How to behave in a male locker room
Greetings all, Steve here, welcoming you to another addition of `How to Be More Cynical’. Today’s topic: How to behave in a male locker room. With the cold weather coming on, I’ve mainly retreated into the gym for my workout time. I much prefer working out outdoors, but rain and wind make that difficult to impossible, so I get to experience all the joys of the male locker room.
Male locker rooms are very different from female locker rooms, at least so I’m told. Females, shockingly, go into locker rooms and change, sometimes shower and then they leave. At least, that’s what my girlfriend claims. My only information about what goes on in female locker rooms comes from horror movies, where girls stand around naked and giggle a lot and have baby powder fights. Meg informed this is not entirely accurate. On some level, I was disappointed.
Apparently, as I say, girls mainly use locker rooms for changing and showering, which seems remarkably free of neurosis, compared to what happens in male locker rooms.
Those of you with willies will know how a male locker room operates. First of all, as you walk in, just above the doorway, you see a sign saying, `CAUTION: YOU ARE NOW ENTERING A PENIS FEAR ZONE’. As you proceed through the locker room, you will notice a variety of military-slogan-type signs, expanding on the original thought in various ways, for example: `YOUR PENIS IS YOUR LITTLE FRIEND. PROTECT HIM AT ALL COSTS‘; `YOU ARE THE SEXIEST BEAST WHO EVER ROAMED THE EARTH AND EVERYONE WANTS TO LOOK AT YOUR WILLIE.‘; `PEACE THROUGH PARANOIA.‘ Males generally fear that every other male in the universe wants to look at their Willie, for two reasons: 1) Males tend to be intensely and irrationally homophobic; 2) They’re afraid that if anyone does look at their Willie, they’ll think it’s really small and laugh at them.
This is silly, of course. Most guys have average-sized willies. They must, that’s what makes the average in the first place. Other than that, they are likely a few guys out there with horrendous, terrifying willies and a few with tiny, little willies, though that’s a difficult question, since everything from cold air to fluctuations in the markets can make your little general go into strategic retreat.
Males in public washrooms tend to drop about 70 I.Q. points as soon as they walk through the door and it’s worse in locker rooms. You know how scientists say that there is almost no difference between humans and mountain guerrillas? Obviously these scientists don’t go to locker rooms very much, because there there’s absolutely no difference between men and mountain guerrillas, except that the guerrillas probably smell better. Men in locker rooms immediately take on the mentality of a 8 year old, punching and hitting each other and doing everything except criticizing the size of their Willie. Wouldn’t want to invite retribution on that front, now would we? Some guys even insist on walking with their arms spread out to take up maximum space, swaying their hips from side to side in an attempt to get their little willies to swing back and forth a bit. They should hand out bananas at the front door.
It gets worse in the shower. Every guy in the large communal shower tries to strike a pose which is supposed to look supremely relaxed, but which is actually carefully calculated to make their Willie look bigger. Simultaneously, they are trying to look at the other guys to make sure that they aren’t trying to look at them, and to sneak a glance at their willies to see if they’re bigger than theirs and all the other guys are doing the same thing. And trying to look like they’re not. It’s extremely comical, but, of course, you can’t laugh, as that would be unflinching proof that you came to the locker room only to look at other guy’s willies.
And the shower is positively relaxed, compared to the sauna. In the sauna, a small, incredibly hot box packed with sweaty, naked guys, the only way to prevent the immediate dissolution of your manhood, is to stride in as if you just disemboweled a wildebeest with your teeth, lean against the railing and stick your butt almost back out the door, periodically standing up to delicately wisk the sweat of your naked body and generally act as gay as a Cher concert.
One can’t help but wonder what could be accomplished in all of this Willie-fear could be put aside. World hunger would be a memory, as would national defense and football. But I’m not one to criticize.