This is a serious question, and I’ve always wanted to ask it. I find that the folks on this board are generally honest and thoughtful when asked a question about their sexuality, as long as the question is asked in a respectful manner. Please know I am not fishing for one liners here, or playing dumb.
I am going to assume that most of you knew your sexual preference by the time you hit puberty. So, in situations where group showers were required, such as a high school gym class, how did you stop yourself from becoming aroused?
I know you are not attracted to every guy you see, but I imagine the law of averages would mean that there was at least one or two fellows that would arouse you sexually, especially at this time in your life when hormones are raging and you can get an erection with very little effort. I ask this because I don’t think that if I were in a situation where I had to shower with all the girls in my gym class that I’d be able to maintain control. There are simply not enough baseball stats in the world for this impossible mental blocking exercise. So, how did you do it? Or did you occasionally become aroused and people noticed?
Some background - this question came up while I was watching a “don’t ask, don’t tell” documentary, where one of the concerns by those against gays in the military was the need to take group showers with your platoon.
I’m not gay but I have taken group showers when I was in the reserve and I had the same question.
I presume that fear of being outed and very likely severely beaten up would help control this issue.
I also remember thinking that, for a gay sub, boot camp is the best summer vacation ever.
I wasn’t that certain about myself. I was naive and didn’t really understand my feelings and I thought of myself as a pervert and despised myself. That will pretty much keep you from having an erection. This was in the mid 70’s.
BTW: My mother had told me that homosexuals raped women because they hated them. So not only was I afraid that I was going to attack children, but women also.
The same way you stopped yourself from getting a boner when seeing a really hot girl. Granted, full on nudity is more of a challenge, and also makes it harder to hide, but it’s merely a matter of degree.
We didn’t actually have showers, but there was plenty to look at just from changing clothes. If I started chubbing, I would just force myself to keep my eyes to myself and think of math.
It wasn’t too hard to stop from getting a boner, but if I let myself get one while sitting, it was difficult to make it go away when it was time to get up. And that’s what strategically placed trapper keepers were for.
Hmmmmm - tricky. I can’t give you a precise answer because I’m not sure. I suppose my arousal instinct is just pretty well suppressed because I’m capable of looking at a hot guy naked showering nearby and not get hard. Frequently when showering with others I’m also pretty busy getting clean and thinking about what I’m doing afterwards. If I want to look at hot men doing fun things I’ll watch porn in the privacy of my own home where masturbating isn’t likely to get me arrested.
I’m not AFRAID of getting hard, but I’m very aware that I shouldn’t, maybe that’s what’s stopping me.
Not only did we have to take showers after gym, but we also had to swim naked. In all those years I only saw one guy with an erection, and he was showing it off in the locker room. I honestly don’t know why I never responded that way, but I guess “fear” is as good an answer as any. This was back in the late '50s and early '60s, and it was definitely not cool to be gay. I became very good at hiding my feelings, and my subconscious must have worked overtime to keep me from responding that way.
Strategically placed potted plants, always standing behind the couch and loosefitting clothes. Wait, that’s not right. When I was in high school, there were no group showers after gym but it was the last class of the day so I assume everyone went home and showered or went to sports practice and then showered at home as well. The few instances I’ve been in a group shower have been at swimming pools and I was either too young for it to be an issue or not really paying attention. I’m there to shower, not to ogle. That’s for sitting on the side of the pool.
I don’t sexualize ever man I see even if they are naked. I’ve never had issue keeping my own dick limp when all the other ones around me are limp too. I suppose I’d bone up if I was surrounded by other men with hard on’s but that’s not the situation in most locker rooms.
Also in my case I have difficulty maintaining an erection when I’m wet, sex in a shower or hot tub are right out for me even if all other factors are ideal.
I have to admire you guys’ mind-over-penis, although I’m sorry that fear was such a part of it. As a straight man, I really don’t know if I could shower naked with a handful of naked women and be as “controlled” with my penis. I’m a happily married man with no desire to cheat on my wife, and even assuming these women would have no interest in me sexually whatsoever, I’m not sure I’d be able to keep the boner away. Call it a reflex or instinct, but I don’t think I’d be able to control it.
I’m a straight guy, but it occurs to me that if the women in question, or some other people in the area, were pretty close to guaranteed to beat the crap out of me if I, ahem, as the term was used above, ‘boned up’, I could probably keep it under control.
For me, nudity simply wasn’t sexual in those situations. I would go to the gym with my dad as a kid, and be around naked men in the locker room. When you’re a kid and your parent is there, it’s inherently not sexual. Locker rooms never felt like even a potentially sexual situation to me: too many people, and associated with gym (ugh!). If I’d had to shower with just one other guy, that would have been different.
I know guys who have locker-room fantasies, so I don’t think my answer works for everyone, but at the time it never even occurred to me.
Now, ask me about guys’ necks. Sitting behind a really, really hot guy in a really boring Econ class every day gave me a real appreciation for necks.
I’m not sure if you’re considering the full range of emotions though. I mean, sure, in a vacuum, me and a bunch of naked girls would result in a boner. But then you have to consider, self image, the embarrassment of getting a boner in front of said girls, etc…
I would imagine it’s the same way that straight male dressers can assist with costume changes on women. You’re there to do a job, in this case: clean yourself, not ogle people.
Then again, maybe it’s different when you only have fifteen seconds to change someone’s entire outfit before shoving them back on stage.
It was never a problem for me, and I don’t entirely know why. As for the statistical comment, I’ll point out that while there were dozens of guys in a gym class, they all aren’t in line of sight in the locker room. You really can only see the ones in your row.
I can’t recall any of the guys in my row being hot, so I guess they weren’t.
On the other hand, I see hot guys at the gym now and while they make for nice scenery, it isn’t enough to cause an erection.
I don’t recall it ever being a problem. The shower is a great place to be naked and wet and think about sex and get a raging hard-on gay or straight, but a public one is also a horrifyingly embarrassing place to actually have one. How do you straight guys do it?
Another thought. I’ve personally never spent much time on nude beaches but plenty of people around the world use nude beaches. Most these places are coed, I’d imagine straight men might find themselves around around nude women. Do straight men have issues getting boners at such places? I’ve never really heard anything about it being a concern.
And overall what’s the concern about men getting boners anyway. Say ever gay man in the military got a hard on when he takes a group shower, would unit cohesion come to a screeching halt? Seems to me it’d only be an issue if he couldn’t keep his boner to himself or if other guys felt a need to harass the owner, at which point the issue isn’t the guys sexuality.