Young and prudish

Yesterday, the Globe and Mail ran a "Facts and Arguments" essay by journalist and j-school prof Linda Kay. It was called "The teacher has no clothes":

I was applying body lotion in the locker room at the local YMCA, having just enjoyed an invigorating swim and a leisurely shower.

Standing stark naked with my hair wrapped in a towel, I heard someone approach and loudly exclaim, "Is that Professor Kay?" 

Oh yes, it certainly was. In all my glory.

Some of the comments on the story are hilarious. People wondering why she was naked in the locker room, for instance. Why not be more discreet? 

There's also an age-related thread running through both the essay ("It never fazed me to stand naked before fellow swimmers in my club, maybe because most of us were middle-aged and sagging in similar places"), and it comes up in one of the comments too.

Tom R from Victoria, Canada writes: My question has a little different slant but nonetheless relevant. Why do the younger men in my local rec centre... way too often hide themselves away so as to seemingly protect themselves from being seen by anyone else ?? What's their problem ?? This doesn't seem to be an issue for us older males.

Reading the piece, I found myself thinking about a misconception that I think dates from the 60s: the idea that younger people are more likely to be relaxed and comfortable about nudity. I never saw it when I was younger, and I certainly don't see it now. As one of the commenters (in a comment now deleted) wrote: where's the evidence that we are at all enlightened in 2008?

Adolescence and young adulthood are so much more fraught with concerns about image, and the way our bodies appear is the most personal manifestation of that concern. I've been in locker rooms and seen exactly what Tom R is talking about. High school and slightly older guys wrapping themselves up in towels, going off to the toilet stalls to change (yuk) and going through contortions to get dressed without showing any skin. Meanwhile, their elders are just going about their business -- shower, shave, sauna, get changed -- with minimal fuss. Some of the time they're naked, some of the time they're not. Big deal. 

Somehow we've absorbed the idea that youth equates with casual attitudes towards sex and nudity (hence the perennial teen sex panics in the media). It's a holdover. A cliche. And like all cliches, it's time for it to go.