Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Original poster

to think stripping naked to shower after PE at school was horrific? **title edited by MNHQ**

883 replies

Flowersinyourhair · 05/12/2016 22:35

Recent conversations with my daughter about PE at school (she loves it, I hated it) have got me thinking about why I disliked it so much.

I was reminded of the hideous shower experience. After PE, the girls would be obliged to have a naked shower, all in together. We would then have to go to the teacher, totally starkers and dripping wet, and bit ticked off on a register to say we'd had a shower.

I can't to this day understand why it mattered so much. It's a safeguarding nightmare really and I'm so glad it doesn't work like that anymore.

AIBU to think it's no reason I hated PE and to ask whether my school was particularly weird??

OP posts:
thisisafakename · 06/12/2016 14:58

A lesbian adult is attracted to adult women, not underage girls!

Yes, and is generally not attracted to ALL adult women either and is very very unlikely to try to jump you in the changing rooms or have vivid fantasies about seeing you naked for 2 seconds. As if gay people don't face enough prejudice without the insinuation that they should not be allowed into a girls' changing room. This thread is horrible.

itsmine · 06/12/2016 14:58

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

goshthatseemsalot · 06/12/2016 14:58

Same experience here 1981-86. Foot inspections, period diary and the observant teacher. The memories are seared on my brain. I can see the name label on my towel, the institutional pink tiles and the one bar of soap that teacher checked was passed from girl to girl on my minds eye. Ritual humiliation twice a week.

Dancergirl · 06/12/2016 14:58

alleycat that poor poor girl Sad

itsmine · 06/12/2016 15:01

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

DeleteOrDecay · 06/12/2016 15:03

It is a horrible thread but not just for the reasons you are implying thisisafakenameHmm

It's horrible that the forced showering and humiliation of having to stand naked in front of a teacher to ensure you had showered properly carried on up until the 00's for some students!

It's horrible that young girls had to announce their period in front of the whole class.

It's horrible that young teens were humiliated in this way at such a sensitive time in their lives.

If a parent had posted a thread about their dd's having to endure all this in the present day there would be uproar and rightly so. It should never have been allowed to happen, not in the manner that the majority of posters have described.

thisisafakename · 06/12/2016 15:03

'lurid tales of being dragged naked'? you mean the factual retelling of events surely? because your tone suggests you think there may be fabrication

I am not suggesting that people are making things up, although I wonder how widespread this really was. There may have been some sadistic teachers who forced you to have a shower, but you should have a shower after exercising for an hour. It's unhygienic not to. Telling students to shower by itself is not wrong- obviously physically dragging them, making fun of them or publicly humiliating them is very wrong.

Maybe one issue is that people (in this country it is very prevalent) feel extreme shame over the naked body. In other countries, this does not happen, even during the teenage years. In fact, you would be thought pretty weird if you DIDN't shower with the rest of the girls. I find the extreme shower-aversion hard to understand as I did not move to this country until my mid teens and found it very, very odd that people were petrified of getting in the shower.

BishopBrennansArse · 06/12/2016 15:05

I have no idea of the motive for the humiliation. I just remember the enjoyment gained by it.

MsGameandWatch · 06/12/2016 15:07

thisis

I was an army child and moved school regularly. All over the country. Three out of the four secondary schools I attended had this showering policy, not to mention the accounts on this thread. I believe it was very widespread.

itsmine · 06/12/2016 15:08

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

crystallised · 06/12/2016 15:08

A lesbian adult is attracted to adult women, not underage girls!

Exactly so! I think some of the lesbian comments have been a bit off.

BitOutOfPractice · 06/12/2016 15:08

I'm sorry to say that, apart from the naked showers, PE at my DDs' school remains just as humilitaing and horrible as we remember it - inappropriate kit, humiliation of those who aren't good at sport, leering from the boys, body shaming by the teachers.

It makes me absolutely furious.

And they wonder why so few women take part in sport into adulthood.

thisisafakename · 06/12/2016 15:08

Also 'encouraging student to shower properly after excercise' isn't quite what has been described here.

No, that poster suggested that a lesbian woman should not have been allowed in the changing room. There are numerous other suggestions like this upthread- the idea that teachers were perving over students, especially lesbians. Yes, I am sure there were some teachers who were sadistic in this sense, but same as now, teachers are on the whole normal people who choose to do a difficult job. If you are supervising a group of students showering, you do have to look at them. It does not mean that you get off on it.

DeleteOrDecay · 06/12/2016 15:10

You don't need to supervise students in the shower full stop. Especially not at secondary school ageConfused

OpalTree · 06/12/2016 15:10

What do the teachers do to bodyshame the kids?

hooliodancer · 06/12/2016 15:10

I wasn't petrified of getting in the shower.

I was petrified of being stared at, forced to strip naked while being watched, being humiliated.

I think that's what everyone who experienced this has said, not that they just didn't want to get wet. Jesus!

Wantapony · 06/12/2016 15:11

I feel compelled to add to this shocking thread and agree-I was at an otherwise lovely girls secondary in the 80's. Experienced the same humiliation as others, including communal compulsory showers where we had to line up naked&the PE teacher stared at us while she
marked our names on a register. Truly creepy and invasive...

itsmine · 06/12/2016 15:11

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

OpalTree · 06/12/2016 15:11

That was to Bitoutofpractice

Dancergirl · 06/12/2016 15:12

I'm sorry to say that, apart from the naked showers, PE at my DDs' school remains just as humilitaing and horrible as we remember it - inappropriate kit, humiliation of those who aren't good at sport, leering from the boys, body shaming by the teachers

That's awful bitout. Have you said anything to the school?

Rowgtfc72 · 06/12/2016 15:13

We had the communal showers at our comp, early /mid eighties. Teacher would stand one end to watch us shower properly. Also had the period register.
We used to do cross country round the streets and through the woods in running knickers. I wasn't ver y fast so used to have the pe teacher on his bike rounding up the back markers poke me with a big stick a lot.
One pe teacher was sleeping with the 6th formers, as was his wife.
Our deputy head went down for molesting young boys. This was a good ten years after I left and I remember passing on the message to the first year boys not to be alone with him. Everyone knew.

thisisafakename · 06/12/2016 15:14

Three out of the four secondary schools I attended had this showering policy, not to mention the accounts on this thread. I believe it was very widespread

OK, but the deliberate humiliation and sadism described is unlikely to have been quite as widespread. If you feel that taking a naked shower is humiliating per se, then the teacher saying you should have one is going to be seen as problematic. But the majority (not all) of the teachers were probably told to enforce the shower policy and ensure that students washed properly. It doesn't mean that in all cases they were getting kicks out of it.

Obviously, I am not suggesting that people who suffered sadistic abuse at the hands of teachers have not been appallingly treated. Maybe it is more of an 80's thing because among my peers (early 30's) I have NEVER heard of period diaries being kept. I think though that some teachers got slightly annoyed when girls said they had their period every single week and might have made a note. That's not the same as monitoring anyone's cycles. The vast majority of girls at my school never missed PE for period-related issues so there would have been zilch to write down.

BartholinsSister · 06/12/2016 15:16

A lesbian adult is attracted to adult women, not underage girls

As is a heterosexual adult man, one would assume.

TheHiphopopotamus · 06/12/2016 15:16

found it very, very odd that people were petrified of getting in the shower

Have you actually read the thread? For fucks sake Hmm This isn't about getting in the shower, it's about the ritual humiliation of pubescent girls every fucking week.

amusedbush · 06/12/2016 15:17

I was at high school 2002 - 2008 and thankfully there was none of this. The only reason I know the showers at our school even worked was because one particularly vicious cow stole another girl's uniform from her peg, dumped it in the showers and turned the water on Angry

We just used to go to our next lessons smelly!