As a 16-year-old European exchange student in the early 1980s, I spent three months at a high school in Illinois and four months at one in Wisconsin, and at both schools back in 1982 it was still compulsory for us boys to attend swimming lessons naked. The first time I was in the locker room with the US boys and had put on my swimming briefs and flip-flops to go to the pool, as is customary in Europe, my partner student pointed out to me that we had to swim naked and asked me to pull down my swimming briefs. At first I asked in disbelief whether this was a joke, but he denied it and after I saw that my classmates were all stripping naked, or had already done so, I took off my swimming briefs again. Finally, he told me that I also had to be barefoot, as we were only allowed to enter the showers and swimming pool barefoot, so I took off my flip-flops too. I found this unusual, but it wasn’t unpleasant or even humiliating, after all we were all naked. After I had also stripped off stark naked in accordance with the rules, all 16 of us went into the swimming pool, where we lined up in a semi-circle around the teacher. It was very relaxed and unagitated, nudity during swimming lessons was seen as completely normal, accepted and not questioned, neither by the pupils nor the teacher. The USA at that time was anything but prudish.
I immediately noticed how relaxed they were about nudity: the teacher greeted us and especially me as a new exchange student in class with words that I still remember today: „Hello Axel, welcome to our class! Nice to meet you! And above all, it’s great that you’re not coming to the pool in swimming trunks and flip-flops like the previous European exchange students, but as you should and as is compulsory for you boys here at school: barefoot and with your bare ass!“ All the boys laughed uproariously at this statement, and while they were laughing, he had looked at my body and obviously also at my genitals, and added visibly astonished and quite openly: “But hey Axel, what’s that? You don’t have a foreskin! You have a circumcised penis! Guys, apart from Axel, have you ever seen a circumcised penis on a European exchange student?” The fact that boys from Europe can also be circumcised like US boys obviously didn’t fit into the world view of Americans at the time and was immediately noticed. The teacher’s statement then led to all the boys in the class openly and unabashedly looking at my penis during this swimming lesson and I was often asked about it. But that was it. I took it in my stride and found it unusual, but ultimately not unpleasant, let alone humiliating or degrading, as I was confident enough for that. It was typical behavior for 16-year-old boys.
From that day on, it was completely normal for me to attend swimming lessons at school naked. It was no big deal, normal and customary, according to the rule: other countries, other customs. And there’s no doubt that the 16 of us boys were never as relaxed, calm, sociable and companionable as we were during swimming lessons when we were all stark naked. To pick up on the teacher’s words: with bare asses we were all the same and I never had the impression that any of my classmates felt uncomfortable or humiliated because they had to be naked, everyone was completely relaxed and even with those with whom you normally had less contact or didn’t get on well, it was easy during swimming. When all 16 boys in the class were completely naked, we really were a team. From this point of view, the obligation to swim naked during my student exchange at the US schools was an absolutely good and positive experience.
I’m glad it was for you, Sports67 (and welcome to the Dope!). I can’t imagine a teacher commenting on my junk, though. Ye gods. 
You’re right, of course – up until that point I couldn’t have imagined such a statement from a teacher too and I was also perplexed and probably had a fiery red head. But he was obviously really surprised that I, as a European, and even more so from a German-speaking country, had a circumcised penis: it was quite obvious and he reacted unprofessionally in his surprise. But as I said, I „survived“ and put it away. However, he was not alone in his astonishment: the classmates at both high schools were just as astonished as the doctors I had to see for my school check-up. As I said, a blond, blue-eyed European from a German-speaking country with a circumcised penis obviously didn’t fit into the US world view of the time. But I got through it unscathed.
As long as you did that research, it would also be interesting to know how many of those resurrections were done by first time posters. Like today. I assume they all searched the internet on the topic and this thread came up. Why did they search on this topic, is what I wonder about.
I did the research 7 years ago so I really couldn’t tell you. 
Were you humiliated by your classmates and by the gym teacher when you were naked and 12 years old? We all were, including the guy who had no dick.
Our gym teacher in those days loved to watch naked 12-year-old boys in the shower. And it was a rule that we had to shower naked after gym class, under the supervision of our teacher. It was creepy. No, more than creepy, it was perverted.
Ill will towards the gym teachers? Damn right, because they caused us all humiliation. I grew to hate gym class, and gym coaches. Playing touch football was fine, and I could deal with soccer, but apparently, if you weren’t naked at some point of your day …
Oh, forget it. Gym coaches want to see young boys naked. That’s it.
Welcome to the Dope. A couple of things in your post don’t make sense to me.
In my experience and understanding, individual gym teachers did not establish the rules about swimming nude. These were administrative decisions, made by administrators. The reason I was told at the time was that it kept the water cleaner and taxed the filters less, due to the lack of cloth in the pool. I suspect this was a leftover from the days of woolen bathing suits (I have a photo of my father in the early 40s in such a suit).
In what universe did the students get to vote on whether they liked swimming nude, so that the majority could rule? What changed over time was the attitude of parents and general society, who found the practice odd and complained to the school about it.
As for ill will towards the teachers, as @Spoons has so clearly pointed out, that would be on a case by case basis, depending on how the teachers handled things. Guys who had bad/weird teachers are more likely to write about their experiences in a negative way.
6 posts were merged into an existing topic: GymCoach trolling nude swimming posts
How many Phys Ed teacher who implemented nude swimming policies do you think post here?
I refer to my post upthread (from over eight years ago!) and this still sounds like a dispatch from an alternate universe to me. Particularly since I joined my high school swim team in Illinois in the fall of 1983, and the idea of swimming nude in a pool with other people present sounds completely insane to me. We also had a swimming unit in high school a year later as part of the PE program that all students were required to take, and swim suits were universally worn there as well.
In addition, I went swimming at two different Boy Scout camps from 1982 to 1986 in Tennessee and Wisconsin, and nude swimming never happened there either. Indeed, I have lived all over the U.S., am an excellent swimmer, and have gone swimming countless times, but have never swam in any body of water in my entire life (including pools, lakes, ponds, and the ocean) in the nude. I have always worn a swim suit.
I even went swimming at a couple of beaches in the French Riviera (albeit more recently), and didn’t see anyone swimming nude there either.
This thread must be in the same territory as the ‘Stewart Sandwiches’ thread for unique bumps.
While I never swam nude in gym class, I have done so many times is less structured settings. On camping trips, with friends, at nude beaches, in Lake Washington late one night, and once with a young woman who had the key to the college pool building.
I’m sorry you feel you haven’t been given a warm welcome. You are, after all, asking us to accept your accounts and assertions on this topic without any citations other than your word for it. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it is not consistent to complain when other people do the same thing.
Most of the posts here seem to me (although I haven’t counted) to be first-hand experiences of students who either did or did not have to swim nude, and/or who had good or okay or bad experiences doing so. Those accounts deserve as much respect as yours.
Other gym teachers are certainly welcome to post on the subject, and I wish they would. No-one is stopping them.
This thread is almost 20 years old.
Some of the people who posted in it have actually passed away in real life.
It’s a bit too late for them to all apologize.
I grew up in the 60’s. As I mentioned, ny only eperience with nude swimming was in a summer camp, at a YMCA facility (I think it was) in 1962, and I thought it was weird then. I remember I asked my dad about it after, and he gave the old filter excuse. Since my school had no pool nor access to one nearby, I have no experience with that in elementary or high school. Indeed, I thought it was luxury overspending when I heard that a new high school built nearby in about 1967 included a pool, but it was a large place, actually a Junior High next to a Senior HIgh (first time I heard of those terms, too). In all my years before and since, I never heard of this being a thing, excpet the UofToronto Hart House men’s athletic facility pool - which went co-ed and required swimsuits a few years before I got there. Even then at the time, nude swimming it seems was considered a relic og a bygone era. I suprprised so many of you young whippersnappes also go the experience.
Some of them had ugly experiences, and were understandably bitter and angry. I don’t suppose any of that was ever directed at you, personally.
Nor should they, if they were describing things that really happened. We are not here primarily to avoid treading on toes.
A couple of points of common practice around here, that may not be written down in the rules. 1. If you find a post offensive or out of place for the forum, you should flag it for a moderator to look at. Click the little 3-dot menu, click the Flag icon, and select Other to describe your issue. 2. In this forum, once the question has been answered, there is a wider latitude for other types of answers. I went back and read the first 50 posts or so, which covered at least 4 thread revivals, and they are all factual and don’t use emotional language. So someone getting emotional many years later is not likely to get any censure from a moderator. But if you want to flag the post anyway, the moderator will reply eventually and explain their response.
My final comment on this subject to you is that your sensitivity about criticism of other people in your profession does not make sense to me. You seem to be taking it personally. There is no reason for you to do that.
Now I’m done. Feel free to get the last word in.
I remember one time at the end of gym class, I asked where the gym teacher was.
One of the other boys replied: «In the shower room, checking out the guys’ dinks.»
That’s what we thought of it.
I had one, and only one, gym teacher that I respected and liked. He didn’t come into the shower room. In fact, I don’t think we even had to have showers when he was the teacher.
He also didn’t let the jock boys pick the teams, which was an exercise in humiliation if you were always picked last, as I was.
The first day, to select teams, he told us to line up against the wall and then he just walked down the line, tapping us each on the shoulder and saying « one, two, one, two » as he tapped us. Then he said «okay, team 1 starts at that end of the gym, team 2 starts at the other end.»
And that was how he picked teams for the entire year.
He was the last gym teacher I had, because the next year gym was elective and I never signed up for it, or any extra/curricular sports. I just associated sports with failure and humiliation, based on the way gym teachers « taught » gym.
If their goal was to inspire kids to like physical activity, they failed miserably in their profession.
Now you know why I took up competitive rifle shooting. When you can put five shots through the middle of a dime at 50m without touching the edge, and using only iron sights, nobody messes with you.
Many years of gun safety training taught me that you never, ever threaten anybody with a firearm. There are prescribed protocols for how a rifle may be carried on the range, and shot. But the bullies didn’t know that. Heh-heh-heh. 
Anyway, as long as we have @GymCoach here, I wonder if we can ask why students don’t or can’t get credit for sports done outside school? It seems to me that students who participate outside of school in things that high school gym classes don’t typically teach, such as figure skating, rifle shooting, tennis, and squash, should get credit for gym class. If they can launch and land a triple Axel or are likely heading for Wimbledon, why are you making them play basketball or volleyball, and nearly failing them because they have no interest in either? They’re engaged in physical activity, often more than gym class entails, and IMHO, they should get credit for that.