Did anyone in your secondary school ever use the showers?

[Soubriquet]

In American programs, teens are always shown using the showers after PE

I remember never seeing anyone using the showers at my school. At best, they were used for some groups of girls to change in semi privately. At worst, they were completely ignored.

So. Your school?

Yes. Girls' grammar in the mid-70s. Compulsory communal showers, supervised by the games mistress. Utterly humiliating.

The teachers made us go through naked. If you had your period, you were let off. But they kept a register. Too many periods and you were threatened with an internal examination by the nurse.

I knew this was bollocks and, thank god, my mum backed me up.

Yes late 1980s - mid 1990s- no excuses. Two PE teachers watched, one as you went in walked down through showers round U and another watched you walk out. Sent round again if weren't seen as wet enough. Stuff of nightmares - they used to make personal comments about girls size, speed of getting changed , attitude. Aim seemed to humiliate those, especially the ones who weren't sporty. This continued twice a week until you were allowed to drop PE in year 9.

Interesting that the two Germans on this thread said they don’t mind changing/ showering in communal areas. I wonder why the rest of us are so shy?

We had to, a communal line, strip,off and run through - not a proper shower at all - with a pervy games teacher just feet away, watching non stop.

One reason I gave up all PE in the 6th form, when it was allowed.,

@HollysBush

Interesting that the two Germans on this thread said they don’t mind changing/ showering in communal areas. I wonder why the rest of us are so shy?

I think it is the general attitude to body, nudity and especially talking about it.

You may not want to listen to our dinner conversations with a teen DD at the moment, you may blush too much :-). After they had a sex ed workshop at school her and I talked about what they covered, added some information as well and especially talked about my experience with things like porn or experimenting .

For me undressing in a gym or pool changing room is something I don't think twice. I am happy to wrap a towel around me to go to the shower but I drop it to get dressed. I also tell DD that there is no need for towel-gymnastic or hiding in the toilets to get changed.

We use the normal words for body functions or body parts. I wouldn't dream of calling a vulva/vagina things like flower or "bits". DD and I are on our period not having "time of the months" or whatever strange expressions I have come across here in the UK. DD knew about periods forever as I have so heavy ones, there is no way to hide it. She was 6 when she asked how babies are made and got the correct answer (obviously age appropriate but no stork or anything incorrect mentioned).

I can't see any of my friends doing this with their teen girls.

In the 90s, ours weren't used and tended to be used for overflow changing. There was a little phase when the netball girls asked to use them and brought cossies in and used them.

My mother's 70s experience in the same school was having to strip and run through. She always found it very embarrasing and there was that much mud tramped in on hockey boots that it all just turned the mud sloppier and no one was sunstantially cleaner for it.

I'm not not particularly fazed by communal showers and have been to places like Iceland where it is expected to wash thoroughly, but it's quite different to just crack on with washing yourself in a normal manner as an adult to being an insecure, developing teenager, surrounded by peers, supervised and montiored by teachers and performatively running through with no efficacy.

Our sports hall changing rooms had one big corner with lots of showers and no screens, not even from the main changing area. The teachers would browbeat you until you went in, it was humiliating and I hated it enough that I swore if daughter was ever faced with the same the head teacher would be hearing from me, I'd be ensuring she got an exemption from that awful experience.

Similar experience for the boys tbh. Comprehensive school in the 80s and we were forced to shower. Hated it and it was pretty much guaranteed you’d be bullied and teased.

No, nobody used them at my school.

@BillMasen

Similar experience for the boys tbh. Comprehensive school in the 80s and we were forced to shower. Hated it and it was pretty much guaranteed you’d be bullied and teased.

Strange to read how many people hated the experience

We were often caked in mud after rugby - legs, arms, hair, face. The match pitches were always kept aside, so we used the pitches which were basically a mud bath for PE. And it was middle of winter so freezing cold.

So there was about 30 of us in the class with a big communal shower that pumped nice warm water from showers heads suspended from the ceiling as well as the walls. It was like a steam room sometimes.

We all just got into the showers, there was no need to be forced or any feelings of embarrassment that i knew of. The only parts of your body that weren't covered in mud is where your shorts & shirt had been - so you had to shower. It was funny watching all the muddy water flowing down the big drain in the middle of the shower.

As a boy though you weren’t worried about blood running down legs from tampon leaking or period starting.

Yes. But ours were cubicles. We never had a proper shower thought

Ah yes - I appreciate is was very different for girls at that age with all the changes that were happening.

It was mainly the posts from the boys experiences i was replying to.

I am male and 35. Yes in my secondary school years of doing PE,1998-2001 from when I was 12-15 in Ireland all the boys had to line up and shower. There were 8 of us in 1 big open shower and the teacher supervised. It was horrible looking back and we all hated it. It would never be allowed today. The girls had individual cubicles though I was told.

When I first started secondary school (1989) we were forced to on our very first PE lesson, then never again as far as I can remember. Not sure if it stopped, or I just stopped doing PE - I used to nick out of school on PE days.

I still vividly remember that day and how vulnerable and awkward it felt being naked in front of a load of people you'd just met - and the PE teacher watching us all

In fact, this thread has just made me look up my PE teacher on Facebook - dying to message her to ask why she thought it necessary to humiliate a bunch of 12 year old girls in their first week of 'big' school. Obviously I won't, but yeah, a grim experience.

Yes, we showered in years 7&8. ( 1991-3ish). Not sure what happened after that but don't think showers were mentioned.
Our 2 middle-aged female PE teachers would stand at the entrance to the large communal shower watching us.
Also when getting undressed/dressed in the changing room they would comment on our underwear ' that's a nice crop top Noshow- where did you buy that?' or ' aren't those pants uncomfortable No-show, they don't cover much'.

Yes - 1980s comprehensive. You weren't allowed not to have a shower. It was a communal line of showers and most people rushed through very quickly. It didn't bother me at all but I can see why some people would have found it uncomfortable.

@Rollergirl1980

Mid to late 80s - showers in a line. We had to wait in a queue wrapped in our towel and one by one walk through the water spray from start of showers to end. We had to hold our towel above our head to keep it dry. PE teacher stood at start and watched you go through. No actual washing took place. They might as well have hosed us off. Very embarrassing experience but completely accepted.

Same here

Yes!
I was at school in the 70's. We had 2 gym mistresses each positioned at each end of the communal showers. We all had to strip off and shower. I absolutely hated it. They watched us in and out. My mum was always writing notes to say I'd got a verruca or it was my period. No note and you had to shower.

We did at middle school. (Early '80s.) We all had to squash into the shower block that had 4 shower heads, but a lot more of us. If you needed to wash mud off your legs, it was a challenge. I don't remember teachers commenting any thing other than, "hurry up! Don't take all day!"

At secondary school, we were girls only. In the gym, I don't remember if there were showers (my main memory of those changing rooms is sitting waiting to go in for a GCSE exam.) We also shared a site with the town's main swimming pool, which had individual cubicles, so we used those for swimming or any sports hall activities - and possibly, we usually used those unless we were actually doing gymnastics. I spent a great deal of my spare time at the swimming pool anyway (and by 6th form was working there as lifeguard/swimming teacher in the hols,) so I was very used to the changing room and showers there.

I don't remember that much about school showers at all, which suggests I wasn't too traumatised by them.

We had decent cubicles, but we weren't allowed to use them. We just had to put our tights/shirts/blazers back on after sweaty cross-country runs. I remember one new girl just assuming (logically enough) that she could get a shower after games, and she got an absolute bollocking. This was 1995-2002.

Yes, in my grammar school in the 70s, all the girls had to use the communal showers after PE. If it was your period, you were allowed to use the single cubicle.

Afaik, nobody thought about it! Nobody got a choice about anything much at our school - we did as were told! It was very authoritarian!

I was at secondary school 2002-2008 and no, nobody ever used the shower after PE. Never mind the embarrassment factor, we didn't have time to do anything more than get changed and cover ourselves with Impulse body spray before the next class.

The showers definitely worked though because as some of the scary, rough girls would switch them on and try to push people under the water in their uniform "for a laugh"

Yes only sports teams used it
Not pe