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 used to have to shower but could go in in a towel, we also had to be ticked off the list. This was 1996-1999 - I then moved schools!

Meant to add I also found it horrific, just not what you need at 13!!

Yes, the humiliating shower experience. Mine was in the late 80's to mid 90's. I got to 12 and started kicking off about it as I had started my period and and massive tits, remember proper stand up screaming arguments with staff as I refused.

What a humiliating, degrading horrific thing that was acceptable! Right at the time when we feel most vulnerable!

I've never gotten over been made an example of. I was so self conscious of my body. I had started puberty at 9, so I looked different to the other girls. I was forced to do a walk of shame through the open showers, stand and wash my parts. If I hadn't, everyone else would have missed breaktime? Tears streamed down my face, with all eyes on me.

I tried every excuse in the book to get out of PE, from not bringing my kit to saying I had my period.

Early to mid 90's - we had showers with cubicles but they were rarely used. We knew the PE teacher would suddenly pop up if we did so we just went home and showered instead.

Our school had 2 changing rooms - 1 for sports hall and 1 for field.

The sports hall had a walk through brick built shower in a horseshoe shape. We were always told we'd have to use it but never did.

Our sports field changing rooms had showers with curtains. There was a time we were made to shower but then it fizzled out and no one seemed to care! They had the bottom bit where you could just wash legs though so most of us did that anyway after field sports.

I remember having showers once, in what is now year 7, and never thereafter, apart from after swimming, when we kept on our swimming costumes on (I became very good at the "put the bra on over the towel then pull the towel down" trick).

It wasn't that the showers were optional or anything - we were given towels that first time and never saw towels again. I wonder if it was the school having to be seen to offer us showers after PE, and thought they would do it once in Year 7 when we were all little and wouldn't mind much and then forget all about it.

This was back in the 70s too, so no political correctness or care for your modesty in general society, looking back I think maybe my school got something right here.

I was school in the late 80s and early 90s. My secondary school was a fairly old building, I'd guess pre 1950s and I suspect the showers hadn't been updated once by the time I got there. They were communal and looked how you would imagine very old fashioned prison showers would look. Fortunately although our PE teachers always gave us very stern lectures about how we absolutely had to shower they never once checked that we had and they sat outside the changing room.

At a girl's grammar in 69-73 and we had communal showers. It was a bit embarrassing having to say when you had a period but in other ways quite good for me . We had no proper bathroom at home. No shower and a bath once a week as DF refused to use immersion heater. I had to wash in kitchen sink.

My primary school had lovely showers and we were allowed to use them from about yr 5 or 6 after pe. Separated cubicles by curtains and enough for us to have one each etc. My secondary school had individual tiled cubicles with a dry area in front of each one. We could shower and change in total privacy, but had about 10 between 15 girls, so had to be quick. I had never realised that this was unusual. Both bog standard state schools.

Then my family moved. My new secondary school had a completely open shower 'area' that was viewable by the completely open changing area. Nobody ever used it. The water was never on. Apparently it only had cold, and the teachers didn't think we should have to go through it, so had just stopped doing it. There wasn't a period register (that is horrendous!), and my main gripe was having to go out in the cold underdressed, and not being given enough time to change afterward and getting bollocked by the teacher of the next class. Surely it was obvious when we were all late back that this was actually not within our power?? I remember being so slow at cross country, I missed more than half of my next class. What was I supposed to do? I am slow at running, it wasn't a surprise! And yet somehow I was supposed to have 'managed my time better'. Bizarre attitude.

We did communal showers, but no register. I remember being more embarrassed that I hadn't sprouted boobs yet.

Late 80s/Early 90s here. Was the same at my schools. They were both set up in a way that you went through in a sort of conveyor belt area. At the time I used to hate it because you'd spend so long having to queue naked if you didn't time it right then be freezing again until you retrieved your towel. Now I'm at it all.

Though I had a conversation with a male friend about the difference between the men's and women's dressing rooms at our local gym. The women are quite discrete, the men apparently aren't. He says he has seen things that cannot be unseen.

Same here. Showers in a row on both sides of the wall and we had to line up naked and walk through one at a time whilst the pe teacher watched. I was overweight and mortified.

We still had to have showers in our school in the late 90's, well we did when we had one of two PE teachers, it was awful and definitely put me off PE. I was quite a late developer and these showers were just hell and encouraged body shaming from the mean girls. I remember a lot of talk of this particular PE teacher being a 'perv' etc, to be honest looking back now I can't believe teachers were prepared to put themselves in the awkward position of walking into a shower full of pre and teen girls!!

I remember the showers , it was a horrible and humiliating experience . The towels were at the end , so no using them to cover up , oh and they weren't much bigger than a face cloth any way so even once you got one , they didn't cover much flesh .

Reminds me of the age old adage ' What doesn't kill you , probably fucks you up '

i was an early developer only 3 of us had started our periods/wore bras, and of course everyone knew, i only remember one shower and an awful fat girl kicked my towel across the floor and i had to run naked for it, after that I had a permanent verruca, hence no shower, this was 1977 - 82

i wonder when they got rid of them and what they think of it all now? it really was grim

We had this too. I was at secondary school from 82-87

We had 2 PE teachers, one used to stand at each end of the showers to make sure we went in and got properly wet. The one at the exit end had the register and we used to have the red P for period too. They'd loudly query it with you if it wasn't exactly 4 weeks since the last one.

There was one girl in our year who was really shy, she probably had anxiety looking back, she was a carer for her disabled mum and she really, really hates PE and showers. One day she got dressed and said she wasn't having a shower. The teachers locked the changing room door and wouldn't let any of us out until, she did, so she went through in her school uniform, and sat on the bench dripping wet, sobbing. I'll never forget that, the evil cunts

Same experience here - massive comprehensive school during early 90s. I HATED PE because of this and we all knew at the time it was 'wrong' (as well as the general humiliation of not getting picked for teams). It took me 20 years to realise I actually could enjoy exercise on my own terms when I took up running.

Off topic I know, but even now my 9 year old daughter hates PE and finds it humiliating - thankfully she enjoys dancing, so I'm hoping it won't put her off all forms of exercise the way it did me.

We weren't forced to shower, thankfully, I simply wouldn't have in any case. It was rare for me to do PE, always had an excuse.

Our PE teachers were mostly just fucking horrible. One of the PE teachers was lesbian and would have the girls pose in some very questionable positions doing 'exercise' that I've never ever seen anywhere before - I saw her ogling and refused to do it.

The boys had it far worse, the male PE teachers were just beyond evil. I remember on one occasion I'd lingered behind in the changing rooms and caught the beginning of the boys lesson in the gym hall. There was a lad who was rather overweight and the PE teacher shouted at him to take his top off in front of everyone which he did, red faced and trying to cover his body. He pointed to his naked upperhalf and declared to the rest of the boys that this is what they would look like if they didn't take part in regular exercise. I think the boy (who was in my year) caught my eye as I was stood in the door way. The humiliation was so evident on his face and I could see he was fighting back tears. I'm so angry with myself now for not shouting out about it, I was known for having 'outbursts' if I felt something wasn't right but I think I knew at the time if I'd have made a big issue out of it it could have prolongued the lads embarrassment.

no showers at my school.
except in the pool.
no1 showered.
we shared various bottles of impulse and thought we were the height of amazing smelling cool.
we were not!
the PE teacher would stand outside the changing room door and we had 3 minutes to change and if you weren't changed the teacher would come in.
it was an efficient system.

my dh was made to shower and watched by his pe teacher. who is now in prison for sexual abuse of a minor.

I never saw anybody using the showers at my school in the early 00s. The changing rooms were a fug of impulse so you could barely breathe.

The showers were accessible from the changing room and had a solid wall in the middle so some girls would take their things around and change behind the wall. There wasn't any other privacy in the changing room, just hooks and benches.

FairyCaravan, that's horrible :(

I don't remember any pervy teachers in my school. I didn't like any of the PE teachers but that was just because I was awful at sports.

Jesus we never had to do that! But I went to convent schools, they were definitely not into hippie acceptance of your body.

We also had to do this. It's quite unbelievable really.

Yes, absolutely horrible. And designed, I think, to humiliate and to 'show who is boss'. We were also forced to wear extremely skimpy PE knickers, while a male teacher leered at us. We all knew it wasn't right, and he was later sent to gaol for grooming underage girls. Another teacher - separate case - also went down a few years earlier.

Sexual assault was a daily part of school life. We all thought it was normal at the time. Even though the shower thing was 'women only', I can't help but see it as on a continuum with the inappropriate sexual behaviour - as a way of disciplining and humiliating young girls. I'm pretty sure that kind of behaviour was one of the reasons none of us spoke out at the time about what was happening to us - it normalised things.