Women Showering in Groups

I'm of the age where group showers after phys ed were the norm for men, and most, but not all of the ladies. I was only a manager for high school sports, but when our teams took the role of the vistors, we were usually relegated to the girls locker room.

From reading notices on the wall, we were given to understand that some schools expected women to shower "in the open" some provided stalls, but often oly at certain times of the month, and some did not expect young women to shower after gym.

The dorms and frat houses i lived in durng college usually had one large "open" shower, but I'm given to understand that stall showers were the rule in almost all the women's dorms, and one school noted in public that as the student body became more feminized during the eighties, the open showers were removed whenm a couple of dormitories were converted.

So I'm just wondering if some of the ladies here will add their observations on how exposure and nudity in groups was dealt with when they were coming of age.

Throughout my secondary school days age 11-16 us girls were all expected to shower after every PE lesson, and it was one large shower with an entrance and exit.

To make things worse the PE teacher used to stand at the exit with the classes register and tick our names off as we came out, making sure everyone inthe class had showered! We were also required to shower naked, with no exceptions!

There were detentions handed out to any pupil who failed to shower or who were absent for PE without a Dr's note.. So not many chances to get out of the situation!

I HATED all my PE lessons.. Partly because of the shower afterwards!

These days it's unheard of to make girls shower together like that, they would be calling for lack of human rights! lol

How times change... !

...also I forgot to mention, the PE teacher was a lesbian, probably loving her job watching all the girls showering naked everyday! None of us realised she was lesbian at the time, I only found that out AFTER I had left the school!

Gosh Beth, I forgot all about those until you have reminded me lol. Weren't they awful. We didnt have to have doctor's notes, a note from your parents would suffice, its surprising how many of us actually wrote our own "sick/excuse" notes for the games sessions, and they were never queried. Our games teacher used to stand around clapping her hands in the changing room saying "now girls get in the showers", there were baths too for those who preferred. Funny on reflection but at the time very much an embarrassing and humiliating experience for us all.

Not quite on topic because I went to an all boys secondary 11+ school. There were no showers at the school for use after gym (its 60 years since I left) but we did get taken to the public baths for swimming lessons.

Changing was communal. If you forgot your trunks you were given a thong - YES a thong (you thought they were new didn't you girls) so no excuses, even though they would fall off during the lesson! No elastic in them, just string ties - and I was never good at knots hence my lack of knowledge of Shibari

Showering was of course compulsory, before and after the swimming lesson, and that was communal too. I can well recall our teacher, Mr Turner, a little fat man. He made a big thing about shoving the sole bar of soap down his trunks and lathering (very) vigourously. Then he'd pass the (sole) bar of soap to the first lad in the group. His party trick then was to pull his trunks away from his podgy frame so the shower jet could rinse him off. First time I think I saw pubic hair!

Yes Elizabeth... I'd forgotten the notes we used to write that were from our parents, writen in the English class by your best friend just before PE! we did that too..

And also we forgot how many times we used our periods as an excuse not to have that shower! Except the Teacher cottoned on and used to write in her register when a girl had last said it, there used to be girls having 3 periods a month lol

And what about those horrible short pleated PE skirts? We had to wear navy blue knickers under ours, and a white artex shirt on top... Ugh! *shiver*

Good memories... :😃

You had PE skirts Beth? Blimey we just had navy knickers - faded ones at times too.

BigK - Thongs? OMG - my mind is wandering now.

Well, let me refine the question a little further,

In the days when I was growing up, Phys Ed instruction usually began in the seventh grade, when you were twelve or so.

I have a slight, but noticeable physical deformity (spinal curvature) and was a very late-developer sexually, so I was a prime target fof the locker-room bullying from the "gangster element" that always arises in that setting, and around that stage in life.

Our "Junior High" was, in the tradition of the area and the time, a "castoff" building inherited afrer a new high school was built in the late Fifies ... suffice it to say that the faciities weren't very modern, so you walked into the shower, did a very quick rinse, and walked out in a little time as possible.

But by the time I was in "Senior High", for obvious biological rasons, you took a different attitude toward bathing. Also, many people overlook the point that while wash tubs and stove-heated water were by now seldom the case for people living in the country, in many cases the school showers were still better than what was at home. I had older relatives who were teachers, and they had first-hand knowledge of how much the shower facilities at another high school were appreciated when it was built -- in 1932..

And later, I entered college, and dealt with mandatory swimming instruction. In those days, it was still common for all-male roups at YMCA's and enclosed indoor pools to swim nude. Suits were availabe for co-ed recreational and after-hours swimming, but regular classes were encourgaged to dispense with the textiles, and usually did. With the "dumb-bullying" element gone, and the rare satisfaction of mastering a physical chllenge, I adjusted quickly and positively. Beyond that, nobody seemed to pay that much attention to the ambience.

So I guess my point is, when the intimidating atmosphere common to organized Phys Ed is removed, do women begin to move toward the more-casual attitude toward shared bathing, as was, at least until recently, generally the case with men? The greater acceptance of physical exercise and participation in reduced-privacy situations, as in the military, would seem to be an influencing factor in that direction.

I have a couple of "nephews by proxy". One of them, growing up in a traditional or "nuclear" family setting, seems to have no qualms about showering sans-suit after a swim at the 'Y'. But the other was raised almost exclusively by his mother. Sadly, he turned out to be the one with gender-identity issues, and tends to exhibit the attitude that his body is an embarrasment, or a wasting asset.

Further comments?

Wow, does this bring back the memories. Yes, we had to shower after PE, but while we had a large shower area it was separated off by plastic shower curtains. There was hook for your towel so by and large we didn't walk around naked, but you still had to get back to your locker and get dressed. I don't remember anyone getting a pass because they were on their period, but I won't say it was impossible either. I never got a not from my mom.

As for gym clothes, they were a light green one piece gym suit that was more or less like the color of todays surgical scrubs. Not very sexy, but pretty functional and I had only one for all four years of high school.

I remember all those days at YMCA's open shoer rooms all tile and steam and saunas

Ace

Takes me back to when I was in the forces.

In basic you did everything together; sleep, eat, swim & run together.

When we got back from exercise we would all strip off in the accommodation block and walk to the shower which was a half room thing with shower heads all around the walls.

On the first day, a lot of the girls (me included) wrapped a towel around them, but day three we all stood there naked chatting away to the people near us.

Partygurl's comment pretty well summarizes my point .... our views on exposure have changed drasitically over the past forty years. It's the women who are developing a sense of "locker room cameraderie" .....and the boys who are being conditioned to be ashamed of their physical selves. And I definitelty do not see that as a healthy situation.

I had almost forgotten about this topic as well, and probably with good reason, lol.

Junior High is never easy for anyone, I don't care if you were the head cheerleader or the head skank, puberty sucks for everyone.

We always had to shower after gym, there were a few and I do mean a few exceptions to this, like when we watched movies on the history of sports for example, but we were still expected to dress.

Our required atire for gym was these one piece scratchy material things. The bottom portion was solid hunter green, and the top was white and green stripped. It had a huge bulky zipper down the middle of the front that went from the base of your neck to right around your belly button. And on the zipper pull, there was a huge round metal loop. They were measured too, they couldn't be too long, or short, to loose or to tight. All I can say is, they ugly, very very ugly, not to mention hot and scratchy.

Our school's policy on shower taking was, everyone took one after gym, unless you were on your period. The gym teacher stood at the head of the opening to the shower and marked your name off as you entered. YOu were allowed to have one period mark off each month, sometimes to depending on your schedule, but that was rare. Now, if you tried to hand the teacher another note for the same month, first you got the lecture, of, well you were either lying this time, or you are lying the last time, which was it? Then if you still had the balls to continue with your story, you got taken in to the office and your parents were called, and if momma saved your ass and told the gym teacher that she did in fact have two periods this month, then the gym teacher would tell momma, well, until she gets a doctors excuse to me saying that this is what is really happening, then your sally will be flunking gym.

My gym teachers name was Mrs Rolloff. She actually used to be a hopful for the same Olympic team that housed Nadia Colmineche, the first woman to ever get a perfect 10. Who by the way is now married to Bart Connor, the sexy hunk that helped earn our boys their own set of gold medals in mens gymnastics in 1984. Mary Lou Retton also cam out of this bunch, who happens to be one of the people I admire the most in this world, but I digress here.

My gym teacher was a bit of a nasty hard nosed fhort little romanian woman who probably had a few grudges of her own to work throug. So there she stood at the front of the shower with her clip board, marking off your name as you went in, and the gym caddet who was usually in the grade higher than you stood there waiting to hand you a dry towel.

Now, the actual shower process went accordingly. you walked in to the girls dressing room. There was a main isle, off to both saides of this main isle were benches and locker, tons of them. BUt if you kept walking throu you then had to come to a decisiont, either turn slightly left to go to to the potty, where there were stalls, no door, and about 2 foot tall walls betwen the pots, so if you were sitting on one you couldn;t see the person right beside you but if you were standing you could see everyting, lol. I thik I usually just hsld mine for later at home, lol.

Anywas, towasds that right, the nasty showers loomed. The room was very stark, THere was a white shower curtain hanging up basically covering about 10 huge shower heads. See the trick to getting into and out of one of these showers ws to hug the back wall and go under the heads so to spiak, then avoiud the water at all costs, get t hroughrt the ofher side, grab your towel and rhen requr you to very quicksly get dressed And really it wasn't a shower, it ws a walk through. No one had soap, no one had whshclothes, o one had shampoo, so baslically it was just a naked free for all at that age..

Nice story to read about.

But if you´ll permit a bit of introspection - it sure sounds like junior high was a very regimented place to go. Clipboards and check-offs when going to take a shower? Checking up on how many ´passes´ you get per month and then needing family alibis?

Boy, what a way to run a school.

I don't feel shy showering with my friends. Sometimes when I returned back from beach with three of my friends (Girls). We can't wait until each one take a shower alone. We just pull off our swimsuits on the bathroom floor and go totally naked inside the tube, each one fighting her turn under the shower 😃

I remember back in school when we had swimming lesson days (Yes, every Thursday in middle school, though I can't for the life of me remember what grade it was)

Anyways, the community swim pool we had only had a few showers and a few bathroom stalls to get dressed in. So a few of us girls went together in one stall to get changed. Nobody was really embarrased at the time and we really didn't care about privacy. I do remember some of us would comment how "Oh Sam, she hit puberty! She's growing hair down there!" While the rest of us would wait patiently to grow our own little fuzz gardens.

As we got older, that is when we put up privacy boundaries and if you were caught getting dressed with eachother you were automatically labeled "Lesbian" ??? Kind of sad to think about!

My two best friends and I always used to shower together and get dressed together and we never really gave a crap. We still feel that comfortable around eachother now a days too.

Several years ago I was one of three female grad students assigned to the same research projrect overseas in a very remote area. Ammenities were non-existant and necessities hard to come by. More often than not we wound up bathing together to conserve water. The longer we were in the field, the more intimate and sensual our showers became. Even now several years later we three get together to discuss old times and new times and more often than not end up in the shower together.

The last couple of posts seem to be getting to the point I'm trying to raise .... when the elements of bullying and intmodation are removed, the bonding between people who've seen each other naked grows.

Consider, for example, the openng shower scene in the film "Carrie". I doubt that would happen often in the girls' showers, but it likely would (with adjustments for gender) among the boys, because the tendency to stigmatize and "weed out" the misfit is stronger -- and in some cases (men working as a team in a hazardous occupation) -- there are sensible reasons..People who coach athletic teams will likely also attest that the behavior of females differs from males if someone gets hurt.

I was a fraternity-vermin in college Our house had a capacity of 56, with two open 3-head showers on each of the two floors. We would occasionally throw a party in conjunction with another house, so I knew most of them had a similar arrangement. We were, after all, brothers, and the whole idea revolves around the part of your life you share and the secrets you choose to keep.

Sorority houses were a lot less common -- until fairly recently, some states had laws against groups of women living together (a throwback to the days when prostitution was outlawed, but "accomodated") so many colleges limited sororities to one floor of a dorm. Bur if any of the lades here shared an "open" shower in a sorority house, it would suprise me.

Being a runt in HS didnt help, but I had a problem with my asthma that needed steroids to help with and they messed up my hormones to the point where I went into puberty at age 11.

By 12, I had grown a large thatch of pubic hair that got me teased and worse. Someone decided to pull off my shorts and I backhanded him with the badminton racket I was holding.

To this day, in spite of being reasonably in shape, I am not very comfortable about group showers

I've always been a bit of an exhibitionist, so showering at school after gym or sports was never a big deal for me.

When I was a teenager, I even teased my older brother occasionally by walking nude from my bedroom to the shower when I knew he would see me! >😄 😎 >😄 😎 >😄 😎

Showers were compulsory for all who the girls who were in gym class that day. Gym class was two days a week, and my mom (or me, writing as mom) would write notes when I was on my period. We were allowed two days a month, and it was amazing how every girl in school's period started on Monday or Tuesday, and was still going on Thursday or Friday. Evidently, nobody ever started on a Friday/Saturday and was essentially over by the following Monday/Tuesday.

We hated our gym teacher and she would have pushed us to participate all month without a doctor's expressed opinion otherwise, but the school was primarily run by a male principal and vice-principals who we knew would always overrule the gym teacher if she questioned our need to "sit on the sidelines." Basically, they were so flustered by the whole topic that they'd cave in so as to never have to deal with it.

We had girls who hadn't started their periods until their junior year who still were off two days a month as freshmen/sophomores.

The showers were communal. Another reason for me to hate it, because I was an early bloomer and felt that everyone's eyes were always on me in the first couple years. When a boy once made a comment about my dark bush, I felt completely alienated from the girls in my class, because I knew that their loose lips were the only way that would get to the guys.

I've been much more happy with gyms since then -- if I'm paying for them, they had better have better facilities than I had in high school!

BY going to a catholic boarding school with nuns I certainly didn't run the risk of being overexposed: on the contrary, they were checking that you were going in and out the cubicle properly covered with a towel

We only had communal showers at school so i never new any different. Parhaps not do now, but gym mistress always used to shower with us, if it their last lesson

We had shared shower room in high school and it was the main reason I skipped phys ed as much as I could get away with. Staying sweaty till the end of the day wasn't exactly comfortable but I still rather endured that than used the group shower.

I guess I just hate being nude in front of strangers. It doesn't matter if they are women. Not only that but we didnt have a lock on the door and the boys often pulled pranks and pushed it open or peeked in from the window and if the shower door was left open they could probably see inside there too.

Back in my day (lol) we had communal showers in junior high, high school, and also in my college dorm. It never bothered me at all but some girls didn't care for it.

Since the topic of college also came up, in my first dorm we had a communal bathroom that had three shower stalls but each thankfully had a shower curtain. There was a low tile shelf at one end of the shower where you could put all of your stuff out of the stream of water and there was a hook just outside for hanging robes and towels so their was a modicum of privacy. This was the late 1970s and they way we transported necessities from our room to the bathroom was with a child's plastic beach bucket. The only thing that wasn't too private was if you wanted to douche and had to prepare the bag at one of the sinks and carry it to the shower stall. It seemed a little awkward at first, but eventually we all got used to it. I remember at first trying to time showers to when few or no other girls were in there.

We had one big shower room and if you were unlucky and one of the nuns were supervising, you had to be really clean before you could leave.

If you got soap and water all over yourself, how did they check if you were clean enough?

They would watch as you showered, and after you had rinsed the soap off and started to leave the shower if they thought you were not clean enough they gave you a look that would melt iron.

Does mix sex showers count. We having them when i first go away to collage. There were a few private ones but most went into big one. Coming from a small village and strict upbringing all nudity strange at first but soon ignoring it.

Oh unless you are a harden nudist nothing can prepare you for a mixed shower. After 3 years in a boarding school I thought I could handle everything so after going for a run on my first day I stripped off, wrapped a towel around me and headed for the shower. I went early to avoid the crowd and as I walked in the shower room I started to undo my towel, and for my sins I froze, there were men lots of men. Suddenly I heard my name and saw my room mate Dawn in the shower and with great trepidation I took my towel off and walked into the shower. For the first few times i was still nervous but after that i was totally relaxed being naked around so many men.