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??

Just adding to my comment re communal baths for DH in boarding school - he said that the teachers used to get in as well... He said the showers would have been worse, because then you were all exposed. At least in the baths you were covered up by the water...

Communal baths used to be common for football teams lots of pictures of FA cup winners drinking champagne in giant baths. Does this still happen? Seems less innocent with the football abuse scandal.

Same here. Welsh Grammar school in the early eighties. It was very traumatic. I dreaded every or lesson as I was a late developer and when my periods started they were irregular for a couple of years. The teacher often didn't believe me and I was reduced to tears at times as I had to beg her to believe me. In the end I was reported to the headmistress who rang my mother to confirm I had irregular periods. The PE teacher would sneer at me when I couldn't shower.

bertrand

I would have preferred a teacher to be present. It would have reduced the bullying (male).

liz70 I'm in my 40s and I have never stripped to my bra in front of another person (except my husband!) almost certainly due to my experience in school changing rooms. I was an early developer, and I remember the class bitch constantly commenting on it and demanding that I tell her my bra size. Even now, with friends who I know would never comment negatively on my body, I can't bear to get changed in front of them. A few months ago I went to a spa day with close friends and when I went into the changing rooms and discovered that there were no cubicles I felt sick. I had flashbacks to school.

Brings it all back, it was horrendous

We had to strip naked, leave our clothes and towel on a peg, then walk to the showers. I was bullied terribly at school and the teacher would turn a blind eye when I'd get flicked all over with a wet towel during the walk of shame.

I had my pants stolen all the time, as I was deemed too 'babyish' to need them!! Or my bra straps would be cut in two.

The teachers were the worst though, they just ignored it all

I know the school I work in has seperate cubicles. But thats a 7 year old building.

I had to do this, late 80s, early 90s. Corridor of showers we had to run through and yes if not considered wet when we came out had to go again. Nobody actually showered, there was no soap or shower gel involved so pointless.

What the hell was the boys cough test for? I remember my brother having it, dr cups the balls and they cough??

What the hell was the boys cough test for? I remember my brother having it, dr cups the balls and they cough??

I think it was to see if you had "Homosexual Tendencies"?

Or to check if you didn't have lumpy balls tumours etc.

I thought it was to check that testes had descended?

To see if you had homosexual tendencies?! It's so clear how much we all just accepted what was being done to us without any knowledge of why it was being done. No wonder abuse was so widespread. There simply wasn't any questioning of authority. It's why at least 2 women on this thread experienced an adult's hands down their pants for no actual reason, and didn't question it at the time. Absolutely horrific. It IS abuse.

By the way, I think the cough/ball part of the boys' medical was to check for undescended testicles. I'm not quite sure why they didn't trust boys to report any problems themselves. After all they are the ones who are used to how they feel.

The cough test is to check for hernias, a legitimate part of a medical but humiliating ( I would imagine) in public.

Hernia.

I left secondary school 10 years ago and we still had communal showers. I once got questioned by a PE teacher that my hair didn't look like I'd been in the shower, I said I hadn't and got excluded for 3 weeks for it!! After that I believe the girls had to do a 'wetness test' for a good while before too many parents claimed it was inappropriate.

I never did PE again..

I still remember my P.E. 'mistress' with a deep seated hatred.

I was at school in the seventies, and yes, naked showering was compulsory. If you were deemed to be not wet enoigh, you were sent back in. The male and female PE teachers were married and it was not at all unusual for him to pop into our changing rooms to 'have a word'. Cue shrieks from the naked and half naked girls - we were told to stop being so bloody ridiculous, get ourselves dried, and get out in the next 5 minutes.
I usually dressed whilst still wet.

The reason i hated my PE teacher most though was her overwhelming desire to humiliate. We were doing PE in the gym hall, boys and girls together. Cannot remember what we were actually doing - British Bulldogs, or something like that. Whatever it was, i was first out and she yelled 'OUT, tooold, better improve next week when you're not on the rag'.
I was 13 at the time and mortified.

We did cross countries in ice and snow, wearing just navy blue knickers and a vest. Why??

Our school was even worse - the teacher used to get in the shower too and wander round the changing room naked. I remember my mum being horrified when I told her that!!

We also had to do star jumps as part of gym warm up, which I hated. We were told to untuck our tshirts from our gym skirts before we started warm up, so that the teacher could tell we were doing it properly. If our tshirts didn't rise up when jumping then we weren't putting enough effort in and would get detention if it continued.

I always had the biggest norks in the class and it was so painful jumping up and down wildly so that I didn't get detention.

The teacher was a lesbian (and out, in a relationship with another teacher), and one day one of the 'hard' girls in the class refused to do the jumps and told the teacher to 'go get her lesbian kicks somewhere else'. Not long after that, the teacher was moved to teach boys PE. Rumour had it that hard girls mum actually complained to the head teacher.

The more I think about it all, it was abuse. It was awful.

Having to put up with all this hideousness really blurred the lines of what's socially acceptable and not. No wonder people didn't bother to speak up about historic abuse.

You hear a lot of people complain that children of today don't accept authority, are too quick to to say they know their rights or complain to parents. Thank god as in the past a lot of us put up with behaviour from adults that was the perfect cover for abuse. Adult teachers showering or bathing with children, even in the 80s that would have been seen as wrong but obviously men and women got away with it.

Mud: I think our experiences are EXACTLY the reason for the current generation of kids who won't automatically kow tow to authority. We as their parents have seen the light and know goddamn well that some teachers are often little Hitlers.

I think things have gone too far the other way though, and it all seems to be the fault of the culture of the 70s, 80s and 90s. If things had been sensible then, we would have brought our own kids up to respect authority but to always question things which didn't seem fair. There would have been more of a balance. Instead, a lot of kids and their parents immediately see school as the enemy. You can understand why.

Indeed, one of our lesbian teachers was living with a sixth form girl. My mother remarked casually that she thought it was inappropriate but it continued for several years, so certainly no official notice was taken.

The same teacher also used the parents evening to talk about my attractive appearance instead of my academic prowess

This happened to me too. State comprehensive in South Wales, 1974 to 1981.

We knew when we were in primary school that we would have to have showers after games in secondary school and we were all terrified by the idea. I dreaded the move when I should have been looking forward to the new school.

I was a slightly plump child and very, very self conscious and I would cry myself to sleep the on the nights before games lessons.

A poster above has made me wonder however, was one of the reasons for doing this a way to look out for the abused or anorexic child?

Leotards and sanitary towels too. I'd forgotten all about that nightmare thankfully.