Any Advice For My Shy Daughter?

[Guest]

I think that a girls level of comfort had a lot to do with whether they grew up in the USA or the UK as well as what part of the U.S.A. and also what decade they grew up in My sister who grew up in New Jersey attended a university in Illinois in the early 90's and was surprised to see how comfortable the women were showering in the communal showers after a workout. Her high school had private shower stalls that were only used after swimming class. It's probably the same with girls trimming down there. I'd be willing to bet that high school girls these days growing up in the US are more likely to trim than girls who grew up in the 50's through the 80's as well as girls in the UK. I met a woman who graduated from a New Jersy high school in the late 70's who said that all of the girls showered together after gym and at that time would never have considered trimming down there, feeling that it was a sign of maturity and would be a faux pas to trim or shave.

[Beth Lynn H]

It's funny that you mention the possibility of it being generational. The reason I say that is because my mom has said in the past that the girls that were in school in the 50s like she was never had a problem with locker room showers and nudity.

I was in school in the 70s and a lot of us were shy about being nude.

And now after reading this I asked my daughter about her school that she goes to right now and she said that as far as she knows it doesn't bother any of them to be nude in the girls locker room.

[Guest]

Where do you live Beth Lynn H? Again that might have to do with the comfort level.

[Beth Lynn H]

Where do you live Beth Lynn H? Again that might have to do with the comfort level.

The USA.

[Missy girl]

This may shock some of you, but I loved communal showering in school?!
I'm not a lesbian or even bi, but I can honestly say that it was fun being able to be nude with my girlfriends and other female classmates in such an innocent setting. I would think that there would be a lot of females who would agree with me that it can be fun to be able to walk around in the nude without it being for a sexual purpose, and knowing that no guys are seeing you. It was like the girls club. I feel sad for the ladies who say that they didn't have the positive experiances with communal locker room nudity that I did.

[charlottestanley]

What was the name of your school and where was it located??

[Care Bear]

I attended a jr./sr. high school in the 80's that taught grades 7-12. I can honestly say that when I had to shower with 20 other girls in my gym class while the gym teacher made sure we complied it was quite traumatic. What made it all of the worse was that we were not separated by grade level and that I a very much undeveloped 11 year old was made to shower next to a 16-17 year old with a full pubic bush and fully developed breasts. I just feel that if showers were deemed important school gym showers should have curtains. How hard is that??

Charlottestanley,

Wow, I thought it was a big age difference when us freshman girls who were 14 years old showered with the 17 and 18 year old senior girls. But 11? I hadn't developed at all at that age either. I can't imagine what that must have been like at that age? Please tell me that it wasn't to embarrassing for you!? I'm not opposed to the idea of students showering after their gym class, but you should have only been mixed with the 12 and 13 year old girls in the school.

[David Band]

Hi,
I'm sorry to hear that your daughter is embarrassed about showering naked after sports lessons at school. I'm not sure what the policy is these days but I've heard and read that showering in private stalls or cubicles is increasingly becoming the norm.
However, I went to a very good but quite strict State Secondary school in South London between 1983-1988 where single sex showering was mandatory after P.E. lessons. All the boys showered naked and it really wasn't a problem. I'll admit that I was kinda shy the first couple of times because I was really skinny and looked rather puny with nothing on. But I quickly got used to it and after sports lessons it just felt natural stripping off and taking a shower to get clean. When I was 13 after doing cross country as the final lesson of the day I actually looked forward to showering naked afterwards!! There were some boys that were ahead of me puberty wise but I never got teased for being a late-ish bloomer. I couldn't imagine taking a shower with underear or swimming shorts on though.

[Kirsten Stansfield]

Never bothered me either. Some people are just ridiculous when it comes to nudity.

[Guest]

I can't believe some of what I've read here.

Who in the hell would not want to shower after a P.E class or workout?
Not only did I always shower after my P.E classes, but I would be embarrassed if my daughter didn't.

I think it's really sad that some mothers don't build up their daughters self-esteem, and then because they don't have any self-esteem their embarrassed to do something as natural as take a shower in front of their fellow-female-classmates.

This just seems to be some very recent phenomenon that some kids can't separate sex and nudity in their minds. When I was in high school from 1988 through 1991 no one viewed showering in the girls locker room as being sexual.

[Guest]

I find it hard to believe that high school girls would be more comfortable showering than boys. I have spoken to some who attended a high school where the boys had open showers and the girls had private showers

I don't have a clue what boys are like in their locker rooms. But remembering back to my school I have to say that very few of the girls in my gym classes were shy in the locker room. We all showered in communal showers, and I would say that only a few girls ever even bothered to wrap a towell around them walking around the locker room. I think that the women who had had bad experiences when they were in their teens have related their feelings about this topic because it's something they feel passionite about. But the biggest majority of us did not really consider it to be an issue when we were in school. It was just the way things were, it was only us girls in the locker room, so almost nobody cared one way or the other.

Us young men are not very different from you young women, maybe not as prudish. Nudity was not an issue for most of us. We had compulsory nude showers after gym and sports, and two locker and shower room areas. The only school rule was to shower naked thoroughly enough to wash off any sweat. The teacher explained why it was necessary for good hygiene. The showers were open but with dividers between them, but most of the showers were open to the locker room. We set our own rules and the teacher usually never came in, trusting us to shower as required. Our rule was strict nudity everywhere in one locker room, but towels could be worn as far as the shower room in the other locker room for those who were shy. I started showering in the all nude room. We stripped naked at our lockers and walked nude to the showers, standing around talking in the nude until there was a shower free. Unlike girls who can let their bushes grow as cover, we have everything naked, so it is a bigger thing going nude first time. But like you girls, we were all men together, and didn't care about being nude. We had no inhibitions about our penises or having erections if some of the guys started to talk about girls. Guys are all different sizes anyway when naked and some of us swell easily. After a while, there were too many in the all nude room, so some of us decided to use the optional nude room with our towels off. When we stripped naked without towels, some of our friends asked us if we minded being nude, and we told them no. We discussed it one day with some of the shyer guys, while we were nude, and we told them that we didn't care, and they would be nude in the shower same as us. So some of them got the courage to take off their towels as well and felt liberated. It was also good for our health as one of the other guys showed us how to examine our testicles in the shower, and some of us chose to shower with our foreskins pulled back to avoid infections, even though it usually meant having a small erection for a minute or two.

Like many men I always shower nude after swimming or gym, even if nobody else is. It is more hygienic. A girl friend on holiday in Denmark once asked if I showered nude after a swim and was surprised when I told her that all the men in the pool did that day. She was going to the public swimming pool later that day. In Denmark it is a rule in all public pools that everyone strips and walks nude to shower before putting on a swimsuit. She and her friend, both visiting from outside Denmark, both in their mid thirties, had never showered naked at school and had to go naked for the first time in a women's shower room together. They ran to the shower room with an arm across their breasts and a hand over their bushes only to find a large open room with 20 uninhibited naked Danish girls there, and then they said that they felt silly and relaxed and started to shower and took a steam bath all in the nude. They said that they felt great after the experience, and wished they had showered nude at school. It gave them more confidence in their bodies and was liberating.

Some of my Czech and Slovak friends told me that they swam naked at school, and that gymnastics were sometimes done in the nude if they wanted to. Nude swimming is common in Europe, and is usually mixed especially in central Europe. In other countries it is common for men to swim naked. Many men prefer nude swimming because the cold water flowing makes them sexually stronger.

[david.band]

Communal showering was mandatory/compulsory after P.E. lessons when I was at secondary school in the mid-late 1980's. I remember being nervous the first couple of times when I was 11 and would put a towel around my waist before entering the actual shower room. After that I was fine with being nude and showering with the other boys.
I remember in the 4th and 5th form (years 10 & 11) we could opt for what sports we did. I use to do squash at an off-site sports centre and sould often take a communal shower with some of the other boys afterwards. Now despite me being really skinny and late-ish bloomer, none of the other boys commented and we just got on with it. Okay there was some mild horseplay and stuff but it was all taken in the spirit of things.

[JoyJ]

I can think of two obvious reasons why girls would be reluctant to strip in front of other girls (other than old-fashioned modesty, of course).

One is the fact that school showers usually start around the time that girls' bodies are just beginning to change; at that crucial stage, they are already nervous about how quickly (or slowly) they are developing (compared to others in their group), and are just coming to grips with the fact that their bodies are becoming sexully attractive. Thus, it is an awkward time, emotionally, for the girls to suddenly be forced into public group nudity.

The second reason is more modern. In the past, most people were ignorant about homosexuality. They knew it existed, but they assumed it was very rare, and they usually associated being "queer" with men, not women. Today, everyone is aware that 5% or 10% of the population is gay. Many openly so, some closeted. So the old argument of "we're all the same sex here" doesn't quite wash anymore. Girls now know that in a group of 50 girls, perhaps five of them are lesbian, and are just as simulated by seeing other girls prance around in the nude as any guy would be under the same situation (not to mention those notoroious gym teachers). There is also the modern media trend of showing supposedly straight girls kissing each other and engaging in other quasi-sexual acts, as if lesbian tendencies are something normal to all females. This probably confuses younger girls, and makes undressing in front of their own gender more sexually confusing than it would have been a few decades back.

On the flip side, however, there is a practical reason (beyond hygine) for making your daughter take public showers. The reality is that in today's world, it's impossible to avoid situations in which you forced to get naked. You're naked at the doctors office, naked at the spa, naked on your honeymoon, naked when you give birth... Encouraging modesty today is really doing a disservice to the girl, since she will inevitably be forced to strip, and will find it even more embarrassing then, if she hasn't gotten used to it early on. It's like ripping off a bandage - it has to come off eventually, so why not get it over with quickly? Making the girl undress in public at the school showers prepares her for the many times in the future when she'll have to get naked.

[Kelli C]

I was in high school back in the late 70's-early 80's. After gym class showers were mandatory. These were communal showers with faucets on the walls. In addition, we had shower poles in our locker room with 3 faucets coming out of each pole. Many times 3 of us girls would be showering around the same pole.

When I was a soph, my best friend's sister was a freshman and in the same PE class. Many times we saw each other in various stages of undress or even showering nude. The funny thing was, I felt very weird going to their house and we would see each other fully clothed, yet I kind of looked at her like I was picturing her naked as she was probably thinking that way about me too.

Of course back then no girl was completely shaved. Most had a full bush maybe trimmed a bit during the swimming season.

[Guest]

She doesn't shower after PE? She better start or the others will give her a nickname like pigpen or something. They're all girls ffs.