Naked Truths and a Few Good Laughs

Dan Neil’s column “Towels Optional” (800 Words, April 16) made me chuckle. I’m one of those guys: 60 years old, 25 pounds overweight, sporting a saggy butt. I’m a white guy, but my gym buddies are mostly black and Latino and under 40. We’re all from different walks of life. We lie, shower and sweat together. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

John Anderson

Torrance

*

I can tell you why the graying group in the locker room seems so casual about covering up. When I was in school, physical education was mandatory every day--no exceptions unless you were sick or injured. And showering after PE was mandatory too. When you have just showered with 25 other guys in a communal shower the size of your living room, with no partitions, and then walked naked into the towel room, also full of joking, yelling and naked classmates, wrapping a towel modestly around your privates seems kind of silly--and futile.

You become desensitized. And if you, like me and many of my generation, followed this up with a tour in the armed services, well, then you are fully desensitized. This lack of prudishness and self-consciousness is a good thing. So when us old guys notice a pierced, tattooed thirtysomething putting on his pants while still wearing a towel (the surfer change!) or prissily covering up, we’re amused. We outgrew such silliness a long time ago.

R. Rupp

Via the Internet