Locker Room Talk

Why does Donald Trump brush aside his well chronicled sex video comments as “locker room talk”?

Is it because he believes they are harmless? Is it because he believes that a locker room is a cone of silence? Is it maybe because he doesn’t understand what a locker room is?

From my seat, it’s answer number three. There is no way that Trump understands the sanctity of the locker room. If he did, he would not dismiss the impact of his comments, let alone his attitude towards women, in a place that for many holds near religious importance.

How would you define the Locker Room to Donald Trump?

First you would let him know that a Locker Room is not a room. It’s a temple. Because unlike an ordinary room, a Locker Room has a purpose. That purpose is to bear witness to extraordinary accomplishments of triumph and even more extraordinary moments of anguish. That purpose is to build a bond, a sisterhood, a brotherhood, a warring spirit. To meld together a roomful of strangers into a unbreakable unit. To take individual pieces and meld them into a team. To fashion a bond that is unbreakable. No mere room can do that.

Then you would tell him to honour the Code of the Locker Room. Every Locker Room has its own code. Where you sit. How you speak. Who you sit next to. What music is played. Who gets to shower first. Who gets the sauna last. When the coaches are allowed in. When the media is shown out. When you are allowed to invite in a worthy opponent. When it’s okay to cry. What is okay to wear. What topics are permitted. What topics are taboo. How disagreements are solved. How wagers are paid. How debts are forgiven. There is a court of honour and a court of appeal. There is a ruler and the unruly. But there is a code.

If he allowed you to carry on, you could tell him some of your personal Locker Room stories. Recalling the first time you entered after making the varsity team. The last time you were in one, especially if it was to tie your child’s skates. Your painful moments on the trainer’s table. Your anxiety while waiting to find out from the head coach if you were starting or riding the bench. The curiosity around meeting a new teammate. The empty locker of an injured one. The disgusting showers and the nearly unusable toilet. The light that never stopped flickering or buzzing. Watching your team cry after a championship loss. Watching your coach cry after a championship win.

You would also tell him that a Locker Room has superpowers that last forever. Those powers are more powerful than mere words. A locker room can turn heated rivals into brothers in arms. Where the tap on the door from a visiting team may be welcomed with an invitation to share words, a sauna, a beer, a pop, or a postgame message from an opposing coach. A locker room can turn girls into women, boys into men, and men into boys. It can be the motivational source for amazing comebacks and devastating collapses. It can be the room where racism dies, class lines are destroyed and homophobia is vanquished. It’s a place where friendships are built, broken, and repaired again. It’s a classroom, a war room, a waiting room, a triage room, an operating room, a prayer room, a therapy room, an escape room, a conference room, and a bedroom.

Finally you would tell him about the language of the Locker Room. Unlike his assertions, the Locker Room is not a place where men hide behind a door to make childish boasts of clearly imagined sexual prowess. No, the language of a Locker Room isn’t a sound made by human voices. It’s a place where the ghosts of the many games of past are heard. It’s a place where the sound of a stick being tapped or a cleat on the floor is as soothing as a gentle ballad. It’s a place where the true message of your coach is communicated by the lines emerging on her face, not the words emitting from her mouth. It’s a place where you can talk to yourself out loud and no one will notice, unless you stop. It’s a place where the chalkboard pre-game reminders are like a book read by your mother when you were an infant: loving, cautioning, soothing, teaching, inspiring, yet comforting. It’s a place where an apology can be issued with a nod and an explanation can be saved for another day.

In a real Locker Room, words don’t even need to be spoken for a powerful message to be said. Only a person who wasn’t welcomed in a Locker Room would blame it for their own shortcomings.