Gym showers

So I saw a thread on here about negative locker room experiences. So this is kind of an observation for my point of view.

I grew up in a householder and nudity wasn't frowned upon. I mean we were closed, but I had a single dad and two brothers, so most the time we were in our underwear, my brother's played sports, and we worked on my grandfather's farm we're half the time we got hosed off in the backyard before coming in.

I don't really have any negative memories of the locker room for the most part. Especially the showers. Aside from a couple isolated incidents, I never really put much thought into going into the locker room showers after gym class. There was one kid when I was like 13 or 14 and he and I got into a fight kind of in the showers. But other than that, it wasn't something I dreaded.

My observation is that people who grew up in households were nudity was very frowned upon, I think they put a lot more thought into spending Time naked in the locker room then people who never really had to think about it.

Seems to be a good observation that makes logical sense. It will be interesting to read other comments.

I was a kid that grew up in the 60's and 70's. So, pre-teens in the 60's and my teen years in the 70's.

My first experience of public nudity came in junior high school grades 7 through 9th which was age 13 to 15. In gym class which was only 1 hour we changed from our “street” clothes to our gym clothes- we kept our under ware on when we changed from pants to gym shorts. Upon returning to the locker room, we had a short time to change back into our street clothes and make it to our next class before the bell rang. There was a gang shower which was hardly ever used in the locker room- showers were not required after gym class. The one vivid memory I had was one time a few of the older kids that had flunked a grade and put back were in the shower one day after returning to the locker room. I distinctly remember they had pubic hair, and their penises were large. They seemed to be enjoying being looked at by all the younger kids. I was thinking to myself I would never be caught dead in that shower showing my naked body that was just starting puberty.

So, at what was known as the "awkward age from transitioning from pre-puberty to starting to grow pubic hair but still having a small penis I was very protective of my body and was not comfortable at all showing it to anybody. We all talked about sex and girls, but we never discussed our own bodies and sexual development. Even when in high school and well into puberty I was not comfortable showing my body and would not take a gym shower while others did and seemed OK with showing their entire bodies to the other boys. It wasn't until college where I lived in a dorm, and we had a common bathroom and shower on each floor where nudity was essentially a way of life when using the bathroom. At that point I was fully developed and everybody was in the same situation, so everybody eventually saw everybody nude at some point or regularly on a daily basis.

Ironically from those self-conscience days of growing up and working out in gyms from college days where nudity was a common practice, I became quite comfortable with my body. When in gym locker rooms I hold a towel in front of me, but I am very comfortable showing my body. I enjoy going to nude beaches and like being nude at home even when my wife is clothed.

I guess you could say I have come full circle and I am very much comfortable in my own skin.

My family was sort of prudish when it came to nudity in the house. Not morally prudish, but none of us waked around in underwear to begin with. It just wasn't thought proper or polite. It was about keeping up appearances I guess, even indoors. My sister though was an incurable prude and germophobe, so anything about sex (yucky with nasty dirty bodily fluids) or nudity met her stern disapproval and disgust and probably directly contributed to her later divorce.

Anyway, we always read about school gym lockers/showers. But how about YMCA lockers and/or showers? I went nude swimming at a local YMCA when around 9/10 and I don't recall any problems or shyness with kids undressing to their alltogethers and then taking the obligatory pre-swim shower. We just came to the Y and undressed and afterwards dressed again in the locker room, that's it.

Nor can I recall any horsing around or bullying, but maybe I was too goody-goody for that. Nor was I ever commented on for being uncircumcised. Maybe we a tad too young at the time, but then again it was 1950s USA.

My first experience with gym showers was at the YMCA taking swim lessons, and going to their summer camps. As you would expect the showers at the YMCA are communal.

In high school we all showered after PE and if you played sports after school you showered again after practice. The school showers were in an open shower room too.

This was back in the 60s and 70s when it was just expected that boys would shower and not be shy about it.

I grew up in a householder and nudity wasn't frowned upon. I mean we were closed, but I had a single dad and two brothers, so most the time we were in our underwear, my brother's played sports, and we worked on my grandfather's farm we're half the time we got hosed off in the backyard before coming in.

I can remember one time as a kid when myself, my brother and our cousins played in the mud at my grandparents house, some of us shirtless, me with my t-shirt and shorts on. When my nan seen the state of us she refused to let us in the house until we'd been hosed down with cold water. Back and chest first, then she told me to take my t-shirt off to wash underneath, then everyone had to take their shorts off, only boxers left on, to clean underneath. "You've all got into this mess, you have to deal with the consequences!".

At home nudity was acceptable going to and from the bath and when changing clothes, but just hanging out naked in my bedroom was not appropriate. At home I was expected to maintain a minimal state of dress at all times. Underwear and pants with a shirt was expected in the shared areas of the house, with socks preferred over bare feet.

I envied the kids of neighboring families where hanging out at home in just their underpants was fine (with girls adding a top). I liked going over to the neighbors' house on Saturday morning with lots of kids to watch cartoons. They'd all be scrunched up side-by-side to watch the TV from the sofa and I'd squeeze myself in. I loved the tangle of bare legs and feet, the shoulder-to-shoulder skin contact and jostling for just a little more space on the sofa. But I'd feel self-conscience being the only boy wearing more than just underpants so before long all my extra clothes wound up on the floor near the sofa.

Returning to the topic of gym showers, I was comfortable being nude with boys I had knew and probably seen naked before. But 7th grade gym meant being naked when I didn't know the majority of boys. Of course that was only a temporary situation and by the third or forth gym class we were all on an equal footing (plus or minus some extra hair here and there.)