Watching old men walk around and have conversations with each other about their wife and kids while their drooping hairy genitals flap back and forth has been a time honored gymgoing right of passage for generations. These young whippersnappers have no respect for tradition, clearly.

Can we get over the generations concept soon? Younger people are less mature... because they are younger.

At some point the millennials will be the old generation complaining about how we used to have to actually "text" rather than just think our ideas and have them transcribed.

There will be something about how the process of having to conceive of grammar and spelling made your thoughts more coherent.

But society will move on anyway, and yes, the younger generation will be less mature, at least, until it gets older.

I never really understood why it bothers people so much that things progress. But maybe I am just grumpy because it is Monday :)

I'm surprised at the comments here. I wonder how many of you experienced bullying in gym class over your body's appearance. The privacy of one's naked body is pretty important thing to a lot of people, but particularly to young teenagers, many of whom would opt out of gym class if they could, and who often enter puberty at very different ages. Even if you are or were comfortable walking around naked in front of others, it's cruel to force all people to face something that just isn't necessary.

Now, I agree that "comfy couch corners" and "sexy glass escape pods" seem silly and unrealistic (albeit typical of such NYT articles) but just basic privacy for showers and dressing ought to be a no-brainer for locker rooms for any age.

Having more private locker rooms could have negative psychological side effects on us. At first the naked locker room is weird. However after a while you stop caring. Its almost like a body self empowerment.

I can see the positive & negative side of it though. However sheltering the youth from all negative feedback is not a good thing either. People need to grow up facing adversity.

This is definitely improved by the "millenials" => "snake people" translator.

I really don't think people at the gym care that much about being nude in the locker room. This reads a lot like a paid-for ad for design services.

Millennials? Gyms like Equinox in NYC start at over $600 per month. I see the described designs as adding luxury to wealthy clients, not adding privacy to pee-shy youngins.

The article didn't mention that this is also being done to short-circuit the overwhelming opposition (using nakedness as a wedge) to trans-people in locker rooms of their identified gender.

This was incredibly tart. Some of us younger millennials are not "subsidized" and scrape up the extra money per month for a gym because we are concerned about aging healthfully. I, too, bristled at the writer giving the "special snowflake millennial" dead horse another dryfuck.

A large percentage of people who go to the gym go because they have body image issues. No need to make going even harder for them.

I'm a Gen-Xer and I went to great lengths to avoid getting naked in front of classmates. I still don't like being naked in front of strangers.

I cringe when I hear stories about swimming naked in high school in the 1950s.

I suspect a part of this is due to America's losing of a Spa culture. Korea, Russia, Germany and Scandinavian countries seem to have (comparatively) thriving cultures, which make people more comfortable being naked around each other.

I do agree with the common sentiment here though, what a tired, boring trope to pillory millennials for this quirk. It's hardly ideal that they're becoming more body conscious, but it's quite a great solace to instead appreciate how much they're advocating for tolerance in our society.

1) It started long before millennials. Gang showers pretty much disappeared in anything built after 1990. 2) I hear the military has mostly gone private showers too. Thats how pervasive this trend it. 3) I remember school teacher friends complaining how smelly their students were. They just would not shower after gym class and still dont. These days many schools are so informal that kids just wear athletic clothes all day. 4) Other than sociological phenomena, I dont really care.

Having a private changing area is something that could be very good for trans people.

Now if only they'd do this for women's locker rooms, too...

As usual, the older generations fear change and subsequently lash out at the younger generations. The cycle continues.

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The concept of non-sexual nudity is very quickly disappearing in the US. I play on a co-ed hockey team and there is one gal that has no qualms about hopping in the shower with the guys. It is not weird because we all realize that it is non-sexual. That being said, in the main locker room area, I do try to minimize the amount that I expose myself to the other women that are not as comfortable, but that is out of respect for them, not my own fears.

I wonder how would they deal with co-ed showers and sauna's in mainland Europe where you can have a 65 year old man steaming next to a 22 year old woman both naked and no one bats an eye.

Wait a second. I thought that the millenials were too busy sexting one another, or at least it seems as if that was the current moral panic. Now they're afraid to be seen without clothes?

I'm a millennial and had no issues going to a foreign country and getting naked with complete strangers. (Japan, visiting an onsen.)

The problem is with American prudish behavior and helicopter "nudity-is-bad" parenting. I agree with many of the comments below: no wonder people have body/self image issues. The only nudity they see is from porn.

Maybe I have some natural talent (doubtful), but changing under a towel is really easy and convenient, so I really don't see what all the fuss is about. I first learned the "skill" on crowded beaches.

> “Old-timers, guys that are 60-plus, have no problem with a gang shower and whatever,” Mr. Dunkelberger said. “The Gen X-ers are a little bit more sensitive to what they’re spending and what they’re expecting. And the millennials, these are the special children. They expect all the amenities. They grew up in families that had Y.M.C.A. or country club memberships. They expect certain things. Privacy, they expect.”

or maybe the naked old guy in the locker room is a common joke for a reason.

>>> Showering after gym class in high school became virtually extinct in the ’90s.

Maybe in the US...

TIL Americans from the USA are disgusting pigs.

As someone's mentioned on Twitter, I'd like a browser extension that replaces "Millennials" with 'people more youthful, more attractive, and more sexually active than us', please!