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Seeking an answer to that eternal question: What's up with the 'Fat Old Naked Guys' at the gym?
He became legend on that very first day at the YMCA as he shed his sweaty workout clothes and strolled into the shower room, an older man with a gimpy yet confident stride, naked, with his ... his thingy swinging back and forth with the slow sway of his hips.
It was, according to those who saw it that day, a, uh, member of outlandish size. The other men in the locker room didn't know whether to look away or offer it a handful of peanuts.
And then, under the steamy water in the communal shower room, the very fortunate gentleman turned and asked trainer PJ Musilli, who was showering a few nozzles away, a question.
"Can you wash my back?"
Musilli hesitated. To put it mildly.
"I froze," he says. "I didn't want to ..."
Other than the Kentucky Derby aspect of that scene, which took place a few years ago at the Briargate YMCA here in our village, it's a spectacle seen every day in men's locker rooms across the nation.
Naked old men.
Often not in the best of shape, they stroll without clothes. Sitting. Standing. Engaging in long discussions with each other. Doing pushups. Or sit-ups. Shaving. Reading a newspaper. Watching TV, for crying out loud. Naked.
"At the downtown YMCA," says Mike Ray, the facility's one-time wellness director, "there was an informal club, a group of guys who called themselves FONG. Fat Old Naked Guys."
Under the radar
It's not - and we should be thankful for this - a topic that gets much attention. Television has dabbled in men's lockerroom humor plenty of times, but seldom does it get down to, excuse the expression, the nuts and bolts: naked men chatting and behaving the same as if they were wearing suits other than the birthday kind.
A 2010 episode of the ABC comedy Modern Family points out the potential awkwardness, with gay Cameron and definitely-not-gay Jay, his father-in-law, changing into workout clothes for a racquetball game when their naked buttocks accidentally touch. Jay leaps away at the speed of light.
Jay: "Yeoowww! What the hell was that?"
Cam: "Our...