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 just discussed this with my 16yo DS and my mum. His school have showers but they are only used for after rugby matches - no showers after PE lessons and girls can wear tracksuit bottoms. He was horrified at mine and my mum's experiences of communal showers, spying teachers, period diaries and just doing PE and games in knickers- red ones for me, navy blue bloomers for mum. I never thought about it until now but I have never bought red knickers since leaving school- I wonder if it's a subconscious hatred? I can't imagine wearing any red ones at all.

Early 90s corridor of showers here too... but only with one PE teacher though, who had also taught my mum. The younger one didn't make us.

Older PE teacher also occasionally brought her dog in and thought it was hilarious to let it chase my friend, who was genuinely terrified of dogs

When life gets tough, sometimes I just sit down for a second and remind myself that no matter what happens, no one can ever make me go back to school.

Our school used to do this and we're quite strict on it unless you had a note. My mum wrote me one as I have extremely thick red hair that takes hours to dry and it would have been wet for the whole day. I was also extremely skinny and had absolutely no hint of boobs until 15 so would have hated it,

I vividly remember the shower area being all dark and 1960s

My PE teacher had also taught my mum too and there is 30 years between us

Our school also did this, but only from about 11-13, IIRC. The hockey changing room had horrible yellow tiled communal showers, and if you were one of the unlucky two girls designated to go and turn them all on, you had to walk around the giant cubicle naked with someone else, turning on the showers, whilst the teacher stood and watched.

The swimming pool cubicles were worse though. Nobody thought that it was not a good idea to put the girls' cubicles backtoback with the boys' cubicles, WITH PARTITION WALLS THAT DIDN'T REACH UP TO THE CEILING. you would look up and realise there were teenage boys standing on the bench in their cubicle to stare over the partition at you. Which is why all my schoolfriends and I can, some 28 years later, still get dressed and undressed without showing anything if we have to! Taking off your knickers whilst already wearing your swimming costume is a particular skill...

Rollonthesummer

Some of the girls had already been through, not all of them though. I was singled out. Not only in the showers, also in the actual PE lesson. Often told I was overweight, useless and I'd amount to nothing? I was last to be chosen on netball teams. It was horrific. Looking back I had absolutely no self worth or self esteem.

Same at my school in the early 90s - and don't forget if you didn't remember kit you had to wear someone's dirty knickers from the cupboard from hell...

I actually started working as a cleaner the year I left, and someone left as massive turd in the showers on the floor

As the victim of bullying this ritual humiliation went from being the only one with no boobs/hair to being the one with the biggest boobs/most hair. My mum wouldn't let me shave either.

Luckily as soon as I was able to I 'had a violin lesson' at the same time as PE.

In the 50s we had to have a 'shower towel' which was two towels made into a sort of tunic. Our showers were a sort of corridor. The teacher turned them on from outside and waited till they were warm then we all had to strip and go through the showers together collecting our towel at the other end. Teacher watched us in then stood at the end to see us come through. If you were having a period you were given a red cross in the register and excused showers.
Any more old DDGS pupils here?

DGGS that should be.

Oh god, on the subject of awful PE lessons! The same school made us do cross country across the local common. In PE skirts and pants, thin rugby shirts, and football boots. In a sleet and hailstorm. We were all freezing!

It took me until I was 30 to start to take any pleasure from exercise again, and I only exercise alone. Never with people. And I bloody well wear leggings

I was at school in the 70's and we had compulsory showers, we lined up and the games mistress stood at the end of the walk through showers and checked we had washed not just got wet.
We just accepted it but none of us really liked it except for a few very slim pretty sporty girls who's walked around nude for longer than they had to.
I work in a school now and still shudder when I walk past the gym and sports hall.

There was at least one lesbian member of PE staff in our school. Same one who seemed to like seeing all the girls in knicker shorts as often as she could

You actually think she got off on seeing 14 year old girls shower? Just because she was a lesbian and had relationships with adult women? I find that a bit offensive. If I had to watch a bunch of 14 year old boys shower or in shorts, I can hand on heart say that I would not get the remotest bit of pleasure out of it. It must have been hard enough being an out lesbian at a school in the 80's when prejudice was rife, without accusations of getting off on watching girls in their PE knickers.

Also, when I was at school, there were a number of 'lesbian' teachers. Except we didn't know whether they were lesbians- this was based on them having short hair and not being married. Those ladies put up with a huge amount of abuse, including many hysterical 14-year olds convinced that 'Miss fancies me and stared at my tits' type thing. I cringe now when I remember how teachers were treated back then (mid/late 90's). I would never, ever teach in a secondary school. I take my hat off to them for not telling the little shits to fuck off and walking out.

Oh and nobody showered at my secondary school. I had moved here from another country and I was repulsed by the fact that people just sprayed their sweat-smell with impulse body spray and went to sit in lessons all day. I tried to have a shower once but quickly realised that you got abused for trying to be hygienic. The teacher very rarely came into the changing room.

These stories sound EXACTLY like that scene of humiliation in the Magdalene Laundries film. How awful.

Horrible memories of communal showers here too.

OP, YANBU

I had exactly the same experience and it really did put me off exercise for many years.

I used to try to get out of PE just so I didn't have to have a shower. I was overweight and needed to exercise! I found it cruel how you had to present yourself to them naked, especially as I was a bit of a lump ( I was told I was like a 'sack of old potatoes' then they expected me to prance about in the nude!)

I think it was partly because my periods started when I was 10, I was worried about my period starting when I was naked in front of everyone.

I now have no problems being naked at the gym though, and I exercise a lot. In fact, I get annoyed by people who hide behind a towel to get changed at the gym!

I left school in 1997 we had the same. A long trough of showers, teacher sat in the corner making sure we all showered.

Grim.

That sounds horrible!! I showered a few times at school, but got picked on by a few of the other girls, so I never did it again. I did not learn to swim at all because of those girls, and I very rarely had a shower after PE. I developed anorexia and changed in the toilet instead! Did not have to show the teacher though, that sounds awful!

Same at our school (60's-70's).

I deliberately cultivated athlete's foot and a huge verruca to avoid the purgatory of the showers.

We had exactly the same at my comp (1984 - 1989). By 3rd year I decided no more humiliation and took myself off to the park for the whole year for every single PE lesson, as there where two groups in my year the teachers just thought I was in the other one. In my school report it always said I had made 'steady progress'.

I'd rather freeze my backside off on the park (or get caught for truancy) than run around in skimpy gym knickers and let 'The Perv' Miss Nicholson inspect my wet body.

hoolio, why do people trying to change discreetly annoy you? Is it your right to see their body? Would you prefer them not to go to the gym? What business is it of yours?

Similar at my school in the 80s. The teacher stood to watch with a clipboard to make sure you went in. I remember lots of people trying to just wear a towel and get their shoulders wet so it looked like you'd properly been in/got naked! It is awful looking back. Agree it's that sort of thing that made you dread PE/swimming at school.

The only way you could get out of it is if you had your period - this was also noted on the clipboard so you couldn't get out of a shower the next week. Fuck me, that's awful too.

They tried to do this to us in the early 90's but we were a rather stubborn bunch who collectively decided that we weren't showering in the open showers, or wearing gym knickers. After a bit of a stand off we were the first year group to be allowed to wear shorts or tracksuit bottoms for PE, and not shower if we didn't want to. I'm proud that we paved the way for future girls at our school, I hope they have private showers now.

Our changing rooms had showers but they were never used. The boys always had to shower. Apparently they were happy for the girls to smell but not the boys

I hated PE - and being forced to do it has given me a lifelong aversion to any kind of competitve sport. If they had said that we were free to walk around the block or field instead, I would have been perfectly happy.... it wasn't the activity so much as the getting cold / muddy / sweaty and the showing up my lack of natural ability in team sports which really knocked my confidence in all areas. No coincidence that the "popular" girls were the sporting successes.

Unbelievable! I started secondary school in 1996, there were ancient showers in our sports hall that were never used. Can't believe this was going on at so many schools at the same time!