT: "Nah, not yet, but Steven's looking at a lacrosse scholarship...Hey, it's Randy!"

JUNGLE PELVIS: "Hey guys, is this locker room getting colder?"

This sort of perverse interaction occurs with alarming regularity. The rest of us are forced to endure it because, technically, there are no gym rules against it. We also cannot ask them to politely put some damn clothes on, because to do so would require us to come into close contact with their glistening man flesh. There is also the remote prospect that they may gang up on us on a fit of rage, which would exacerbate the atmosphere of tension further.

I am curious, however, to know at which point these late bloomers shed the ordinary sense of Puritan shame that average people carry concerning their own bodies. Perhaps they are too influenced by Greco-Roman culture; or maybe they are simply releasing decades of corked sexual frustration stemming from traumatic gym class experiences in junior high. Never mind. I'm not that curious. I just don't want to know.

Now excuse me while I change into my jean shorts for the shower.