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??

I am utterly utterly horrified by this-I am older than most mumsnetters and I associate this sort of experience with people older than me- I must have been incredibly lucky. I am shocked that it was still going on in the 80/90s.

And my mother bought me tampons in the early 70s...most of my friends used them too. Once again- I was very lucky.

I am so very sorry that so many people went through this.

Secondary state comp '81 - '86 West London.

We had to do the 'prove you'd showered' thing. We had the period diary too. I found that even more intrusive than the compulsory showering tbh and never mentioned mine. I got on ok with tampons and was lucky to not to bleed too heavily.

When i got to the last couple of years of secondary i used to start bunking off PE. Used to get on a bus and go to Ealing Broadway shopping centre

I left high school in 1993. All through middle and high we were made to que up and then walk slowly through the showers after PE. It was horrific. I hated it as much as the other girls did.

The "practise" fire alarms and would always conveniently go off during those times.

One parent reported that there were rats in the PE block so we escaped it one week.. the head called an assembly and we all got told off for telling our parents there was a rat infestation and the school were checked out for it.

PE has filled me with a hatred for sports and gym showers since.

Out of curiosity, are schoolgirls not showering after PE now a days? Or is it just the checking that is not happening?

My Mother was incredibly supportive, thank goodness, and after the ghastly incident with my classmate (page 15 if interested) she would write a note to the PE teacher when I had my period and most other mothers started to follow her example. Ridiculous to keep period diaries, as how many young girls are regular when they first start. It was a mixed school, one of the first comps, and we all lived in fear that we would have an accident and that the boys would notice. And yes, I'd forgotten how horrific it was with the thick pads and only navy blue knickers for modesty. Come on PE teachers where the hell are you! Mine must be in their 90s or dead but there must be others out there.

Same here. It was awful.

sorena 3 of my daughters have finished secondary school. None of them had to shower at school.

I was at a state school from 91-96 when I experienced the naked communal showers. It was a completely open shower which was visible from the changing room. There were no cubicles or shower curtains.

My teachers would only be in their late 50's now!

From reading about others who have stated that this continued in the 2000's, there will undoubtedly be a lot of P.E. teachers still very much alive and able to comment.

I shudder to remember the showers at my school. We were forced to strip naked and hang our clothes and towels on a peg, then walk from there to the showers, which were in a different area of the changing rooms. If anyone kept their towel wrapped around them, the teachers would stop them, remove the towel and make them walk to the showers naked like the rest of us.

It was an excruciatingly embarrassing experience for the likes of me, who was not only very shy but also very lacking in confidence generally.

This was in the early '70s.

I've just remembered having pe in first year the day after my first period started and self conscious and doubled up with cramps, having to do gymnastics in those navy knickers.
I tried to explain to the teacher that I'd like to sit out and she was having none of it.

Our PE teachers were very much of a type and you would not have dared mess with them. I know several PE teachers these days and they're nothing like that lot. Thank Christ.

laiste thanks. Depends on the country I guess. In my country we had to shower, in communal showers, naked, but again very liberal country. In sixth form no one would check, but everyone still showered. Might as well.

Trouble is-I am also not happy with teenagers doing sport then getting dressed over sweaty, muddy bodies and going back into school. But there isn't an alternative, is ther

I have to say, so strong was my lack of enthusiasm for PE that i can confidently say i never produced a single solitary bead of sweat during a PE lesson.

Sweating with dread just before it, maybe.

Both my children, DD and DS had to do this at their school. To be honest we are a very liberal family and nudity was never frowned upon at our house so it didn't really affect them and I see showering after sport as normal. However they did say that many were embarrassed.

Trouble is-I am also not happy with teenagers doing sport then getting dressed over sweaty, muddy bodies and going back into school. But there isn't an alternative, is ther

The alternative would be separate shower cubicles. I don't think anyone on this thread (as has been said many times already) has an actual problem with getting in the shower.

Private shower cubicles would be cost money though. Does anyone who has children in a shiny new academy know if the showers are communal or private?

In my year was a girl with six older brothers.
Unlike our parents, who couldn't bring themselves to contemplate the truth, these older teens/ young men actually listened to her complaints and understood what was going on.
They told her what to do, next time Miss R made us strip and then perved over us, which was to shout Fuck Off at her as loudly as possible. (We were a very polite all girls school, we didn't swear even amongst ourselves, this was unbelievably rude. A fairly major crime was to turn round in morning assembly, for example)

One glorious day, this girl actually did this. The teacher beat a hasty retreat. We waited for the world to end, we really did. We waited for the Pe teacher to return with the head mistress, breathing fire. We thought she would be expelled.

Nothing happened. Nothing at all was ever said. That teacher left for pastures new. I wonder where she went next.

God I couldn't pass this thread without commenting, I went to school in the early 00s and we had to do this too. All in together with the teacher checking on us. Our PE teacher was so weird too. She used to pull our tops and shorts open to make sure we were the correct underwear. Looking back now it was so inappropriate. She also didn't believe some of the girls about their periods sometimes too. If she deemed you had, had a period too recently you would be forced to shower anyway. I remember one girl bleeding in the shower and being mortified. In the end one of the mums got wind and went ballistic. Things got better, but it was crazy.

Yep, all of this brings the horror back to my mind again. I was in secondary school in the late '70s to mid-'80s. Communal showers and changing rooms, standing in line to reportto the PE teacher, PE teacher checking you were wet, announcing that you had your period so they could mark it in the book, etc. I was a late developer and found the whole thing excruciating.

I don't have an issue with nudity or the concept of showering after exercise at all. It doesn't mean I want to get naked in front of all and sundry though, and I certainly wasn't comfortable with teachers grilling me about my period or determining whether I passed or failed at showering. Some of the stories on here are awful, e.g. being asked to show sanitary towels in situ. Wtf.

Bertrand, I left my state school 6th Form in 1984 and although I hadn't had anything to do with school PE for two or three years, it was definitely still going on.

Bertrand, yes, mine was a state comprehensive school, too.

All this sounds like some nightmare parallel universe to me. Heck, I remember being too shy to even be seen in my bra when getting changed after P.E. I think that if anybody had tried to force me to undress completely in front of other people, I would have flipped, become hysterical. Hypothetical situation because it never happened, but I would have loathed it.

DH has just reminded me that when he was in boarding school, after PE they didn't have showers, they had to have shared baths - three in a bath - all muddy after playing rugby etc.

YY. At middle school and high school, mid 80s to early 90s. Hated it.