Nude Gyms? Bollocks to That!
A gym owner in the Dutch town of Heteren, 60 miles from Amsterdam, has held what is thought to be the first open nude gym session. Apparently a dozen men turned up but no women, even though some women had signed up for the sessions.
The Dutch are known for their liberal attitudes to all manner of things to do with sex and nudity, so this is no great surprise. The Dutch Federation of Naturists has 70,000 members and going 'starkers' is not exactly a novelty in certain contexts. Nude fun runs have been around for years in several countries -- then there's nude swimming, nude skydiving, nude ballet, nude skiing, nude rock climbing, and of course there's volleyball and frisbee that nudists seem to obsess over. The list goes on; but nude gym sessions? I don't think so.
Why not? Well, as I point out in my article Staying Healthy Weight Training, gyms can be hazardous places; there's lots of heavy, angled, pointy and squeezy things that you can get dangly and floppy bits caught in, squashed in, or generally mangled to within an inch of your gender integrity. And 'the microbiology of the gym environment', the subject of my upcoming doctorate, doesn't bear thinking about with all those bare bits bumming around the place, body fluids being what they are.
"So, no Hazel, I'm not coming to the nude gym today, I'm going nude fishing with the boys."
Comments
The word ‘gymnasium’ comes from the greek and means ‘the place of nakedness or the place of the naked’ because all athletics and gymnastics were performed naked back in those days. Hence the term ‘gymnophobia’ – fear of nakedness.
So the Dutch enthusiasts are doing nothing new, merely complying with the true meaning of the word.
Hello. And Bye.