We can’t be coy Victorians

The story of Shabbir Ahmed and the Palmerston North changing room incident was among the more resonant pieces in this week’s news cycle.

The engineer, who hails from Dubai, witnessed a child becoming distressed at the sight of an adult male human being in the nude.

According to Ahmed, the father of the lad dealt with this instance of juvenile body shaming with a skilful blend of argument and gentle physical persuasion, instructing his wailing offspring ‘‘not to look over there’’, while placing a towel over the boy’s head, just to make sure of things.

The human body is a complex beast, I admit, but we all have one.

Ideally, familiarity with it should breed something other than contempt.

If you bring a child up to despise something, he’ll no doubt conform in the short term and likely have hang-ups one way or the other about whatever it is for the rest of his life.

If you teach him that the type of regular, everyday body shapes you observe in public changing rooms are hideous, scary things, his only point of reference in human physicality will be the types of unattainable ideals the media, advertising, television, film and pornography trade in.

He’ll grow up loathing his own imperfections and with an intolerance to those of others.

I am at stage of life where my own body shape is changing, and certainly not for the better.

If that boy saw me in some state midway between togs and undies he would be aghast.

But only because he’s been taught to react like that, or had such behaviour reinforced out of ignorance, however culturally or religiously justified.

Body shaming is learned behaviour.

One of the many things I am grateful to my dear departed parents for is an upbringing that included significant time spent at squash clubs.

I learnt all manner of things about the world and adult foibles.

The nature of sport itself, of course, the drama of winning and losing, the mature – or immature – uses of alcohol and how to play pool.

You saw the very best of people and saw the very worst of people. You also saw them in the nude, in the changing rooms and the showers after games. In fact, you showered with them.

This is just what you did after coming off court all hot and sweaty.

This experience, exposed to from the youngest age, gave the best possible grounding in human anatomy and the ageing process.

You certainly saw the fit and the physically near-perfect folk who looked the part.

But there were also the overweight and the pot bellied and some of them were excellent players, too.

It’s an irony in squash, a game that demands certain definite things of your body, that it can be mastered by those who are ‘‘out of shape’’.

You learned not to judge books by covers. In fact, you learned not to judge at all.

When I think back now those on days, of players and characters long gone, there’s solace in the thought I now look like them.

If New Zealand has a long history of communal changing rooms and showers, practices normalised in sporting codes like squash, we are far from the most enlightened nation on earth when it comes to the human body and public nudity.

One direction we most certainly should not go is that advocated by Ahmed and his ilk, of a world where we hide our bodies like coy Victorians.

Respect for the right to individual opinion and cultural belief should not extend to the type of relativism that gives credence to shame and disgust.