called philosophy of the mind, sex and body, and although it had nothing at all to do with my major, it was my favorite class.  We studied race and sexuality, and we learned an interesting fact about the male anatomy...Pretty much what you touched upon in this post, that it's shrouded in mystery.  More specifically, that men go to such great lengths to hide their "manhood" from the world because if they didn't then people would see that it's really not that big of a deal after all.  I mean, in generaly, women's bodies are much more appealing then men's (Sorry guys, but it's true.)  Men are taught at a very young age to hide their members from the world.  So much so that if you think about it, a young woman's first experience with the male anatomy is usually in a dark room.

I am a mom of 2 young children, and I have NO privacy.  My husband gets to go to the bathroom by himself, I do not.  I am one of many, I know.  And the head-under-the-stall business isn't a male trait, my daughter does this too.  Little kids just don't respect personal space. 

One thing that drives me up a tree is the lack of change tables in men's restrooms.  Come on, people!  That seems so basic.

~ Amber

www.strocel.com

Although I disagree that women have more appealing bodies than men, I'm so glad that we are thinking on the same track with this public domain thing. I think all young kids are curious about what goes on behind the stall door, and as Amber said, it's just that they only have the opportunity to see women.

Suzanne Reisman, Contributing Editor - Feminism & Gender
Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS) & Other Rants

Thanks for this interesting post.

 My husband and I have always been of the "nude is better" variety.  I continue to follow this practice since having my daughter.  But you're right!  Since she's been old enough to amble around on her own, my husband has started covering his private parts. 

 I told him that I don't want her "first experience of the male anatomy to be in a dark room" as cluelss newlywed said above. But he says he feels uncomfortable. Your post helps put it into perspective.  

 He's also better able than I am to maintain boundaries.  She feels as though my breasts are her toys--great for poking, squeezing and bouncing anytime she likes. 

SusieDo

This whole "get young females used to the male anatomy of their relatives" thing is immediately creepy and isn't going to happen.  Neither is "changing rooms in male restrooms" (unless they're individual bathrooms with locking doors), because there are too many weirdos that would enjoy that.  Not meaning the fathers, of course, other males in the same restroom.

IMO, the objectification of women's bodies comes from whatever teaching or lack of teaching the kids receive.  Parents who don't instill their own values leave it to either teachers or the kid's peers in the streets to teach them what women's bodies are for.

Also, you might want to look at psychological cues as well as physical ones.  How does the father treat the mother?  The child's going to pick up on this.  If the father's affectionate or touchy-feely, the kid's going to get a message.  If the father's standoffish and acts like his wife shouldn't be touched at all, the kid's going to get a different message.

I'm pretty sure it's the prevailing mentality of the patriarchal society that maintains women as "public domain", but this is an interesting topic to consider.  You'll probably be more successful shutting off the child's access to BOTH parents before you'll get the guy to agree to something like this.

~ Bill
I blog at billcammack.com

I think the answer lies in the fact that women pee in the privacy of a stall. 

Men pee in public - at a communal urinals - no stalls or doors. Everyone can see thier junk.

Do you really want your young daughter to walk into a men's room and see strangers' penises?

I don't. 

Nor do I think most men want young girls to be traumatized by this visual. 

Empowering Girls: So Sioux Me

Blog Fabulous

Now if the question is more about the boundaries between children and parents, I was just thinking about this.

There is a psychological theory that babies think of themselves as part of the mother - that they don't differentiate between mother and myself - they call it an Imago and it's vital to the child's development of identity. 

 The same phenominon does not happen with fathers. It happens with the body that carries them in the womb, nurishes them with their breasts, changes their diapers and bathes them (fathers do this now, but it's only been a generation) - it involves a great deal of physical intimacy when one person grows and forms inside of another and uses that person as a portal into the world and then as food. 

 Women's bodies are not public domain - women's bodies are their sacred place that forms them and shelters them and and feeds them. Babies and children know this. Instinctively.

My husband has far more strict boundaries around our children than I do. He locks the door when he goes to the bathroom and changes clothes, the older my children get the more privacy I claim - but while they are small they have almost complete access to my body. Because they feel somehow shut off from the Imago when I seperate my self. 

The more they see themselves as whole and individual and seperate from me (Mommy) and the Imago (thier image of us as one being) the more boundaries I create between my body and theirs and the more privacy I get.  And yes, I'm starting to crave it more. For my own sanity and sense of self as seperate. 

Empowering Girls: So Sioux Me

Blog Fabulous

I've been heartened to find that even in the past six years (since I had my first child), more and more men's restrooms come equipped with changing tables. 

It is difficult to walk the line between privacy and shame when explaining to a child why we cover ourselves, don't touch ourselves in front of others, don't touch others, and should not allow others to touch us.  Then we reverse all of these positions when explaining to a child how he/she came to be.

Julie

mothergoosemouse

I guess my family is atypical in many ways, this being one.  My husband showers with our 4 year old every day, which I don't think is weird.  At some point she will want to bathe by herself and that will be a transition.  He also takes her into men's restrooms when they are together and she has to go.  It's nice that many larger public places now have family restrooms, I hope to see more of those as time goes by, as well as changing table in men's rooms.  I think avoiding having them because there are weirdos in this world gives the power to the weirdo.  Make men changing babies/toddlers in a public restroom the norm and the weirdos suddenly stand out and can be put in their places.

My parents were comfortable being naked around me so I guess it doesn't seem strange to me, but I'm glad they were open about it. 

Interesting.  I love what traceesioux wrote, LOVE it.  I've never been very modest with my body when my children were young (like under 5 young) - the boys are now 10 and 11 and my daughter is 5.  She still showeers with me and sees me naked and I really look at that as more of a "we are the same" kind of thing.  If she were a boy, it wouldn't be happening, and it is seldom that she sees her father undressed anymore - she is just getting to be too old.

I think there is an intimacy implied with being the mother, as well as an intimacy among a parent and a child of the same sex that always remains.  I still have it with my own mother but ask me what my father looks like naked and I'll happily pass on that image.

But I'm not sure how this transfers into the sexualization of women - the public bathroom thing is just a necessity, whichever parent is "on duty" and neither should feel ashamed or ridiculed for bringing a small child into either restroom.  However, it would be nice if the men's rooms were a little more private, from my understanding.  Thank goodness there are family bathrooms in more locations now.

Anyway, it's definitely an intersting topic.  Thank you for opening up the conversation.

Stop Screaming I'm Driving

Interesting comments.  Our private bodies have been partially expanded to public domain by our modern society because of child rearing necessities (such as leaving the bathroom door open) and sexualized marketing.  But the two originate from the same source.  We are not far out of the trees! Female bodies were designed to be shared in childbearing and breast feeding.  For two years after nursing my youngest daughter she gained great comfort from resting her cheek against my bare chest; she wanted skin to skin reassurance.  Children in bathrooms is simply an issue of practicality. While women comfort, protect, gather and cultivate, men fight the wooly mammoth. The only difference is now we all now hunt and gather for pay.  To attract a mate women make themselves look more fertile/sexy.  To sell a product to women, marketers insinuate it's sex appeal.  To sell a product to men they appeal to his virility.  It's all in our biology; nothing has changed. Follow your first instinct, don't over think it.

Jana Rayne  www.awomansgoodnight.com 

I don't think women's bodies have been rendered common - quite the contrary, actually - I think that they have been oversexualized to the point where I (and others) have been told off, in person, multiple times for daring to breastfeed my children in public.

Regarding the bathroom thing though; I take my boys to the bathroom with me when my husband isn't present, but I do so because I generally feel that women are "safer" because they are inherently more maternal and there are less incidents with women as opposed to men. Does that make sense? I dunno. I think that maybe that's where it stems from. 

Dana Loesch
Mamalogues.com

Host and executive producer, "The Dana Show"
on Fox News affiliate KFTK 97.1 FM Talk

Wow, fascinating post, and fascinating comments.  I love the idea of Imago - and can really see how my kids' behavior is explained by the concept.

When my oldest was a baby, we went to BW3s (a restaurant/sports bar) and I gave the manager a hard time for not having changing tables in the men's restroom.  We returned last night, and my husband said, "Not to encourage you, but there is now a changing table in the men's room!"  So, maybe if enough of us make a stink over the issue, we can have more changing table equality between the sexes.

I agree that after the experience of giving birth (and #2 daughter came FAST, so everyone in scrubs within a 20 mile radius reported to my labor room when they switched on the lights and sirens to get the doctor to hussle) I have no feeling of privacy anymore. My sister still gets worked up over having a pelvic exam, because it's so embarassing, and I think, "just you wait..."

Maybe next time I have a baby, I'll make my husband stand there naked, too.  Just to even things up.

Seriously, though, my husband also has different boundaries about nudity than I do, but he's more reserved, in general, than I am.  I'd never thought about my girls' first experience with a penis being "in a dark room."  

Again, thanks for a really interesting, thought provoking post (and comments!)

I'm over at http://prettybabies.blogspot.com

He has never mentioned anyone complaining or any traumatic events. It's true that children are with their mothers more often but it's not as if it's unheard of for fathers to take little girls into the men's room. Even if we are out together, it's just something I will often ask him to do because I deserve a break sometimes.

 And I have never experienced a man asking a strange woman to take his child into the bathroom.

but only because they are usually much dirtier than the women's room.  Neither one of us wanted our little girl to walk through "splashes" or sit on nasty toilet seats. 

My friends and I often joke that there are two kinds of families Naked Families and Not Naked Families.  I grew up in a Naked Family, I've seen everyone naked. I showered with my dad, he took me into men's dressing rooms, and the men's locker room at his gym.  I don't remember seeing any penises at all. it never felt strange.

 I don't have kids, so i have no idea what its like to lose the kind of privacy that parents, and seemingly mothers, lose.

I have enjoyed reading the all the comments. I was thinking about the bathing issue the other day. I sometimes bathe/shower with my 18 month old daughter and I was wondering at what age do I stop? If I had a boy, I probably wouldn't bathe with him, but my husband might. For me it is the same gender thing.

My husband takes 18 month old into men's restrooms to change, but at some point this will probably stop. I don't want her seeing other guys penises at that wall stahls. If she doesn't have a brother, then I am perfectly okay if her first experience seeing a penise is on her honeymoon night. It worked for me and I think I turned out okay. 

we just aren't generally a naked family. I don't think either way is right or wrong. Its just what fits with your family. 

honestly, I think it is okay that as moms there is a more comfort level with our bodies than with guys. We gave birth and nursed our babies with our boobs. We are the maternal ones. 

I think we should also look at this from a cultural perspective, as we are assuming an American/Western perspective here, as in Japan while the culture is very private there is a culture of bathing in public. 

In the early  nineties a friend of mine did her Master's Degree at Oxford and her thesis was on the attitudes towards women and their sexuality in the ancient world.  There has been a complete flip in perspective since the time of Greece, Rome, and the early Christian era in Western thinking.  In both of those cultures, men and men's sexuality were very public and men were safe, whereas women were very private and perceived as sexually dangerous.  Today, women are perceived as safe sexually, men as dangerous, and women are public, men are private.

I am quite curious when this flip was made in terms of cultural thinking. 

Black Phoebe :: Ms. Jen

I agree that on many levels, we're generally more comfortable with women's nudity than men's. However, I don't see this translating -- at ALL -- to how comfortable women are being naked versus how comfortable men are being naked. [I guess because we're so used to seeing women's naked bodies, it's easier to judge ourselves, and assume others are judging us, as we compare to unrealistic standards of Hollywood beauty.]

But one of my long-ago colleagues had a PhD in Psychology and had a very strong opinion about male/female bodies that I think is worth bringing up. It has to do with the locker room in jr. high and high school.

According to him, in boys locker rooms, dudes just walk around naked. There are few stalls (if any) in most men's locker rooms and public bathrooms, and privacy isn't something men can find easily in these situations, ever.

His point: Guys are socialized to let it all hang out in front of each other from a very early age.

And I know from my own female locker room experiences, with us girls it was totally, totally different.

---
Kristy Sammis
BlogHer's Conference & Event Planner
e. kristy@blogher.com