Did you have to shower after PE?

[Quanon]

Question due to a conversation about when this became unacceptable. Was it ever OK? Really? I didn’t ever experience it but DH did, with a teacher enforcing that everyone showered properly. It’s surely not expected now in secondary schools for safeguarding reasons? Our kids certainly don’t.

Were you required to shower after PE at school?

If you could give me an idea of when (decade) and yes or no, it will help our discussion. I wonder if it was more boys than girl?

For us
90s, female, no
90s, male, yes after rugby (teacher watching)

Husband did, in front of a priest in boarding school who watched them. Husband doesn’t think much of it. I think it’s appallingly but he’s been so brainwashed by religion it’s ingrained the church did no wrong

We had to line up naked in the changing rooms, no towel, cross the corridor to the shower room, walk around the shower array lifting our arms, then back into the changing rooms. Teachers watching and guarding the corridor. Was it only after swimming? Yes. No shower after general games.

80’s.
learned later there were safeguarding issues at the school.

93...11 year old me was forced to strip and go into a communal shower with no curtains or partitions by a PE teacher who tore away my towel.

It is because of sociopathic cunts like that PE teacher that I am homeschooling my child. She also especially loved to humiliate the uncoordinated autistic kids like me.

I started secondary school in 98 I think, none of us girls showered after PE but I think I remember that the boys had to after rugby.
Moved in 2000 to a different school, no one showered there though there was a rumour that one of the history teachers took a shower in the boys' changing room when boys were in there changing.

Yes. 70s born. Was made to have communal showers in middle school then high school in the 80s. The female PE teacher would come and go a lot during us showering and getting changed and whoever was outside the doors could and did see us naked when she opened them. It was fucking awful. How they couldn't see how wrong it was at the time was beyond me!

As an Autistic woman, it was hideous and made me feel ill.

It was forced down our necks about hygiene etc. How disgusting and smelly we would be if we didnt wash after sports. Weirdly, we didn't have to have showers in 6th form, so it had nothing to do with hygiene, but about power over young girls in the end. (They felt they couldn't really 'force' 6th formers)

Absolute cunts, they were for doing this to kids.

70’s, showers available WITH SHOWER CURTAINS for privacy, about 6 stalls.
Small class size.
Nothing enforced, but you’d have to be quick, not lots of time between classes.
Girls changed quickly together, I don’t remember seeing much/many naked bodies? Didn’t look? No teacher ever in the change rooms.
Nice school, great PE experience.

Mid 2000s - we were told to shower but nobody ever checked and tbh it would have been impossible even if we had wanted to because there was one tiny changing room designed for about twenty max with half the year (at least 70 girls) crowded in it so there were people changing in the shower area. We also didn't have lockers or anything so as well as 70 girls there were 70 full rucksacks and 70 pe kit bags crammed in there -couldnt swing a fly let alone a cat! Sticking the shower on would have soaked everyone and all their stuff.

Slightly grim really as we would play rugby or do cross country in the rain and get coated in mud, but just wash the worst layer off and spend the next 6 hours in a faze of dried sweat and impulse Deodorant 😬

I feel like school PE was designed to put children off exercise for life rather than encourage it!

I remember the threat and the rumour of it, but in reality, showers never happened despite being available. PE changing must be a nightmare for all kinds of reasons but I can’t see why it would ever have been acceptable for teachers to watch whilst kids were showering, or to make them shower together. It’s really barbaric.

Yes we had to go into communal female showers in the mid 80s. This was in a middle school in the North East (age 9 to 13), can't remember if it was only the older kids that had to do this. Remember hating it though and believing it was wrong then. When I moved to high school the teachers didn't enforce it.

Late 80's female. No.
There were showers but no curtains. The school was old and in the verge of closing. Never ever saw the showers used in five years. If they even worked.

No. Early 00s female. We'd have been mortified if we had to.

At secondary school from 1990 to 1994 yes we were forced by out PE teacher to shower, it was the most horrific experience. Girls would try and get away with just wetting their limbs and get sent back in.

I was at secondary school 1989-1994. We had to walk through a line of showers and it was compulsory. The teacher used to tick you off on a register if you said you were on your period. If you were on your period less than 4 weeks apart she would question it as people did try to lie to get out of showering!

You would get shouted at to go back through if she thought you weren’t wet enough.

It was horrible and I can’t believe how this was acceptable.

Glad my DC don’t have to do this now.

80s female yes. Communal showers, teacher supervision.

Yea in the early 1990s though we didn't actually properly shower and just stood under the water for a minute and came out. I hated it because everyone could see you naked if you weren't quick enough with the towel.

Yep. In open showers, with two teachers 'supervising'. I started secondary in 1990 and by 1994 it stopped. Thank god.

When I was in primary we had to shower after swimming but at least we had our swimming costumes on.

We also had to do gymnastics in leotards (my kids just wear their standard kit now), athletics in knickers and when we had netball we had to line up and bend over to prove we were wearing said gym knickers.

Yes, 80s, forced. Girls’ school. Teacher standing there watching unless she was mercifully distracted by something. We used to get a friend to hold a towel at the end and run through as quickly as possible. Forgetting your towel was no excuse - I remember one poor girl who’d forgotten her towel being forcibly rubbed down with paper towels by the sadistic teacher.

Thankfully that teacher left when I was about 10 and her replacement never made us shower.

I still dislike showers, always preferring to bath, and I do wonder if my aversion comes from those horrible PE days.

80s female, yes. And they gave us about 90 seconds to do it (with PE teacher watching every one of us and ticking a list to check we'd done it) so, really, it was just a pointless run through the shower and then a walk home in damp clothes in the freezing cold. I hated PE as it was and this just added to the misery for me.

70s - all boys school, we were supposed to, but the first thing any boys' PE teacher learns is that (a) it is impossible to make teenage boys shower if they don't want to, and (b) there's only so many times you can give detention to a whole class without looking a berk.

athletics in knickers and when we had netball we had to line up and bend over to prove we were wearing said gym knickers

Oh god the regulation knickers! I remember those. Navy, massive as possible. Worn over the top of your normal pants for PE lessons. We had occasional spot checks to make sure our uniform was all named, and I can remember them even checking our knickers. While we were wearing them.

Quite astonishing, looking back.

Yes, at middle school in 1992ish . We had to strip off then go into a a communal shower together. Then they stopped making us shower.

80s, female, no. I don't think my school even had showers??

80s, female, continental Europe. Yes. No supervision or enforcement, just something that was - and is - completely taken for granted. Never heard of anyone having an issue and couldn't even have imagined it.

Edited to add: am astounded at some of the answers here. What exactly were y'all afraid might happen - another girl catching a glimpse of you in the nude? Is it a bullying thing? I seriously think we'd have been more at risk of bullying sitting in class all sweaty and stinky.

My primary school (early 70s) had no showers so it wasn't an issue there. However, It was the late 70s and early 80s when I was at secondary school (I left with the sixth forn of 1984). Yes, we were expected to shower after PE and it was awful. PE as a whole was generally dreadful and I hated it - would have bunked off if I hadn't managed to drop the subject at the age of 13.

The showers were communal, although not mixed sex. We were expected to strip off in front of all of the other girls in our year group and file in a line through the showers. The teacher would be watching us and if she considered we were being too slow she would turn the showers to cold to hurry us up! None of it was helped by the fact that they frequently barely gave us 2 minutes after the end of each lesson to get showered and dressed before they turfed us out of the changing room as the bell went, sometimes still in our underwear!! Horrendous when I think back on it but we were simply told it was "character building" and nobody questioned it to my knowledge.

I was relieved to find that showers no longer seemed to be compulsory when my own DDs were at secondary school in the 2000s.

Yes - Late 90s - early 00s - female UK.

There were no cubicles and the teachers 'supervised'

Was pretty grim tbh.