Locker
Room Exposure
Before
I turned the tender age of six years old, I had seen several naked females up
close. The viewing took place at the local YMCA and serves as an example of how
my parents never explained the basics of human sexuality to me.
I
remember it was wintertime and my sister, Lisa, was taking swimming lessons at
the Y. I was about five years old and
bundled in a blue hooded parka with faux fur trim, mittens, a scarf, and heavy
boots, and the smell of chlorine and the visual stimuli of flesh—naked moms and
daughters of varying sizes, ages, and hair color—hit me as my mother tugged at
my arm and led me in search of my sister.
Running
water and the clanking of metal locker doors could be heard as girls conversed
while drying off and putting on their clothes.
And
then I remember one of the swim instructors standing next to my mother and
chatting with her. The naked woman towered over me, and she had blond hair, a
muscular body, and large breasts—a figure reminiscent of a Russian or East
German Olympic swimmer.
I
would later equate her image with the pictures of naked African women that I
would see in copies of National
Geographic at the school library. By being allowed in the women’s locker
room, I had entered a secret world and had gained knowledge of a habitat I did
not understand but one that seemed worthy of exploration.
While
my mother and the coach talked, I studied the woman’s breasts, paying close
attention to her circular brown areolas; yet the coach did not seem alarmed
that a little boy was hanging out in the girl’s locker room, gazing up at her.
My mom said, “This is my son, Fran.” The woman said “hello” to me in a soft
voice, shook my hand, and a moment later led my mom to where Lisa was getting
dressed. “Stay there,” my mother
said.
“I’ll be right back.”
The
coach and my mom walked down a narrow corridor, passing a row of individual
shower stalls with white plastic curtains hanging in front of them, while I
remained behind in the middle of the room.
When
my mom did not return after a few minutes, I wandered down the hallway in
search of her.
More
time passed and I looked at the floor as I stood waiting. And then a girl in
her early teens drew back a white plastic curtain and was about to step out of
her shower stall when she caught a glimpse of me. When I heard her stirring, my
eyes lifted from the ground, and I scanned her naked body; her still-developing
breasts looked like Pillsbury cinnamon rolls.
The
girl concealed her body behind the shower curtain and screamed, “Get out of
here—you’re a boy.”
My
mom must have heard the girl’s cry, because she came and grabbed me, squeezing
my hand. She apologized to the girl—even though she couldn’t see her
face—saying, “Sorry, he’s with me. We’re waiting for my daughter to get
dressed.”
A
short time later Lisa came out with her coat on, and we all left the locker
room together.
I
don’t blame my mother for the embarrassing and confusing incident; it wasn’t
her
fault.
I was a little boy and she didn’t want to leave me behind, afraid I might get
lost inside the large YMCA facility. So she felt it was necessary to drag me
into the girl’s locker room with her. But even at my young age, my mother must
have realized it wasn’t
normal
for a boy to be surrounded by naked women.
She
could have offered some explanation after we left; she could have taken me
aside and made a simple statement, one a child could understand, explaining the
differences between male and female bodies. She could have given me some
knowledge of the situation. Instead, my five-year-old brain was left to
interpret the confusing images I had seen.
The
YMCA episode also correlates to my history with women. I would not see another
naked female until years later, walking in on my roommate, Stan, having sex
with his girlfriend in our dorm room during our freshman year at St. John
Fisher College in Rochester, New York.
Both
incidents—the boyhood exposure at the Y and the dorm room scene—occurred
because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, seeing something not meant
for my eyes.
Francis DiClemente
Francis DiClemente is an Emmy Award-winning
filmmaker who lives in Syracuse, New York. He is the author of multiple poetry
collections, most recently The Truth I Must Invent (Poets’
Choice, 2023) and Outward Arrangements: Poems (independently
published, 2021). His blog can be found at francisdiclemente.com.