This comment got me thinking again about the end of mandatory showers in our school districts.
I don’t know why schools no longer require mandatory showers after gym class?
[SNIP]
In my opinion it is just plain gross to go all day without a shower! I know that most of us girls would have had a fit if we weren’t allowed to take a shower after gym class! It is in the best interest of the students and teachers if students take a shower after their gym classes.
Samantha
Sing it, Samantha! Why did schools drop mandatory showers? I’ve often fantasized about zipping the people responsible for that decision into one of the overflowing gym bags owned by members of my stinky little carpool posse.
Mandatory showers after P.E. promote clean hygiene habits, as well as prevent skin infections like athelete’s foot, so why would a school district let showers go the way of school spankings?
I looked into it and learned that mandatory showers were dropped for several reasons.
“What we’re finding out is that in more than a few cases, especially among kids who aren’t athletically gifted, the physical education experience can be negative… And a lot of it surrounds what goes on in the locker rooms.”
Charles Corbin, professor of exercise and fitness at Arizona State University, quoted in “Where have all the showers gone?” by Randy Dotinga, Christian Science Monitor, Feb. 03, 2004
Locker rooms loom large in kids’ imaginations: they’re afraid of locker room horseplay, or they fear being ridiculed and/or preyed upon by other students while undressing or taking a shower. It doesn’t help that popular movies like Carrie and Porky’s reinforce the belief that “gym showers either overflow with sexuality… or crawl with psychological trauma.”
I don’t believe these locker room fears are a new phenomenon, either. At least one kid in the 1950s disliked the lack of privacy in his locker room:
Physical Education on the fourth floor had us all running around in gym clothes looking like underwear. I remember somewhat my ineptness at climbing ropes where some could do it with ease. There were mandatory showers despite one boy’s objection “everybody will see your sagebrush.” I guess it kept you from getting sweaty in the labs.
Christopher Vale, “A Typical Poly Day,” class of 1956, Baltimore Polytechnic Institute
Looking beyond fears of “sagebrush” exposure, however, it turns out that decreased school funding had more to do with ending mandatory showers. The Christian Science Monitor article cited above reports that California schools could no longer provide towels to students after the passage of Proposition 13, and one of our high school’s P.E. teachers told me that lack of school funding also kept schools from maintaining their locker rooms.
“I doubt our high school showers even work any more,” he said. “If you turn one on, dust might come out.”
Yet the biggest reason for dropping mandatory showers seems to be liability. According to a staff member at our high school, the combination of adult teachers and naked kids in a locker room opens up school districts to all sorts of expensive lawsuits for molestation and/or harassment.
So does this mean carpoolers like me are condemned to hang our heads out our windows on the way home for the rest of the school year?
I’m afraid it does, especially if you consider breathless reports like this that describe how Seattle schools saw an increased interest in P.E. when the district added activities like rock-climbing, fencing, and ballroom dancing to the P.E. program, while dropping mandatory showers and P.E. uniforms.
They’ve had great success in physical fitness as a result: in 2001, “About 6,000 students in the Seattle School District earned a Presidential Physical Fitness Award last year by scoring in the 85th percentile or higher in five fitness measures.”
Bully for them. I’m all for teaching our kids the joys of physical fitness, but what about also teaching them good hygiene? Won’t avoiding showers cause a rise in conditions like athelete’s foot and other nasties?
This study says that at least wrestlers should shower before and after practices, because they are prone to skin infections like herpes simplex, tinea corporis, and impetigo.
Hygienic measures, such as mandatory showers before and after practice, use of antibacterial soaps, and daily washing of practice gear, may be the most effective means of preventing outbreaks of skin infections. This deserves a special final emphasis. It may be “penny wise and pound foolish,” for example, for school districts to stop providing towels for wrestlers as a cost-saving measure.
“Pinning Down Skin Infections: Diagnosis, Treatment, and Prevention in Wrestlers,” William L. Dienst, Jr, MD; Lowell Dightman, MD; Mark S. Dworkin, MD; Robert K. Thompson, MD, The Physician and Sports Medicine, Vol, 25, No. 12, Dec. 97
Some might argue that few high school sports are as “high contact” as wrestling, but I think all P.E. students would benefit from cleaning up after a good workout. Since kids resist showers and schools won’t force them to take them, the question becomes, how to make students want to take showers after P.E.?
A school’s goal should be to improve student hygiene by providing convenient and user-friendly facilities. Just as many professional sports teams have renovated their locker rooms to improve player morale and attract top talent, a school can upgrade its locker rooms to improve students’ attitudes.
“Squeaky Clean,” by Valerie Bonney, American School & University, Jul 1, 2004
The author is a product manager for a locker room products company, but she makes an excellent point: building codes still require schools to have locker rooms and showers, so why not make them as inviting as possible?
Some of her suggestions:
- increase privacy and security
- improve the user controls for water temperature
- provide more comfortable shower spray patterns
- install soap, shampoo and conditioner dispensers
- provide vanity areas for girls’ locker rooms
- remove mirrors above the sinks to reduce traffic during locker room rush hours
- include good lighting, paint and flooring
- use plastic fixtures rather than rustable metal ones.
I hope schools administrators will consider such possibilities in the name of student health and hygiene, and perhaps also to help out carpooling parents like me. Maybe if I wrote a letter….
Or better yet, I’ll challenge them take a teen carpool for just one day, so that they, too may experience that thrilling moment when the first teenager opens the door, says “Huh!” and climbs into the car. The scales will fall from their eyes, their eyeballs will pop out of their sockets and they, too, will realize that their car seats will never again smell the same.
It’s just another example of how our school system is messed up. How stupid would it be if I decided to save money be deleting toothpaste or tooth brushes from our purchases? Or how ’bout toilet paper – that’s expensive!
Big Daddy
I completely agree with everything that Samantha said! I too showered after every gym class, and it was not a problem for me either. And like Samantha said, I’m sure that most girls would rather be clean, smell nice, and look good, than to be a sweaty mess all day.
The problem is that if schools require showers, they generally require students to be NAKED during them, and in each other’s plain sight. They are rarely given curtains or stalls, and they are rarely allowed to wear more than…nothing. Not even swimsuits. This is cruelty beyond reckoning, no matter how you may try to justify it.
Drew,
From a female perspective I can honestly tell you that there is nothing cruel about having to take a shower after gym class!
No, perhaps not to you. But what about the COUNTLESS females who are dreadfully mortified about it? Girls for whom the word “humiliation” does not even suffice? My mother said that she HATED having to do it, and that most girls did, but there are those who would fear death less. Why can they not at least be allowed to wear SOMETHING, and be given curtains or stalls? The fact that they are forced to strip everything off and have no privacy at all (and in front of often-sadistic students who they must face on a regular basis, no less) is just part of the systematic cruelty that has always been a part of school institutions. Please do not allow your own comfort to come across as the “female perspective”, I can assure you there are those who lose all their remnants of dignity and yes, suffer psychological scars from this sort of savage requirement. There are reasons why showering is extremely important, but there are no reasons (and if there were, they could never be enough to justify) why they cannot be given some PRIVACY while doing it.
You may be ok with being unable to hide your anatomy, but everyone must have that choice.
I think public schools should have mandatory showers starting in elementary school PE (third grade or so), even though elementary kids don’t sweat as much and may not need to shower as much as middle/high school students. However, elementary school is a great time to teach and start a good habit. Plus, introducing groups showers at this age is much easier on kids then waiting until middle school where kids are dealing with adolescence and are much more shower shy.
The requirement that a student shower is not out of line. After all, school is to teach one about life. Not only is there science, math, languages, music, but there is health, social, and physical education. Hygiene spans both health and social education, and showering is a part of hygiene. What better time to teach it than in real situations, such as after a PE class. I don’t think it violates any student’s or parent’s religous/privacy rights for schools to accustom students to group showering at the end of gym class. It is socially acceptable in the U.S. to be nude in the company of others of the same gender. Requiring showers within the boundaries of social acceptance is not beyond reason. The fact that a student is uncomfortable with being nude in front of peers of the same gender does not make that activity socially unacceptable, and schools cannot change every policy according to each student’s personal comfort level.
As far as the matter of choice is concerned, I don’t have a problem with that as long as the choice is a properly and fully INFORMED choice. Someone who feels uncomfortable about communal nudity because of lack of experience or negative conditoning is not making an informed choice. Therefore, the imposition of some education and experience in the matter is appropriate.
I can’t believe how ridiculous the post by Drew Peters is, and I completely agree with Rebecca Weber!
There is absolutely nothing cruel about being nude in a same sex locker room in school.
As vertually every school in the 1980’s did middle school and high school required showers be taken after every gym class, and I honestly do not think that there was ever any girl in my gym classes (myself included) that ever had any problem with being nude in the locker room!
Why should other students and the teachers have to be subjected to body odor all day long from other students? There is nothing abnormal at all about showering in a locker room when only members of the same sex are in there!
I can’t believe how so many Americans (and I am one myself) seem to confuse nudity with sex!!!
My daughter was never brought up to feel ashamed of her body, and I was never afraid to shower in the nude in the women’s locker room at the Y that I take my daughter swimming at, and so my now 13 year old daughter is equally comfortable showering in the women’s locker room and she probably can’t even contemplate how or why any other girls or women would ever be embarrassed to be seen nude in the locker room!
Drew, please stop confusing nudity with sex, and please stop making it sound like the human body is something to be ashamed of!!!
I recently reviewed this page because of the odor of one classroom I teach in at the end of the school day that is used by a plethora of students and teachers. The class before mine, that has a lot of male students, apparently has gym class the period before.
17 years ago, when I was in high school, showering was not mandatory, but most of the boys and the really sweaty girls showered anyway out of consideration for each other and the opposite sex.
I understand the libaility for schools with showering today, but it just is not good hygiene for some of the students to sweat profusely and then put on lots of deoderant and clean clothing to attempt to make themselves smell better. (I don’t even think some students do that!)
Schools need to do something to encourage students to shower by providing better facilities with adequate privacy. I am told in my school there are only two group showers and no soap. In fact, the only athletic team that showers is the wrestling team. I can not believe that the same students who will say anything rude or disrespectful to their teachers or peers, or share inforamtion they really should not, are intimidated so much about their body appearance that they would rather give off a foul stench than shower or do a quick wash down with liquid soap.
As the weather grows warmer, I am sure my wallet will grow emptier from investing in room deodorizer to cover up the lovely scent of teen sweat.
I agree with Drew, communal showing can be humiliating for some people. If I had a group of girls over to my house and we decided to take a shower together … would That be considered appropriate? Just because YOU might be comfortable with your Naked body doesn’t mean everyone is.
Please have some empathy.
When I was in high-school in the 70’s everyone had to shower after gym class at my school, but my son who is in high-school right now says that no one has to shower after gym if they don’t want to.
My son can’t believe that there was a time that schools could make you shower, he litterally thinks I’m making it up or exagerating.
Does anyone know if it was almost all schools that had mandatory shower rules, or was my school different? And when did it stop becoming common practice to shower after your gym class?
Annette, when I was a kid it was mandatory to shower after gym. I think dropping showers is a recent thing, in the last 10 to 15 years.
I believe the best solution to this problem is to provide more privacy in the locker room.
I also want to apologize to all the commenters here for not realizing the discussion was still going on in this post!
Kimberly,
All through my teen years one of my best girlfriends had a pool in her backyard, and we would swim together several days a week.
Right after our swims we would take a shower together. There wasn’t anything sexual about it, we both liked boys not other girls.
We both wanted to warm up in the shower and to get rid of the chlorine smell so we were both in a hurry to take a shower, so we just hopped in the shower together. And yes we were nude in the shower.
So IMO there wouldn’t be anything wrong with it if you and a girlfriend were to shower together.
Annette-
In the school system that I attended the mandatory shower rule was dropped sometime around 1970.
In my junior high school (1967-1968) only boys were required to take mandatory communal showers after gym class, which was held at the local Y. In high school (1969-1973) showers were optional for both genders. Maybe 15% of the boys showered; I don’t think any of the girls did.
Showering together was no big deal for me or my classmates as I recall. Especially considering that as part of our p.e. program we had to take a swimming and diving class every third week. Naked.
I remember being quite surprised when the teacher announced one day after taking attendance that we would not be playing volleyball that day, but instead would be using the pool. I can still recall him saying, “go back to the locker room, take off all of your clothes, walk through the showers, then go down the hall and onto the pool deck!”
Walking to the pool naked with two dozen naked classmates felt a little strange at first, but I also remember feeling how liberating it felt to be doing a normal activity withouit the restrictions of clothing. Anyway, we all were used to group nudity from showering together for a few weeks. No one complained, and frankly it made sense. Why bother with having to carry around a wet bathing suit when it was easier to swim nude.
A nude swim class would probably not be tolerated today. It’s somewaht ironic that as we become more “advanced” as a society that we have these odd hangups about innocent nudity.
I think the changes in society – kids having more rights etc. – forced schools to stop requiring it. I had it required for phys ed and even though it wasnt required after sports or practices many girls did anyway. My daughter graduated in 2004 and she was on the school swim team, I remember she said that was the only place in school anyone showered – the swim team locker rooms. I was taking her to swimming classes with other kids when she was 10 so she was okay with nudity in that kind of environment.
Holy cow, Steve! I’ve never heard of naked diving and swimming classes, but I did a search and discovered it was commonplace at colleges like Harvard and schools like Horace Man.
You and Nancy make excellent points about our society’s hangups over innocent nudity. I see this in people’s reactions to public breastfeeding, too: as our culture has become more sexually free, we’ve also become more repressed.
It’s a societal change, as Sue says, but it certainly didn’t help that schools lost funding to maintain showers built in the schools, or that teachers have become fearful of molestation charges.
Another interesting aspect to the gym showers nudity phenomenon that I neglected to expressly mention in my earlier post—but which was implicit and is confirmed by Bonnie’s links to the Horace Mann School and the Harvard Crimson—is the fact that at least some institutions treated boys very differently from girls.
For example, at my junior high only boys were required to shower together after gym class. And only boys were required to be nude together for 90 minutes while practicing swimming strokes and dives in the pool and on the pool deck. Similarly, I see that at Horace Mann the boys were required to swim nude while the girls wore tank suits. And at Harvard nude swimming was de riguer for males but not for females, at least until the pool went coed.
I realize that the above is not universally true–several of the women who have posted above indicate that they were required to shower together nude, and I seem to recall an aunt of mine (who grew up in the same town as I) saying once how much she hated having to shower with other girls in school (in the 1930’s!). Although I’m not aware that girls or women were permitted, much less required, to swim nude in a school or university pool.
So I guess the questions are why the different rules for males and females, and what are the assumptions and implications of those different standards? There had to be some reason.
Did someone determine that it was “wrong” for the “fairer sex” to be forced to display their naked bodies? Why then was it OK to require males to be nude in each other’s presence? Or is there an assumption there that a nude female body is disgusting to look at and should never be seen by anyone? And even if that message was not intended, might not a female sub-consciously come to believe that? By forcing boys to become comfortable with nudity, were boys “given” some advantage when it comes to issues of self consciousness and body acceptance?
And this is not just limited to the past. At the Y where my wife and I go today the men’s shower room is just like it was in school: an open tiled room with 20 or so showerheads lining the four walls without any stalls or dividers. But my wife tells me that the women have individual shower stalls with curtains. Yet in different cultures, in Germany and Scandinavia for example, it is not uncommon for males and females to be nude together in the sauna, at the beach or at a pool, and even sometimes to shower together in a communal shower rooms.
Sorry for being so long winded, but these are interesting questions.
Bonnie,
Most of the stories about nude swimming in school are false. There are some people who get off on the thought of that type of thing, but in reality it was extremely rare. Just ask anyone you know in person and not on the internet and ask them if they have ever heard about mandatory nude swimming in school. You will find that the answer is no in every case.
I don’t know about that, Jonathan. If you do a Google search for
You’ll get a heap of links to personal anecdotes about it, including this article from NPR.
I’d say that’s a reputable source, even if it is on the internet!
Still, nude swimming does not equate to having to take a shower after high school P.E. We’ve gotten a little off topic!
I still say we ought to make school showering a requirement again, but I can’t figure out how to do it in a way that will not be frightening to kids in our sexualized (yet extremely fearful) culture.
Bonnie,
Yes, some of the reports are true, but it was extremely rare. There are sick fetish sites that spread those stories. In my human sexuality course at my university we studied fetishes and the internet.
When most of us first heard that there was nude swimming in high schools in the USA we were shocked. However, as it turned out most of the stories were false. For some reason it would appear that gay men seem to enjoy the idea of forced nudity with other males. or in front of females.
In reality a very small percentage of the reports are true. And when it did happen it was an equal rule for both sexes, not just boys as some of the reports would lead you to believe.
There was one true case of nude swimming in high school just last year. There was a girls swim team that had a female swim coach, and since there weren’t any boys at the practices the teacher let the girls practice in the nude for several weeks until a parent found out and complained. They wound up firing the teacher though.
Beware, we were using one of the university’s computers for our research, and when we were going on some of the fetish sites we wound up getting viruses and spywear on the PC. So you might want to limit your searches?
Nah, I’ve got a Mac. Even if I landed on one of those sites, they typically aim their malware at PC guys because they have a bigger market share.
Usually I can tell if it’s one of “those” sites by the Google summary, anyway.
Nude swimming was the rule for the boys in Dearborn, Michigan public schools in the 1960’s and 1970’s.
Girls did try to sneak a peek of us guys swimming nude when ever they could. Some janitor or other gym teacher would always leave a door unlocked or some window curtain not fully closed.
I remember in 8th grade when a girl in one of my classes told me that she saw me earlier that day swimming nude.Embarrassing for sure!!
At the time I never did understand why boys had to swim nude. I figured that it was some kind of control issue by the PE teachers.
I recently visited the middle-east where many females still have to wear berka’s. For anyone who does not know what a berka is, it covers the women and girls from head to toe so that no skin ever shows.
I have also visited parts of the world where clean water is not available to most of the locals. It’s not just dirty water for bathing, but even for drinking too.
I agree with some of the other ladies who stated that they never had a problem with showering communally with their fellow female students in high school.
It wasn’t until I read one or two of the posts on here that I even realized that there are appearantly some girls who have had a problem with showering in school.
Not to be harsh toward anyone, but I think that any of the girls who do not appreaciate the privlege that they had or may still have to shower in clean water after a gym class or a workout should be ashamed of themselves for not happily taking advantage of how good they have it here in the USA!
Trust me, most of the females in the middle-east do not enjoy having to wear a berka!
Females here in the USA should recognize that there is nothing sexual about showering in a locker room with your female classmates, and that they should be grateful that they do not have to hide there entire bodies from the world!
I’m sure that when they mature they will realize that taking a shower after a gym class was a privlege, and that it is the mature a responsible thing to do, for their own good and the good of those around them.
I highly doubt that you will find a woman who had a mandatory shower rule in school that wouldn’t know agree that they were in their best interests. And I am sure you will not find and woman now who will say that it was that bad communally showering with their female peers. You were told to do it, so you did, and you never gave it a second thought.
Bonnie,
Yes, it is true that boys were forced to swim nude in many junior and senior high schools nationwide right up to about 1980. The decision to mandate this were decided at district levels so that female teachers and administrators were equally responsible for this situation. The “rationale” used by administrators for the rule usually being that it was more sanitary to swim that way and too expensive to provide swim attire. Yet, these same districts had no trouble finding the money to provide girls with swim suits.
Under title IX districts were forced to provide equal funding for boys and girls as well as to mandate equal treatment. This is what ended forcible nude swimming for boys.
Those who deny the fact that nudity was mandatory for boys are either too young to remember that or they are lying. And as you saw from that NPR report, school records still exist to this day which prove that narrator’s words. It remains a documented and incontrovertible truth.
Hey, Rick, thanks for that input. I suppose a lot of people will refuse to believe it no matter what, though, because it does seem so unbelievable in today’s culture.
Thanks Bonnie – there are literally THOUSANDS of memories of boys who had been compelled to swim nude in schools all throughout the Internet. And not just in front of male teachers only:
Writer: Highway2000
Jan 17 1999
Yahoo Newsgroups: rec.nude
“As hard as it is to believe, I am a female who was a P.E. coach during
the mid 60’s.. and did have several experiences instructing high school
boys nude swim
classes. I only filled in if the male coach was unavailable. I was very
nervous the first time I had to teach the class, and I’m sure the boys
were also. At the first roll call, when the boys were lined up (naked)
by the pool, I tried to keep my eyes off their penises, and not make
them feel uncomfortable with me there. After awhile, the swimming
instruction became the center of focus, and not the nudity. The boys
always requested me back as a substitute teacher when thier coach was
out. Those experiences helped ease my own fears about practicing social
nudism in later years. ”
The writer is a school teacher who wrote in response to a question by a man who had a female teacher in his class as he and his classmates were forced to swim nude.
I think that Elizabeth (above) gives the best explanation why this often unhappy history took place in the USA all those years – note how in post # 23 she refers to her female high school classmates as “women” rather than just as girls. She and her mates were treated like adults and given their due respect as mature adults should always be given. But note how we all refer to teen males as “boys”, not as men, meaning that they are not treated with the same respect.
Therefore, it is no secret why males and females were treated differently with the former as “boys” and the latter as “women”. It is a double standard that existed then and continually exists. It’s time for society to apply a uniform standard to everyone.
Years ago I visited the province of Kashmir in northernmost India. The capital, Srinagar, is by a large lake. The youngsters swim nude, both sexes, until they reach puberty. So much for the myth of Islamic modesty. You can verify this through a search through old National Geographics. It would be very good for society to promote nudity so more relationships would be based on personality. Being nude and seeing others nude makes people realize people come into two models.
Just for the record, it IS true that “males only” shower mandates existed at many high schools…I remember when this was the case. Also, I remember many, many boys and young men who were so traumatized by the prospect of having to appear nude in front of their peers that they would swallow soured milk and other rotten food to make themselves vomit and run a fever, and thereby escape gym class.
Some of us couldn’t care less about being nude in front of other people…but there are many, many persons who are extremely modest. Some people are simply bashful, while others prefer modesty for religious reasons. For some, the teenage years are simply a time when a feeling of general awkwardness leads to increased sensitivity with regard to appearance. Those who are slower to mature may also be very shy about their appearance. In all cases, their needs should be considered. If showers are offered, they should never be “mandatory” and they should afford as much privacy as a shower at home would. If schools are (understandably) unable to provide such accomodations due to costs, then the shower rule (explicitly stated or implied) is out, out, out.
I would never permit my child to be exposed to something that he or she found totally mortifying and unnecessary…I hope other parents will continue to demand that their children are also protected.
You sound really judgemental of people who do not shower right away. Stop driving this carpool if it bothers you that much. People can shower at home at night, and big communal showers also happen to be a waste of water resources.
I know this is an old post, but I felt the need to comment.
Back when I was in school we had mandatory showers in a big open room. The PE teacher would watch us the entire time we showered and changed. Sometimes her male counterpart would come in to “talk” to her. Not only was showering embarrassing for all of us but throw in the creepy factor and it was sheer horror. I’m so thankful times have changed.
As a parent of a teenage boy and almost teenage girl, I understand the foulness of a busy day in class but they know to shower when they get home. If you’re unhappy with your smelly situation, find another carpool or deal with it. Schools will never go back to mandatory showers, parents just need to teach their children the importance of hygiene from an early level, it’s not hard.
“I think public schools should have mandatory showers starting in elementary school”
“..elementary school is a great time to teach and start a good habit”
Absolutely.
I did not ‘do’ communal showers (nude) at school in the UK until I was 11 and it was a shock initially but I got used to it to it to the point that I did not bother with the ‘towel dance’ while getting dressed but I did not look at the other boys below the waist while in the shower. I probably would not have bothered much if we had a female teacher in the locker room.
The showers ceased to become compulsory in the 4th year or aged 14 but it was a pointless decision as boys had already hit puberty by then so we had seen it all.
I came to this thread because my 15 year old son will do a cross country run at school and simply put his uniform back on top of his sweaty PE kit.
Even when he gets home it would not occur to him to jump in the shower unless prompted several times. Lack of time in the lessons is probably to blame but I would increase the school day to allow for it. Also poor body image is also a factor but without sport and healthy exercise to develop the young bodies the problem could be self perpetuating. I am not convinced the issue is one of boys fearing sharing a shower with a gay classmate or being watched by a pedo teacher.
If I were a head teacher at such a school I would make showers mandatory for ALL pupils, health and hygiene being the motivating factor. Some UK ‘high’ schools still insist on it and a note from a partent is required for every missed shower.
We as a race are far too bashful and shy about nudity. Part of the blame may be due to upbringing. I never saw my parents undressed, not that I ever wanted to but if I thought they were relaxed about it then it might have rubbed off on me. I don’t mind if my teenage sons see me naked but they would probably prefer not to.
As regards nude swimming the only school in the UK that I know practiced this was a top boy’s school in the north of England during the 1970s.
It’s amazing that kids are so shower averse at that age. Mine were, too. If they showered at all they wore something while doing so, leaving an unbelievable mess when stuff didn’t make it home in a timely manner. Mandatory showering would be healthy in several ways.
I doubt the gay thing is the issue. Surely kids are figuring that out by now. My own experience was from a time when nobody worried about boys in the buff like they do today. Every shower/dressing facility I’ve seen (including today) has a coaches office that has a view that allows constant monitoring for safety reasons. My experience in the late 1960’s was that on occasion there could be a female coach or, more rarely, a female classmate in that office. This was before Title IX dictated equality, and the men’s coaching office contained stuff the women didn’t have, but had a right to use. Attitudes have changed since then, so maybe there is a concern about who has access to the office. But, that hardly seems like an excuse for setting a pattern of disgusting personal hygiene.
i can’t believe showering was EVER mandatory let alone the nude swimming—- i graduated from a pennsylvania high school in 1998 and maybe 3 out of a class of 30 boys would shower– it was said that we could and was reccommended but never enforced…. seems like it would have been humiliating to have to shower in a group naked…. glad we never had to….
When I was in 7th grade back in the early ’60’s, I was introduced to the horror of mandatory gang showering. I was raised to be very modest about my body, and I also believed that it was inherently sinful, against God, to go nude in front of others. Consequently I refused to take a shower. My PE instructor decided to paddle me in front of the other boys as punishment. AFter that I did shower with the other boys, at least when I knew the instructor was watching, but I found the experience humiliating. As a result of that experience and others I became very adverse to gyms and locker rooms. I avoid gyms and locker rooms assiduously, which probably is not the intent of PE class. Even though I no longer share my adolescent qualms about nudity.
BTW: As for hygiene, most of the boys did not soap up or take time to scrub in the shower. Most, like me, just got wet and got out as quickly as possible. Most of the time I pulled my clothes on over a wet body, and I wasn’t the only one. This was not just because of modesty, but also because of time. We usually had less than five minutes to get to the locker room, remove our gym clothes, shower, put on our street clothes and rush to our next class. Hardly time to take a good, hygienic shower.
Maybe Bonnie should distribute deodorant sticks to her riders. 😉
@micheal steiner: It may be difficult to believe but mandatory communal showering and nude swimming were at one time the norm–at least for males. Such was the case (both showering and swimming)at the school I attended for 8th grade around 1970. But at the high school I attended the following year, showering was optional (there was no swimming), and similar to your experience, maybe 5 out of 30 bothered to shower (I’m not even sure they bothered all year–these classes were a joke and no one ever seemed to break a sweat).
But I did not consider it “humiliating about having to shower in a group naked,” nor was I aware that anyone else thought so either. Granted there was some anxiety the first time for those, like myself, who had not done that before (although as I recall I was less nervous about being naked than I was about the fact that I had reached puberty a lot earlier than almost all of my classmates and was more developed than most everyone else), but after that it was no more of a big deal than it probably was for those of your classmates who opted to shower.
I was actually surprised to read that anyone was still showering after class in 1998 as I had thought this practice had gone the way of the dinosaurs long before that.
I remember having to shower in gym class and I hated it. We had to walk naked in a line through the showers with our teacher watching us. Most just walked through the water we did not stop to soap up and actually wash ourselves but just got wet. I hated the lack of privacy. I was self conscious about my body and would have preferred privacy. If there were stalls with shower curtains this would not have bothered me.
I remember showers were required in the early to late 70’s, I started taking showers in 4th grade, but by the time got to 10 grade it was no big deal. The teacher was there to check off your name to make sure you took your shower. I heard the practice ended around 1987 or so. At least at our school district.
As an adult male who was forced to swim nude in junior high and high school, along with millions of others in my age group, listening to teen aged girls whine about showering after gym elicits a curious response. I want to tell her to can it, how would she react to being forced to be naked for an hour in a swimming pool with 50 other girls? On the other hand, I also sympathize; she may not be in a swimming pool, but she’s no less nude, and no less humiliated than was I. Add the matter of compulsion, and there is a certain similarity.
But you must also inject the matter of necessity. There was no real need for us boys to have been forced to swim nude; it was merely an affectation of the times that it was acceptable to compel boys to swim nude whether they wanted to or not.
On the other hand, after strenuous physical activity, showering becomes a necessity. I remember reading at another web site a posting by a female p. e. teacher concerning mandatory post gym showers. She had exempted her girls from that requirement. Until other teachers began complaining that her students smelled like dead goats. She began requiring the showers; the girls at first complained, then became used to it. The parents, some of which complained, were convinced when she explained to them them rudiments of body odor and what skin infections that result from poor hygiene.