fear and identity…

Just like any other typical south asian young adult, I was once scared to go naked in the locker room of our University gym when I moved to the United States.

The day I did it, I felt a shift in my perception about myself and my body. I implicitly, used to hold my body real close to myself and my identity which was embedded in me as part of our culture. Going naked in front of others was a gentle reminder that shook me up and reiterated the fact that we are just like any other animals but a more civilized one. Despite not researching on the topic of how the culture of locker room nudity emerged in western world, I have a strong feeling that this might have just been invented to make us more adult and identify less with our body.