In 2023, I thought a lot about naked men

Published on 15 December 2023

Flashback 1. Age 7, weaving through a throng of elderly nude gentlemen during a recreation centre gym tour, leaving with a lesson in the brevity of youth and a vow not to live long enough to endure such incomprehensible sagging.  

Flashback 2. Age 11, cowering in the changing stall of a hot spring spa, my brother and father standing behind the attendant as he raps on the other side of the door with a consoling “there’s no need to be discouraged buddy, all the men here do this.”

Flashback 3. Age 14, hands full with my poolside lunch, my towel falls and exposes my adolescent bottom to my sister and her friends as our dog runs off with the grilled cheese.  

The relationship with my own nudity is not one I intended to explore this year, or probably ever. And I would’ve gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for all those naked men I’ve been in close proximity to.

I got a new job in 2023. A good one, an interesting one, and one I’d severely underestimated. I hadn’t realised how much athletes sweat. How they need a locker room to clean themselves often. How much my job would require my presence inside that locker room. And above all, how many naked men I would see in that locker room: from near and far, short and tall, haired and waxed, in ice baths and steamy showers, for hours of days that stretched into months, to seasons, to a year. In a single trip around the sun, I’ve seen 5 – maybe 10 – times more nude men than I had previously seen in my quarter century of heterosexual existence.

It was the anatomy that fixated me, or so I thought at first. I’d watch as they performed inhuman things on the field, only to see their humanity the moment they stripped off their sopping jerseys; the contours of muscle meshing with minuscule fat deposits, prominent medical procedure scars, back-acne and mole constellations, unconventionally angled tattoos, the faded ribbons of stretch marks of puberty’s past. It’s not that I was ignorant to the fact that each human presents themselves as a flesh and bone snowflake of biological uniqueness, but my lack of previous locker room opportunities – along with a festering case of college-spawned body dysmorphia – made it easier to believe no other bodies contained the quirks and imperfections mine had, let alone a group of men in prime condition and physique.  

As the year has progressed, the shock value and comparative instincts have regressed. I’ve got better at being naked, staying naked, working around the naked. This made my job easier, but I was not easier on myself. 

Being more naked, seeing more nakedness and believing my resistance was tied to physiology was just another underestimation. The intrusive thoughts continued, at times worsened, often pushing me to wait until everyone had showered before I did. I didn’t need the privacy, but I craved it.

During one of my solo lukewarm showers, an unexpected recollection bubbled up from the soapy ether. The memory was from my pre-teen soccer days, when I shuttled into the car, lamenting another lacklustre performance. 

“You know why?” Dad asked. “You looked at me in the stands more than the ball on the field.” 

Then another memory surfaced, from my college theatre rehearsals. “You’re glancing over here, you know,” my director revealed. “The scene’s there, with you. Why am I important?”  

Though I was fully clothed for these moments, they made me feel as naked as the saggy rec centre gentlemen; as bare as the time I hid in the hot springs spa changing stall; as vulnerable as I did when I was left towel-less by the pool. My misconceptions washed away and I finally understood. Nakedness wasn’t the fear.  Nakedness was the skin that protected me from the deeper, truer fear; the fear of how others see me. 

The internal games we play for self-esteem and self-acceptance can’t be measured in neatly timed quarters, innings, halves, or periods. They take years, decades, lifetimes to be understood, an infinite game with a shifting, uncountable score. Yet to even have a chance to be competitive, to stay in the game, you first have to know which game you’re really playing. I know that now.  

A year of sport and naked sportsmen can't and won’t ease the future discomfort of being caught with my pants around my ankles, literally and metaphorically. But in such moments, I’ll compete with the awareness that I’m playing for inner indecency—the naked nakedness of me, as me, ok with me and living for me—is the most decent thing I can do for my life and those that surround it.

How to best let that inner nakedness all hang out? That’s for 2024.