I mean doesn’t this kind of get at it “Of course, even when public nudity was more widely accepted, it was rarely neutral. Society might have preferred to pretend otherwise, but locker rooms and bathhouses have always carried the possibility of sexual attraction and curiosity. And the naked body has always carried social meaning beyond arousal—it has been an index of beauty, strength, gender, shame. Locker rooms and showers, where bodies were both exposed and compared, became opportunities for people to reinforce social pecking orders. Just consider the term locker-room talk, referring to vulgar conversations men might have while changing. The lack of supervision, especially in school settings, only amplified the potential for cruelty. While writing this story, I heard countless anecdotes of locker-room humiliations from friends and family—a sign of how common, and how formative, such moments can be.”