Embarrassment

When we think of the panoply of human emotion, hope, fear, anger, sadness, one of the ones that seem really low on the totem pole is embarrassment, but it governs much of human behavior. It's the reason people close the doors on bathrooms, why people wear clothes, why people are reluctant to tell you about their relationships.

Indeed, for the most part, we all know that people have relationships and these relationships often, though not universally, involve sex. Some folks like to be loud and irreverent and will either tell made up details of their sex life or possibly accurate details. Given how important people find it in their lives, it's rather amazing that they feel so embarrassed by it.

Perhaps they think that what they do is too vanilla. They feel it's like a competition. I have to be better at it than my neighbor. I have to do it at least as often as my neighbor. It's almost like raising kids except most people are generally content that they do enough. OK, they might not be as rich as the jet set who can send their kids to private schools, but they're content sending kids to the local public school.

Perhaps they feel they don't do it enough. Some people are simply a lot less horny than others. This can be a result of medication or physiology. It can also be that the couple is simply less interested than they once were with each other.

Perhaps they feel that they are into far more kinky stuff than most people realize. That nice couple? They like to use handcuffs? She likes to be spanked? Oh dear!

The embarrassment is not confined to relationships.

Once upon a time, many high schools, even middle schools, had teenage kids of the same gender take showers with one another. I suspect this was due to the military. The military probably thought people should be in good athletic shape just in case they need to serve in the army. For cost cutting measures, they had very simple setups for showering facilities. Since the army used to be all-male and males were supposed to be OK seeing their buddies in the buff, there was no arrangement made to create separate stalls to, yes, avoid embarrassment.

At some point, towards the late 80s, parents started getting scared. I don't want little Tommy to see my little Bobby in a shower. I don't want Sandra to see Holly without clothes. We're encouraging potential homosexual behavior!

The funny thing is that athletes, who are considered the most masculine (or feminine) the toughest and often a bit homophobic, were still required, as part of their sport to shower in groups. Athletes got used to the idea. But the shy nerd became fairly paranoid at the idea. I don't want that person to see me.

Of course, there's not a particularly strong reason why this embarrassment should be except we are taught this when we are young. Most kids don't understand why they need to be embarrassed, but over years of being told to cover up, they start to feel that they don't want others to notice them, and this is even the case if they are particularly well-endowed or have large bosoms or generally shapely figures.

It's perhaps resulted in something that is particularly odd, which is an outgrowth of this embarrassment but has little to do with it.

The jock culture.

I know a few folks that don't do anything particularly athletic. They prefer video games. They prefer anime. They prefer more sedentary activities. In their minds, participating in athletics means agreeing with jocks that thought they could bully other kids, who traded intelligence for athletic skill, and who felt that those that weren't athletic were unworthy.

This ignores the fact that many of the athletes that fit into this category fell into two sports: football and basketball. Those in track and field, those in soccer, were probably a lot less likely to engage in this jock culture machismo. I could be wrong though since I never experienced the jock culture.

Remember the kids who went on a killing spree in Columbine? One reason were the jocks at the school. The flip side of the jock culture was the fact that women, or young girls really, seemed to prefer the self-confident athletes rather than the neurotic geek who seemed awkward when hanging out with women.

Even if athletics have benefits, being healthy, being strong, learning to make your body do what you want it to do, excelling at something different from the mind, many shun athletics because of these jocks.

I was recently at our tiny little gym at work, and the guy felt a bit of discomfort being there. He didn't want to lift weights. No, that seems wrong. But why?

Except I was in that same boat. I felt that the weights were something that muscle boys did, the Arnold wannabes, who wore skimpy bikini thongs, and were greased like a maypole, nary a hair to be seen on chest or legs. This was not who I visualized myself.

That view was silly too. I don't think of myself at a bodybuilder or a powerlifter, but I do lift weights to work out. Not as often as I used to, but nevertheless.

I know people who went to the gym, but otherwise, avoided the lockers. They'd put on their gym clothes prior to arriving at the gym and headed home to shower because they both didn't want to see and didn't want to be seen. Embarrassment. Logic should say that this attitude doesn't make sense, but embarrassment is not logic. It is a learned behavior. It is shame. It is lack of comfort. And it seems like it shouldn't be the case. Already people have poor self images, and this simply exacerbates it further.

If you can get beyond embarrassment then you can worry about more important things.