School showers

I was always too embarrassed to take showers after gym class. The female showers had curtains to maintain a little bit of privacy but few used them.

The memory that stands out for me is of the guy who's locker was next to mind; it looked like he was always semi-hard, or so I thought. I did not know about peckers being “grower" or “shower” types, and it was something not mentioned in health class back then.

Those were helsian days but at the time we never gave it a second thought, but that was how we were bought up.

A few rows of wooden benches with hooks on. You striped off your sports clothes and walked into a communal shower along with everyone else. There was no hiding yourself, everyone could see your naked body and you saw everyone else's and the first person who said that they did not compare their bodies with everyone else is telling a fib.

What I did not think of at the time was that when the sports mistress talked to you, you could be naked and you simply excepted it no child protection issues. This was also the time when our sports kits was an obscenely short netball skirt and a top that rode up and showed your belly button when you raised your arms up. Now my granddaughter can either wear knee length shorts or jogging bottoms.

I once went to a festival where they had mixed showers and what surprised me was that some men got hard on's in front of other men and were not embarrassed.

Fantastic description Ann. Love the image of the sports mistress talking to the naked and semi naked girls. you should write a more detailed version of what that mistress might be thinking as she looks over the room full of young girls getting dressed. and the many different body shapes that she may see.

That is really very erotic writing.

i googled it but still im not sure what ‘helsian’ means.

I think she may have meant halcyon days @XposeHer . Spellcheck can be a pain. 😢

We were never required to shower after PE or football practice either. Football practice was last period of the day so we just went home. Sometimes after a game we would shower, but I didn't if I had only warmed the bench and didn't get to play. We did have community showers with about 10 shower heads around the large room. I did shower sometimes so I was seen and saw others naked. I was uncircumcised so I have wondered who looked at me and saw that I was different than many of the other boys. It really didn't bother me to be seen naked by my classmates. I think most were circumcised and so their penises were generally larger when not erect than I was, but I think that is a result of being circumcised and it rubbing on the underwear all the time. I could be wrong though.

Forgive me @LordJim2 i'm 1 for I have sinned, I do not even know my native language. You are absolutely correct, the word I cannot spell is "halcyon days".

Sadly I will never know what the teachers were thinking seeing us naked, I can only assume that they never thought anything as it was probably as natural to them as it was to us, and I wish I could go back to it today. Life was so innocent then.

That said, after the birth of my first I got post natal depression very bad and it was suggested by my quack (doctor) that I take up a hobby. I joined a women's support group and we went away for a week. We were housed in an old missen hut were we all slept, showered and ate. On the first night, I assume because of the heat, several of the girls slept naked, and it was so erotic that in our own time we all followed suit and that's where I got my love for it. We were 20 - 60ish, but for that week we all became school girls at boarding school and inside the hut clothes became pretty much redundant.

None of us wore a towel when we went to the shower, we all showered together and the bond between us has lasted ever since. Nothing was said at the time but whilst there were a few confident people there, most of us had some level of body issues, but afterwards a lot confided that for the first time in a long time, they felt free, liberated and uninhibited. It was the most loveliest platonic love affair I have ever had.

It was only because of Covid-19 that we have not had a weekend away for a few years. We were planning to meet up next year but yesterday they announced a new strain has been found, so who knows.

That women's support group sounds like it was just “what the doctor ordered” so to speak @SouthernAnn . It's always nice to hear of bonding experiences like that.

Good to hear you continue to meet for weekends, even if it is on hold due to covid-19 at the moment.

We showered after Physical Education (PE) and they were open showers a series of shower heads on the wall. I suspect most were like me looking but hoping not to get an erection as that would have meant teasing from others. Sometimes there would be a wet towel fight and a wet towel flicked onto bare skin was painful and even worse if aimed at the genitals. I did enjoy seeing my class mates bare all shapes and sizes.

I have posted previously that, at the time (1960's/70's), and in the place (very rural southwestern U.S.), where I was born and raised, nudity was not taboo like it is today. At home, most families had a single bathroom, and seeing family members naked was not unusual. I wouldn't say that I grew up in a nudist family, because this seems to imply a significant emphasis on nudity. But, there also wasn't any reason to feel embarrassed by nudity. Our bathtub/shower was separated from the rest of the bathroom by clear glass sliding doors, and it was often necessary for somebody to be using the vanity sink and mirror (brushing teeth, using the hair dryer, etc) while somebody else was taking their shower. Even as teenagers, my sister (2 years older than me) would frequently come into the bathroom and harass me to get out of the shower, because she needed to get into the shower. She would undress and make no effort to cover up. One time, she was in such a hurry, and frustrated with me for not allowing her to shower first, that she simply opened the sliding glass door and jumped into the shower with me. I had just started showering, so we were both in the shower together for at least five minutes, taking turns with lathering up and rinsing off. This was actually an efficiency that our parents had implemented when we were very young (just have the youngster siblings bathe/shower together. At some point we grew out of that, primarily because we grew up to the point that it was inconvenient to have our larger bodies crammed together into a relatively small shower area, and also because we started showering at very different times of the day (based upon our different activities and schedules). Because of the clear glass sliding door, my sisters and I likewise saw our parents in the shower, and vice-versa. As I grew older, and spent time (overnight, long weekends, etc) at friends' homes, it became apparent to me that my family was not all that unusual.

Another reason for an acceptance of nudity was that I grew up at a time and in a place where good old-fashioned bare-bottomed spankings (proper – not abusive) were a primary method of discipline. Often, children were required to strip completely naked before going over mom's lap for her hairbrush, or assuming a proper position for dad's razor strop. Brothers and sisters frequently saw each other getting their butts tanned, especially if they had gotten into trouble together (they would be punished together).

At the YMCA, men/boys swam nude. The pool had an observation deck with bleachers. Women/girls were generally not welcome at the YMCA, but their were exceptions. For example, when grade school boys (K-6) were attending swimming lessons, high school boys AND girls were hired as swimming instructors. The high school girls wore swimsuits, but they saw the nude boys. Also, mothers and older sisters (with driver's licenses) would usually bring young boys to the YMCA. Maybe they weren't supposed to stay and observe during lessons, but if there was such a rule, it definitely wasn't enforced (most of them made their way to the observation deck bleachers until it was time to take their kids home).

There was no such thing as “middle school” (grades 6th thru 8th) back then. When boys and girls graduated from elementary school (6th grade), they entered into junior high school (7th & 8th grades), at 11 or 12 years of age. This is when PE class became a big thing, with coaches, uniforms, and locker rooms. This was the age at which most boys started to grow pubic hair. Some started 7th grade with NO pubic hair. Some started with a little bit. Only a few started with a significant amount of pubic hair, but very few junior high boys were by any means sporting a full “bush”, even upon graduation from junior high school.

Junior high students (boys & girls) were absolutely required to shower after PE class. Failure to shower meant a school paddling, and junior high is also when school discipline was delegated to the PE coaches. If you were assigned a detention (by any teacher or staff member with the authority to issue a dreaded pink punishment slip), a PE coach would supervise your detention after school in the gymnasium. And, if you were assigned a paddling (by any teacher or staff member with the authority to issue a punishment slip), the PE coach would administer your punishment after you finished showering (after PE class). The process for showering was simple. Strip naked at your locker. Walk naked from your locker to the shower area (a communal shower room with many shower heads on the walls, and 3 shower towers in the middle of the room – 4 shower heads on each tower). Take your shower under the watchful eye of a coach (occasionally, a female coach, if both male coaches were absent). Walk out of the shower area into the dry-off area (this is when/where the coach would paddle your butt, if you had turned in a punishment slip, that specified paddling, at the beginning of class). Receive a towel and dry off. Put the towel into the used-towels laundry bin. Walk back to your locker and get dressed. Everybody saw everybody else naked, including very red paddled butts. There was absolutely nobody who trimmed or shaved pubic hair up through graduation from junior high school.

However, I attended a Christian school (grades K-12), where the elementary school building, the junior high school building, and the high school building were all on the same campus. In 8th grade (while still in junior high), boys and girls (separately) had a 4 week swimming unit of instruction. This meant that we had to walk across campus to the high school building, which is where the swimming pool was located. We also had to utilize the high school locker rooms. This was the first time that I ever saw boys with a shaved genital region. But, this was not because it was a popular thing at the time. This was because our school was VERY competitive in both boys and girls high school swimming and diving (almost always competing in state and national championship competitions). Back then, they didn't have the kinds of competitive swimming body-suits and swimming caps that are used today. By comparison to the 1970's, today's competitive swimming apparel is high-tech, designed to slide through the water with less friction than human skin. Back in the 70's, one way to squeeze out a last ounce of competitive advantage was to wax one's entire body, for the purpose of reducing the friction of body hair moving through the water. Most of the male swimmers did this, and literally had no hair on their arms, legs, chest, or head. The males who were bald-headed didn't wear a swimming cap. And, males wore tiny 1970's-style “racing Speedos”. I'm not sure why, but it became a tradition to “wax everything” during extracurricular swimming season, even the genital areas that were covered by the Speedos. When I entered high school, I joined the swim team and the lifeguard organization. So, in my freshman year of high school, I found out what it was like to have no hair on my entire body, except for my eyebrows and my eyelashes!

Also, regarding swimming, boys were required to swim nude in the high school swimming pool, unless it was a mixed coed swimming class/session (primarily during the 11th and 12th grades – junior and senior years). Also, discipline worked the same way in high school (the PE coaches were the deans of discipline, and bare-bottomed paddlings were administered in the boys and girls locker rooms).

Now that I'm an old man, I do try to stay healthy by working out at my local health club. Without intentionally attempting to check out other men's “junk”, I have noticed (especially, over the past 5 years) that a neatly trimmed or bald pubic area, while probably not a majority thing, is becoming a normal enough thing that many such men don't make any attempt to be discreet about it.

Last time we were in group showers was freshman in high school and none had gone through puberty yet, so no one had hair.

This was in the early 80's, at an all-boys high school. ( No showers in Jr. high or before) we had a shower room open, with several towers of water in the middle, around each tower two or three boys could stand and shower. Also had a couple shower heads along the wall. We had to disrobe to the nude, hang our towel in one area, and walk over to the other area marked on the floor to wait for the next shower nozzle to open up (About 12 boys could shower at once and there were about 40 or so boys on the class.) Each boy had to stop, and the coach would check your name off to make sure you showered. If you did not shower you got an F for the day. It felt like an inspection, and in 9th grade I was still prepubescent so I had a tiny little bald penis. As far as hair, no one was shaving yet so if you were in puberty, you had a full bush. Myself and 2 others had not started puberty, so we had smooth tiny cocks.

When i was at school in mid 70s and we started swimming lessons at school, we all had to shower naked afterwards. Due to my early development; at that age - about 8 - I was the only boy who was developing and certainly attracted a lot of attention in the shower when they saw i was much bigger than them and was developing hair. Their interest intensified when i would uncontrollably become erect from the warm shower water. I didn't trim or shave my pubic hair.

As other boys began to develop when we were older, they became less interested in me (fortunately), and more concerned about what was happening to them (also getting uncontrolled erections). I don't remember anyone trimming or shaving their pubic hair off - having it was seen as a status symbol.

Although a few of you have been reading in my PMs all about my sexual development, I will repeat some of that in this post.

I started Grammar school in England in the mid 1960s. PE and games lessons were part of the curriculum back then and remembering to take a towel for such lessons was important as communal showers were mandatory after PE or Games.

I still remember the embarrassment I think all of us 11 year old girls experienced when first having to do this. We all had to strip off after PE or games and go through a corridor of showers (All of these were warm apart from the last two that were always cold and we learnt the best ways to avoid these).

I can say that I was definitely not one of the first in my class that stripped off completely. I remember just staring as the other girls became naked. Of course I knew that there was no escape as the teacher was trying to encourage us through along the corridor. Of course after this in initial embarrassment of letting all my peers see me naked was soon overcome and in subsequent showers the only thing to be wary off was the last two cold jets!

However, I remember a further embarrassment when I picked up a nick name of “TP” and I had no idea what this meant until a close friend told me that it stood for Tiny Prick (Prick was a name that boys used for their penis back in England in those days) I obviously picked this nickname up due to my clitoris being quite prominent and my Labia quite small. I kept this nickname throughout the school but I don't think that the majority of students that called me TP did knew of how or why I was given this nick name.

Our country school never had showers. Sport was on a Wednesday afternoon and then we all went home.

With a 30 minute timeline for 20-22 9th--10th Grade boys (and 8 generous shower heads) there wasn't much time to soap up..rinse off and get dressed. No time to do much gazing at each others bodily development. At best it was quick glimpses of the cornucopia of 20 or so same age (white) boys in the buff running around trying to get it done. There were multiple differences of skin tones/buttocks/and penile development. Seeing all this 3 times a week got boring. I'd guesstimate 80% were heterosexual anyway ('65--'66).

@JSChallenger

Excluding your nickname, your experiences in the showers so resonate with my own experiences.

It seemed to be your right of passage made statutory by the education authorities that you had to be part of a naked group. After had you stripped off you walked to the shower with towel in hand (new girls wrapped a towel around themself until the teacher order them to remove it where they stood). After that you all had to stand in a tunnel like shower, before drying off and getting dressed..

@SouthernAnn, that was my experience as well, except in my case I was the only boy in the school that was circumcised. I vividly remember the first time one of the other boys noticed and I was suddenly surrounded by a crowd all pointing and laughing about it. School showers were a nightmare, especially with the PE teachers stalking the changing rooms to find those that tried to avoid them!

I grew up in a rural/farming community and the schools were a mix of farm kids and “city kids” from the rather small town that was the county seat. Kind of funny now - the town only had about 1500 residents, but it was the “city” to us.

The farm boys were used to skinny dipping at the local swimming hole - one on the river and one on about a 3 acre farm pond.

Anyway - we didn't have gym showers at school until 7th grade (Jr high). It was funny because the farm kids didn't give it a second thought, but the city kids did and there was nervous chatter about it.

The gym shower room was about 20 feet x 10 feet with shower heads along 3 walls - only one way in/out.

I've written before that I was rather scrawny at that point in my life - and rather “soft." I was routinely referred to as being a "mama's boy (which was especially cruel since she was dead) sissy or a “queer” (although we were only beginning to understand what that meant).

Well, the undisputed coolest kid in the class was a city kid who had a pathetic adolescent mustache that was the envy of most boys, and dressed cool, had a cool pair of sunglasses, and was “all that." He was a bit of a bully and a complete jerk to me. Anyway, Acting all tough after gym class he strutted naked to the showers without a towel saying things like "get away from me farm boy" and “take a good look, this is what a man looks like!”

Needless to say, about 3 minutes later he was running from the room in a panic with, quite frankly, a huge erection and was followed by howls of laughter from all of us farm boys. It was priceless

I remember well. Some are going to laugh and some will drool. LOL I was a cheerleader in 6th grade but that wasn't anything like what I had coming in Junior High and High school. In the 6th grade, we never had showers because games and such were after school, etc. Then I tried out in 7th grade and got it. Little did I know I would be taking not one but two showers and the same in high school. We had a regular gym and that was one period. Then Cheer practice which was a different period. If you were on the cheer squad you only had one gym class but as a cheerleader, we had to have a separate period of practice so we could get our routines down. I was a late bloomer and flatchested until I was 13-14 so I had to suffer for a few years showering with all the other girls who were built better and had bushes. I was always getting teased by my sister's friends when we would go swimming or skiing. They would say things as we were walking out the door like, “hey Tabitha did you forget something? Yeah, your boobs.” or “when are you going to grow some hair down there?” “We bet is it embarrassing showering like that with all the other girls.” Kids are mean. Then my sister and her friends started shaving but leaving a strip. But then a few years later when I was developed and I would notice some girls bare down there in the showers. All I could think of was why didn't they do that before I was developed. LOL.

Awesome description Tabitha

@FredD

Several things about your recent post in this thread are very similar to my experience.

I grew up in a southwestern United States ranching community. The ranch kids (country cowboy and cowgirl types) went to school in the nearby “city” (a small town with a population of about 5K – bigger than your “city”, but not by much).

By the time we entered junior high school (7th grade), the ranch/country boys and girls were not very self-conscious about stripping naked in front of others. Of course, the boys and girls had separate locker rooms, but the truth was that most of the ranch boys and girls had already seen each other skinny dipping at the reservoir or the river.

One difference is that our junior high school locker rooms' showers were the tunnel type (like @SouthernAnn describes), with an open-room dry-off area at the end of the tunnel. The tunnel was about 20 feet long (10 feet in one direction, then it took a sharp 90° turn to the right for another 10 feet). I was involved in various intramural and extracurricular sports, and boys' teams sometimes used the girls' locker room after school, when an opposing team was using the boys' locker room. So, I know that the girls locker room was configured the same way.

Taking showers after PE class was truly an assembly line operation. Boy's/girls entering the showers were expected to form a single-file line. It was like a line of cars waiting to enter one of those drive-thru car wash tunnels, except it was a line of naked 12-13.y.o. boys or girls. At the beginning of the school year, the “rural” boys and girls weren't freaked out too much, but the reaction of the “city” boys and girls was priceless (ranging anywhere from quite uncomfortable to terrified). We didn't bring our own towels to school. We were given towels after we rinsed off. So, students were completely naked from the time they walked away from their lockers until they arrived back at their lockers.

Because of the assembly line nature of the shower tunnels, it was not possible to take a short shower (or, a long shower, for that matter), or face in any directions other than the expected directions (which included putting your hands above your head and turning around 360° in front of shower jets at a few of the stations inside the tunnel). The right-hand wall of the tunnel was only a 4-foot high half-wall, so the coach handing out towels in the dry-off area was able to monitor compliance with proper showering protocols. The process was enforced as follows…

Only after EVERY student was standing in line (naked) would the coach use a central valve to turn on the showers. The coach would then start blowing his/her whistle every 15 seconds. Each student spent 15 seconds at each station within the tunnel. The first station was the “get-wet” station (putting your hands above your head and turning around 360° a few times was mandatory). The second station was the “shampoo/head” station, for shampooing and washing your face, neck, and shoulders (no shower jets – just a shampoo/soap dispenser on the wall). The third station was the “shampoo/head rinse” station (just one shower jet at a height of about 5.5 feet on the wall – turning around a few times was again mandatory). The fourth station was the “soap-up” station (no water – just a soap dispenser on the wall), where it was mandatory to do a very good job of soaping up your entire body (below your neck). The fifth station was the “rinse-off” station, where it was once again mandatory to put your hands above your head while turning around a few times in front of four shower jets on the wall (one aimed mostly downward from above head-height, one aimed just slightly downward at about shoulder-height, one aimed straight outwards at about hip-height, and one aimed outwards at just above ankle-height). After the last tunnel station, the final station was the open-room “dry-off” area, where a coach would hand out towels. The entire 6-station process took about 90 seconds for each student (lenient coaches allowed a little bit of extra time in the dry off area).

On a side note, I have mentioned in other posts that, in junior high and high school, discipline/paddling was administered by the PE coaches. If a student had been issued a pink punishment slip by any school staff member, the student would be required to turn the slip over to his/her PE coach during PE attendance, and take it home after school for a parent's signature. If a paddling was in order, a coach would have the naughty student bend over an old vaulting horse located in the dry off area (before being given a towel).

There were very well understood disadvantages for being towards the front of the line or towards the back of the line. If you were towards the front of the line, it was very likely that the water would still be cold/cool for most of your trip through the tunnel. If you were towards the end of the line, you weren't going to have very much time to get dressed when you arrived back at your locker. The middle of the line was the ideal compromise.

At the beginning of the school year, the embarrassed/terrified “city” boys were the the most likely to get erections during the showering process. And, due to the assembly line nature of the locker room showers, there was absolutely NO way to hide it, or to speed up the showering process to minimize the embarrassment. On the first few days of dressing out for sports, I saw several 7th grade boys with erections during the showering process after class.

The coaches made no exceptions to the process for boys with erections. Boys with erections were still expected to do a good job of soaping up (including their genitals) and rinsing off. Spending 15 seconds standing under a shower jet, with their hands above their heads, turning around 360° a few times, with erections, must have been the most embarrassing experience of those boys lives! Watching a boy with an erection at the final rinse-off station was amusing, because the hip-height shower jet made his erect penis flop around when he turned around with his hands above his head. Certain girls loved to hear stories about which boys got erections in the boys' locker room. The process in the girls' locker room was very similar, but obviously erections weren't an issue. After only about 2 weeks, the erections didn't happen anymore, except for the occasional boy who (like me) had the propensity to become erect while anticipating receiving a paddling.

@fredd and @BottomFromTheTop those are some of the best posts I've read here in a long time. They both bring back memories from my own days in school.

I've posted about this in the past but my high school showers were similar to the tunnel showers @BottomFromTheTop described. One difference was that the tunnel part of the shower made it's way around 3 sides of the room, making a U shape. In the middle of that U was another shower area that just had shower heads mounted either on polls or coming down from the ceiling (can't remember exactly). But you could choose to use the tunnel or stand in the middle and shower normally. Both had advantages and disadvantages.

I've often described the tunnel shower as a car wash. One thing that we had that you didn't mention was water jets coming up from the floor. I distinctly remember one part of the tunnel where you had to stop and straddle a jet of water that shot up from the floor. That was designed to rinse your “undercarriage”.

@BottomFromTheTop - sounds similar, except there was no co-ed skinny-dipping. Our community was strict conservative Southern Baptist. Anyone caught messing around with girls would either get the belt or get married. For a conservative community there were a lot of 18 year old brides (and more than a few that went off to "live" with an aunt for a year). Several of my siblings were married with kids by 19 or 20 years old.

Reading over these posts I was reminded of one feature of school locker rooms was the ever present scent of Right Guard antiperspirant spray from those short gold aerosol cans. As guys got dressed after their showers the locker room was fumigated with that stuff. Made me cough and gag.

An interesting thread, albeit one of a few on the topic.

It certainly is behind my interest in the male body and subsequent conversion from a shy and retiring lightweight into a more confident person in my own skin.

Subsequent scandals do make you think about the motives of certain people in authority.

I certainly recall teachers policing the boys’ changing room, as many have discussed but I don’t recall anything clearly unacceptable happening. As a result I will resist jumping on the critical bandwagon even if my all boys school was run by Roman Catholic monks!

Was this possible teacher voyeurism, obsession with watching the showering and pupils’ fascination with nudity, similar for girls in the 60s and 70s?

As for shaving, I don’t think I even understood that was what people did. Certainly not young men and boys. But I recall The fascination with which mates had hair and which didn’t. I was so relieved when I grew a tuft of hair.

At school, I used to play sport, and I remember the showering sheds well. It may have been where I first saw naked schoolmates, although I was still shy enough to not want to be fully seen by them!

- Ken

You Guys were SO SO SO lucky- No Showers in English Schools- EVER. Leastways, I was at School from 1935 until 1944- Right through WWII - and No Woodwork or Metalwork- because of the War Effort! It wasnt until I was 13 I got to a class with Girls in it- And all they wanted- was show my your Prick!- that is what we called them at that time! - Never saw a Fanny either!

Good thread . i went to a Scottish comprehensive school in the mid 70s . The school had been built in the last 10 years so had a swimming pool with changing rooms , girls and boys gyms with accompanying changing rooms then a big outside games hall with more changing rooms . It was interesting in that by the time I was there they were all used interchangeably , so as a guy we did get to use the girls changing rooms . They had separate cubicles and showers whereas the guys had big open changing rooms and shower rooms .

I was 11 when started this school . There was only one guy in the class that had pubes and in fact facial hair at the time . An early developer for us . We did comment upon it because his nickname was “bum fluff” . As time went on we all started to develop . I was nervous because I was one of the last and was sure it would be commented on . Made worse because I was ginger/fair so even when I got hairs it wasn’t immediately obvious! But no one bothered . I took a lot of interest in my class I loved seeing them change . Most still had white briefs but colours and patterns were beginning to appear . A good friend had red pants with white trim and filled them well . This is definitely where my interest in pants comes from . Of course you couldn’t be seen to take an interest but I usually got good views . No one shaved their pubes in these days . That would very definitely have been commented on .

When I went to school in the US in the 50's and 60's I never showered. Granted it was in grade school back then, but even so, in the parochial Catholic schools, they were too stingy to install showers or even conduct any kind of half-way meaningful sports. If we were allowed an hour sport, it was with a nun supervising us playing beanbag ball on a concrete yard surrounded by chain-link fence, inner-city ghetto style … sigh sigh.

However when swimming nude at the YMCA we had to shower first, but since nude swimming was mandatory no one thought much about nude showering.

And later when we moved to Belgium, sports was never an even halfway serious endeavour in schools, in neither the public nor the Catholic schools. You went to school to study and learn, not fool around and chase, hit or kick balls. So no showers there either.