I've been meaning to write about this for a while, but this will simply be a short appetizer as to what I'll write about at length later on.
As you know your Captain has moved out to the hinterlands of South Dakota.
There is not much night life out here and you ultimately have two choices;
Make the best of it
or
Drink
I've combined both options into "make the best of it and drink" which I think is a very Cappy Cap Compromise.
That aside, "make the best of it" means finding some kind of hobby or activity that is productive so you don't just go to the local bar and start pounding down booze. So, in addition to fossil hunting (which the weather is becoming less and less conducive to doing now) I've joined a gym and started taking jujitsu.
My bench press is up 15 pounds over the last two months and I've learned to throw a guy to the mat nearly twice my size (though he can still thoroughly kick my ass).
However, tonight something happened at the gym that reminded me of a very important lesson I think we all need to acknowledge and agree upon in the manosphere. And that lesson is that EVERYTHING we purport, support, advocate and champion is predicated in one simple thing:
That we are honorable, honest, well-behaved men.
ie- we are the "good guys."
If we're not, then the whole "Manosphere movement" (which I hate to call it that) is simply hypocritical because we claim to take the moral high ground, but don't abide by it ourselves.
I'm not talking "promise keeper pansies" here.
What I'm talking about is this idiot that I just ran into at the gym.
So I work out.
I get sweaty and dirty.
I go the MEN'S locker room.
I disrobe, take a shower, hop in the jacuzzi.
I get out of the jacuzzi, naked as the day I was born, my towel in the other room hung up on a hook.
A guy walks out of the sauna and guess who he has with him?!
HIS 3 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER!!!
I don't have my towel. Neither do three other equally-buck-naked guys in the shower area.
I (foolishly) assumed there would only be men in the locker room.
And this poor 3 year old girl sees all of us right there.
WTF!
Are you purposely trying to scar your daughter for life?????
Are you such a spoiled brat that you can't get a baby sitter or perhaps leave the child with the THREE WOMEN IN THE RECEPTION AREA WHILE YOU GO BATHE????
It's the EXACT SAME EQUIVALENT of the entitlement mentality of women demanding to breast feed in public or those moms who leave their child out in the car as they get drunk at a bar. SCREW SOCIETY, I am more important than society, matter of fact, my work out or drinking schedule is more important than my 3 year old daughter.
As I said, I will go into this point in more detail, but men. Honestly, and truthfully, we cannot behave like those we criticize. And I know and accept that there are going to be DB men, genuine "assholes" who treat women poorly, but the whole, entire concept of the equality of men and whatever undefined purpose the manosphere has manifested itself to achieve HAS TO BE PREDICATED ON OUR BEHAVIOR BEING HONEST AND ACCEPTABLE AND FAIR TO OTHERS.
Not only that, but if you see such idiocy, you berate men and get them in line...that is of course assuming you are not buck naked and there is a 3 year old girl there.
More to come, but you get the idea.
27 comments:
If you couldn't berate that bastard, I hope you at least had a very emphatic chat with the management. Children old enough to walk and talk, simply do not belong in opposite-gender locker/bathing rooms.
Naked Captain? pics or didn't happen
Beta male alert, no females in the men's shower or change room. As we all know, hypersexualization of children is the feminist mantra.
I just can't possibly understand why anyone would do that to a little girl.
To me, that's grounds for two things
a) a criminal complaint vs. the idiot. Child Protective Services I'm sure would be very happy to investigate.
b) immediately losing his health club membership.
I hope you got a towel and then chewed his ass out good.
Geez, you guys and your damn pics "otherwise it didn't happen."
I would have liked to rip him apart, but I was NAKED and he had a 3 YEAR OLD GIRL WITH HIM! How exactly do I approach that?????
My primary goal at the time was to find my damn towel. That being said, management should at least be notified.
Cap'n, while I agree that this is a good rule of thumb, I do not think it warrants "law of gravity" status.
Step back a moment and consider: is it unacceptable to take a baby (two months old, say) into an opposite-sex locker room? I think most of us would say that's just fine. How about a 15-year old? Most of us would say "no way", and I would agree with them. So somewhere in between those two ages is a cut-off point, or at least a cut-off grey area. So where is that cut-off?
Previous commenter Suz @5:06 tacitly agrees with me on this, by mentioning the criterion of being "old enough to walk and talk". In your post you do not mention any criteria, so I'm going on the assumption that you're with me regarding my comments in the previous paragraph.
So the real question boils down to where you draw the line. Shockingly to some, different people will draw the line in different places -- even ordinary, decent, non-pedophilic people may have good-faith disagreements with other such folk. You and me, for example.
Last week, I took my 5-year-old daughter swimming while my wife stayed home with our son. We decided that his illness was no reason to deny our daughter the opportunity to go to the pool, so I took her. Naturally, we went through the men's side. My wife and I had no qualms or compunctions about this whatsoever. We're fairly casual about nudity in the family, so it's not exactly a new thing to her, plus we find the idea that a five year old child will be somehow sexually stimulated or emotionally scarred by the sight of people getting changed to be laughable.
However, it should give you some relief that I decided to go (and leave) at a time when there were likely to be no other patrons using the locker room, and as it turned out this was indeed the case. But note that I did not do this for my daughter's sake, but rather for the sake of those other people. Some folks are really uptight...
How one approaches that situation is exactly as it was offered: since clearly the offender was never told by clothed society that what he did was wrong, it becomes the duty of the well-toned naked man to berate some sense into him.
THAT he might remember.
I don't get it? I've never been to America but I've lived in and been to many European countries and Australia. I always thought under 7s~ were allowed in either changing room?
If a child is not old enough to look after their self, then they need to stay with a parent wherever they are.
I don't see how genitalia can 'scar' a child, having a parent who doesn't include their child in their life will scar a child, being babysat by strangers will scar a child.
My bet is that once the three year old girl had left the gym that she thought less about what happened than Captain Capitalism did.
Not sure why it should be necessary, in a setting where nudity is common, ordinary, and expected, to put on clothes before berating a moron such as this alleged "man".
Otherwise, with you 100%.
What kind of throw? I did BJJ for a bit at Warriors Cove in Burnsville, MN. I wish I could have continued. Good luck in your training.
This is a very American reaction to nudity. The child will pick up on whether people are comfortable or not and if you're comfortable, the child will not see nudity as abnormal. There is nothing immoral about a naked body.
Breasfeeding in public? Big deal. Why do people get so upset about normal bodily functions? This is how children have been fed for millennia; it's only in relatively recent years that people have become so uptight about these things.
I seriously doubt the kid will be scarred for life because she saw some naked men.
I can see how some of the discomfort could arise: if the child had been with someone not her dad around naked folks, cops would have been called, in the USA.
In Canada, I've seen more and more pools that have a women's, men's, and family changing area. In the latter nudity is expected from either gender.
Wait until the kid gets taught about 'bad touch' and 'stranger danger' in school. With any luck it doesn't happen a couple of years from now when she starts kindergarten, and remembers when daddy took her around allll the naked men.
"Where did daddy take you, dear?" "Let's go talk to the principal, you're not in trouble, sweetie, I just have to make a phone call..."
A similar event happened to me a few years ago. One of the guys on my hockey team, had his 2-3 year old daughter in the dressing room after the game.
This person asked someone, "to watch their language". Well the response was a well timed, go F-yourself.
As one other player remarked later on in the arena bar, "hey I watch my Ps and Qs all week long. But when I play hockey, I curse, smash people into boards, and in the locker room I drink beer, fart, smoke cigars, and do whatever the hell I like. That`s why I play hockey". We later informed the offending individual, never ever to bring his daughter into the locker room.
So many people of the me generation, have no respect for other people, and have no regards for social manners.
As a Swede I dont understand the American sentiment about nudity at all, but things are changing due to muslim immigration. I am an expat living in another European country that is less nudity tolerant than Sweden. A lot of people shower with their swimming trunks on, for example, while I shower naked. But sometimes the showers are placed so that people can see some of them from the pool area and then I shower in mz trunks or take the shower the most far apart. I have been taking my daughters to swimming pools since they were 2 or something. At the age of 5 or something like that the pool people wanted them to go to the womens locker room, but I was able to argue that they still needed help washing their hair and dressing. At 6 or 7 they started going to the womens locker room.
Lavazza
My daughters were never awkward seeing naked men. It was seeing naked boys that became a bit awkward for them around 5, but they had to tough it out, since they could not wash their hair without getting shampoo in their eyes.
Lavazza
"Some folks are really uptight"
And some folks need to have their ass kicked from here to shit stained Europe where all this open sexuality comes from. Anybody who trots their three or five year old girl through a men's locker room needs to be held up on child sexual abuse charges. Goddamnratbatardcommiemofo's, each and every one of you.
Cappy... What type of 'Gym' is this?
I ask because as a father of two young girls (5 & 2) I am on the fence on this. If your gym is a true gym where you are just their to work out (the fact that you have a jacuzzi make me think it is) then yes - no opposite gender kids in the change room. You have an expectation that it's men only.
If on the other hand it's a public rec center, YMCA type facility if there is no family type change room then yes - you can take your opposite gender kids in the change room.
It's a private gym.
BIG SIGN says, "MEN's Locker Room"
I have to go with my American counterparts here, 3 year old girl just shouldn't be seeing that. Definitely not the 5 year old. 2...eh, I don't know are they walking and talking by that age or are they somewhat cognizant of the difference between mommy and daddy?
Wait until the kid gets taught about 'bad touch' and 'stranger danger' in school. With any luck it doesn't happen a couple of years from now when she starts kindergarten, and remembers when daddy took her around allll the naked men.
"Where did daddy take you, dear?" "Let's go talk to the principal, you're not in trouble, sweetie, I just have to make a phone call..."
I'm wondering if you think this is reasonable - that one should have to make choices based on whether or not government busy bodies will be called in.
I have a question: What would you say about a 3 year-old boy being taken into the female locker room with his mother? Is this just as reprehensible? Or is there a difference?
If the kids are not allowed in the gym to work out of course no guest should bring them to the locker room either. I have never done so and I cant see any reason for anybody to do so. But if kids are allowed in, like at swimming pools and maybe some other places that I do not know of, I see no reason for a parent not to bring zoung kids of the wrong sex to the locker room, if they cannot wash their hair and dress by themselves in the "right" locker room.
Lavazza
REminds me of this cartoon.
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/minor_differences2
Old men in the locker room.
CL when a woman brings a little boy of walking and talking age into the womens locker room when other women are there. The VAST majority of those women are going to scream bloody murder. These same women that say its no big deal when a man takes his daughter into the mens room.
My local REC center has the family change rooms too. Thing is you see young couples with no kids come in and use those facilities all the time because they are either
A: planning a sexual interlude or B: too cheap to pay for 2 damn lockers or locks.
I don't think it's true that the VAST majority of women would complain, unfortunately. (I don't know any who would "scream bloody murder." Calm down.)
Twice I complained to the management of my former gym about little boys, around 5 years old, in the women's locker room. I was told I was the only person who objected.
They stare unabashedly (not their fault), and one of them loudly informed his mother that he could see my breasts.
I found this mortifying. If the kid can talk, he doesn't belong in an opposite-sex locker room, especially in a facility that doesn't accept members under 18.
It's not just about what's good for YOUR kid; it's about being considerate of other paying members.
In my opinion, these women need to shower at home if they don't have a male counterpart with them to take their sons. Or they need to leave their kid in the gym daycare until after they've showered. Maybe that's inconvenient, but children are a lot of work, and having them is a choice.
The female manager told me these mothers were breaking the rules but that there was nothing she could do, which meant she was unwilling to confront these self-centered parents. I now work out in a gym with no daycare facilities, and this is no longer a problem.
Anonymous at the bottom of the comments; the same thing happened to me. I had a membership at the most expensive and nicest fitness center for 200 miles was subjected to women bringing their 5 and 6 year old sons in not only to stand by while they changed but to shower with them. This gym had a great daycare center, too. The boys stared and commented like you were saying about your experience and many women who are already self conscious about their bodies (including women who were breast cancer survivors) found the little prince-lings' comments obnoxious and heartless. And they were. That said, in gyms that don't have daycare, it can be dangerous to just send the kid into a locker room alone (anyone want Coach Sandusky to help their son in a locker room?) A helpful idea for them caught in the middle and have to take a kid into an opposite sex locker room (no available staff, no daycare) may be what I saw a woman do in a city where I use to live. She threw a towel over his head.
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