My 7th grade experience in Great Falls Montana included showering at the end of Gym class. Very traumatic for me (I got locked in the football equipment locker by the other boys. At least I was dressed).
When I moved to California shortly thereafter, showering was not required.
This would have been 89-93.
ew ew
Not showering after PE. I could not imagine going to the next class all sweaty.
large school, the coaches would keep an eye out to be sure all the guys did shower.
As for time the coaches normally gave us enough time. One of the coaches started to cut the time down. Solution I still showered and was late to my next class. Had to go to the admin office to get a late admit slip. When they tried to make it a unexcused late we refused to take them because it was the coaches fault, and my dad backed me. 1 day there were about 15 of us, 2nd day 30, 3 day 50, 4 day an anouncement made that we would be sent to the showers in time.
Weirdly, we didn’t. Homophobic 1980’s central US boys.
Of course. We were on a 4 block schedule, so PE lasted about an hour and a half - plenty o time to change and get cleaned up. I can’t remember if it was mandatory. A lot of us were three sport athletes and ended up showering again after practice each afternoon as well. There were a few dweebs that didn’t shower, and we’re about as popular as raging B.O. and greasy zits could be. And there were a couple of odd ducks who wore swim trunks in the shower too. Everyone else was naked, and the cheapo towels the school provided weren’t long enough to get a good wrap-n-tuck around even a skinny waste, so most guys didn’t even bother with that when going to and from the showers. No one cared - even the outnumbered/few uncircumcised gents didn’t have to feel awkward about it.
The homophobia was THICK in my locker room, too - but that’s what allowed everyone to walk around naked and shower. Meaning, no one dared comment about someone else - because then they could be accused of looking and thousand other implications.
They didn’t give us time, and the showers are in disrepair, anyway. I saw plenty of cock in high school during weigh-ins for wrestling, though.
Female, Canadian schools in the mid-80’s to mid 90’s. We were supposed to shower but generally didn’t. There wasn’t enough time and we were all too embarrassed to take our clothes off in front of each other - I even remember mastering the technique of taking one T-shirt off while simultaneously putting another one on, to minimize the naked time.
On one occasion when we had a double period of gym (so almost 2 hours), my friend and I were quite sweaty and decided to brave the showers. We got in there and promptly the fire alarm went off and the gym teacher came running in yelling at us to get out of the school. Thus my friend and I ended up outside our school, with about 800 other students, wearing nothing but towels. Embarrassment level for me at age 15 - astronomical. No thoughts of showering ever crossed my mind after that.
In elementary school in Canada I attended a private school on the British public model, so showers were always taken after sports, and of course they were taken in the nude (in fact swimming was also in the nude).
For my last year of elementary school I transferred to the public system, where there were no showers. It was gross.
In public high school, there were showers, but seldom was enough time given to use them (I showered anyway and damn the delay), and very few of the students used them. Some of my fellow students truly stank. They didn’t get a lot of dates either.
We never showered after PE.
American female, graduated high school in 94.
Showering was mandatory after swimming, which was only in middle school. And no one got naked during it - we just rinsed off in our swimsuits. Otherwise, never. Our high school gym technically had showers attached to the changing room, but they didn’t even bother to turn on the lights in that part.
Female, class of '96. We never had time to shower. We only did after swimming, and then it was only to wash our hair and warm up after being in that nasty cold pool. And besides, we were still in our bathing suits. (Once, our MALE gym teacher stuck his head in to tell us to turn off the water already. Even though we were still in our suits, it was still way creepy!)
As for being smelly-everyone washed up in the sinks, and brought deodorant.
We had showers but didn’t usually use them (grades 7 through 12, jr. and sr. high school, 1969 - 75). For one thing, there was only cold water. I remember that during the eighth grade class officer elections, one guy’s main platform was that showers would be optional. (He won).
It really wasn’t such a big “ew”. The vast majority of the time one never got sweaty enough for it to be a problem. It was no worse than when younger kids are let out to play games at elementary school.
We had showers in my high school, but then again, you only had 7 minutes to get back to the locker room, change, and get to your next class. Good luck showering.
We had showers in middle school and high school but not once did I ever see someone use one. It was straight-up unthinkable. Semi-rural NC, class of '99.
Jr. high and high school from early to mid-80’s. Smallish private school (about 100 students per grade level)
PE was a required class up through 10th grade. Can’t speak for the girls but we were required to take showers. I don’t recall any locker room trauma. Like mentioned above, the *last *thing a guy wanted to do was mention something about someone’s package. Maybe some guys felt weird about it, but we were all in the same situation.
Frankly, I don’t think I could have stood going to class all funky. Our PE was hard core. We ran laps every day, in addition to whatever else was on the schedule.
Never for anyone in the school, and my PE classes, too, did not exactly get us all sweaty. We had it first period, and no one ever stank or looked dirty.
Valete,
Vox Imperatoris
ETA: And I would not use them if I could at all avoid it, in any case. That’s just not something I want to do.
I see that I left unanswered one part of your question. No, we (guys) weren’t terribly uptight about seeing each other nude, or being seen. As I said it was the temperature of the water that made us uncomfortable, and not the nudity. It’s probably hard for an Icelander to understand how a cold shower could ever be unpleasant in Los Angeles, but it’s a question of what you’re used to I suppose.
My impression is that younger people nowadays, or at least males, have become far more modest. I’ve seen young twenty-somethings at health clubs change under a towel wrapped around them, and wear trunks into the shower. Though not everyone does that by any means.
None of the schools I attended even had showers. I don’t know if it was different for the guys. We had gym clothes to change into and no one even got really sweaty or anything.
Class of 2000 here. I think I remember seeing another boy go into the showers after gym class once…
No, we didn’t shower. In their more sadistic moments, my parents would sometimes try to convince me that doing so would be necessary. To say I was relieved when that turned out not to be the case would be an understatement.
There is absolutely no way I would have gotten naked in front of a bunch of my classmates.
Female, school in the 90’s in America.
We never showered, but did sweat from time to time. I am pretty sure the boys had to shower - at least in high school.
Female here- in school 80s/early 90s. We had showers in our middle/high school locker rooms, but little time or inclination to use them (except during swimming units- then it was required.) We did actual physical activity during P.E., so we ended up all smelling funky after. Relevant fact: this was in Miami, FL.
My elementary school didn’t even have showers, or a changing room (the building was a historic one from the 20s and as such was missing a few modern luxuries). We didn’t dress out for P.E., just wore our normal clothes. Oh, and our classrooms DIDN’T HAVE AIR CONDITIONING OR CEILING FANS. In MIAMI. Oh yes, the funk was awful.