Missing dressing room & shower curtains

Have you ever wondered what curtainless showers & dressing rooms are for? In high schools? At beaches houses? In sports locker rooms? When I was a kid with a bully-type gymn teacher (now called a “P. E. teacher”), I used to think the small private school just couldn’t afford shower curtains. Or that the situation was some kind of warped throwback to the heathen nude-athletics of the Roman empire.

But now that I’ve been adult for a while, I’ve realized that no legitimate reason exists for curtainless showers or dressing rooms. I’ve been forced to conclude that the real reasons these places have showers and lockers, but no curtains, is because, a) somebody wants the opportunity to look at naked bodies, and b) somebody is having a power thrill at stripping people of their dignity, while pretending they’re not. Certainly puncturing the innocence of young middle schoolers and high schoolers is very high on the political agenda. Some U.S. jails provide shower curtains only for the men, but none for the women. Now that is nothing short of predatory.

Probably the only thing you can do about jails is to stay out of them, by not committing any crimes! (Of course, that doesn’t work in communist police state countries.) But everywhere else, you can take control of the situation – by bringing your own privacy with you!