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

[Flowersinyourhair]

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??

We didn't have to shower after PE. I wasn't brought up in Britain. From what I'm hearing recently, paedophilia is a massive problem in this country.

I think it is better today, Justaboy. I never saw anybody use the showers in my school and I started secondary in 1999. PE was freezing and I hated it, but we wore sweat pants or tracksuit bottoms and a school logo sweater over our polo shirts, so actually, not terrible as long as you were moving around (which I never did!) and the one time I sat out because of bad period cramps, it was treated sensitively and with privacy. Once we moved into year 10 we were allowed to choose from a small selection of sports and this was much better; I didn't have to endure hockey any more, I could choose trampolining or aerobics, along with the other less competitive girls which was nice.

If I think back hygeine was pretty lacking - we didn't shower after PE and I only used to have a bath once a week! I remember once getting my hair washed at the hairdressers' and my mum saying that I should "make the most of it" ie try and go as long as possible without washing my hair again

paedophilia is a massive problem in this country

I think a lot of countries have a problem with paedophilia, not just this one. But in the main, I don't think that this is what this is about.

It's about an adult in a position of authority having power over someone who is weaker and younger than them.

I married someone not from the UK and no longer live on it. While I don't think paedophilia is more prevalent in the UK I do think the way adults relate to children is a bit complicated.

I also remember the humiliation of having to do PE in vest and knickers in primary. I can't remember what the boys wore but have an awful feeling they may have had to do the lesson in pants alone

I was so, so glad the school mine went to had a proper PE kit from the get go although even then the list for girls included daisy dukes in the school colours. I refused to get them for Dd who did her lessons in football shorts. Like the boys.

I agree that child sex abuse is a huge problem all over the world.

It's a current hot topic in the UK because of recent successful convictions for historic offences, which has highlighted the extent to which trusted organisations were complicit in CSA and also the culture of hushing up / dismissing children's complaints and reports.

That means a huge rush of reports - fifty years' worth in five years, maybe - but not necessarily that the actual incidence is worse now than before, or worse here than anywhere else.

Deciding that children have worth and are human beings in their own right rather than an adjunct to or accessory of adults is a fairly new concept, legally speaking (Children Act perhaps?).

It's a bit like ...

School A says "we don't have a problem with bullying": this means "we ignore bullying".

School B gets in the papers for how it deals with its bullies : this means "we don't ignore bullying.

You hear an awful lot about the bullying at B but you'd rather send your children there than A.

Like that saying "power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely". These little Hitlers had absolute power over us, they were adults in positions of authority, we were terribly uncertain, new in a huge school and at a very vulnerable uncertain stage of life. The teachers also had endorsement from their employer (the school) and from the state to be as harsh as they wanted to be. So looks like most were, from Yorkshire to Somerset and everywhere in between. How fucking depressing.

I went to school in the 70s and 80s. 70s primary school we often had to wear pants and vests to do PE and I honestly dont remember feeling embarrassed or anything! We just did it.

At high school in the early 80s we always had showers after PE - just did it. Everyone did - yes the PE teacher was in the changing room too but she just stopped the mucking about. It never occurred to us not to do what we were told!

However by the time my sister got to the same high school 6 years later, showers were a thing of the past and many of the pupils were knowing their 'rights' and declaring a right not to shower.

I think the right not to strip naked if you don't want to is one of the most fundamental rights that we should have, no matter what age we are. I don't consider that to be a 'right' that should be open to debate. If a teacher told my child to strip naked I'd be reporting it as a crime.

When it came to showers I would be annoyed on the rare occasions when PE did resemble a workout not to have the option to shower but I am aware that adequate facilities cost money and maintenance. One way around this could be to timetable PE for the end of the school day so pupils don't have to change.

I dont think we have more of an acceptance of child sexual abuse in the UK than any other countries. What did happen was this culture of dominance and bullying by staff allowed the abusers to hide in plain sight.

From someone who didn't have to strip naked in public. I can say not having a shower straight after really wasn't an issue. I remember plenty of muddy legs after things like hockey (some would wash The mud of their legs with paper towels) wondering round school, and deodorant was lavished about with gay abandonment, Usually linx . Then once home get a proper shower with soap and shampoo.

By the sounds of this thread it wasn't as if people were/could wash properly anyway. So just a pointless humiliating task.

We didnt have the compulsory showers (introduced after I had dropped PE in 6th form, so I guess about 1977). BUT we were sent cross country runnng in tiny skirts, along a main road before we reached the park, with all the catcalls etc from drivers in their nice warm cars. On reaching the park if you were clever you could hide in the rhodendrons and smoke til the front runners came back up and then tag along... And yes to dancing in leotards with the dreaded sanitary belt things. And the horror of never being picked for a team. My school was all girls, catholic. And yes, I've always hated PE.

I still loathe all sport with a passion.
No communal showers for us but we had to do PE in our bare feet (why) which was horrible as the floor was kind of sticky from all the feet.

Also the PE teachers were just plain nasty

we had to do PE in our bare feet (why) which was horrible as the floor was kind of sticky

Oh this thread is dredging up all sorts of memories!! We had to do P.E. in our knickers and vest in the hall straight after lunch. The floor was never cleaned after the tables were put away, so I remember dancing around and getting bits of potato, and god knows what else, squished between my toes, shudder.

We did the p.e in knickers, vest and bare feet too. Up until year 2 (so about 6/7 I think?) when the school I attended actually introduced a pe kit. The only thing that really bothered me was the bare feet thing at that age, as I had and still have a thing about being bare foot and I felt that the hall floor was grotty (probably was).

I've no idea why if the school didn't have an actual pe kit, why they didn't just request parents bought in shorts and a t-shirt to change into instead? Like everything else mentioned in this thread it seems totally unnecessary and a way to show children 'who's boss'.

OP here- I'm happy to change the title but have no idea how to do it. Any help appreciated.

Op, I think you do it by reporting your post to Mumsnet and asking them to change it for you.

Ok. Will do.

BertieBotts From a few posts ago, well i as you may have gathered was at a comprehensive school and this was way back in 1963 to 69 some time ago now. Apart from the "bollock inspector" who was a perve we did shower together but by and large it was all good humoured generally there was a lot of ribbing on who's "tackle" would please/attract/excite etc the girls and make 'em scream or cry in what way god knows! but it was tolerated and taken quite well. Some bullying did take place in the showers but that took place elsewhere in school. Maybe men don't mind showering together?, there was a program on a mine closure showing men in a shower seemed they weren't getting upset by it.

However i do think with young girls its a different matter as several posters have shown here, yes we're all laid out much the same, yes we might look the same all naked but that's a total load of codswallop in my thinking. Here we have women in their formative vulnerable years being subject to such crappy treatment

Its such a shame that a simple thing as changing for sports PE, getting kitted out with gear that will ensure you don't freeze to death, is practical in use and then get washed and changed cannot be better managed,

Christ its not bloody rocket science is it?.

Hi there OP (and others). Just letting you know that we've edited the title of this thread as requested.