Clitheroe Royal Grammar School

Gerald you're right about most of us being shirtless at home. That's why we found doing PE shirtless perfectly normal. These days a lot of boys wear full pyjamas even in the summer. Clearly that will cause them to be more replied by shirtless pe

My last sentence should have read "but certainly not those ridiculous almost ankle length board shorts or whatever they call them that youths wear today."

So replace knee length with ankle length to avoid misunderstanding.

Alf
I totally agree with you!

It seems funny how fashion changes and regresses.
Up to the 80s or 90s most youths wore speedos while older gents wore trunks or shorts.
It was actually strange or laughable to see boys and youths wearing long shorts and few did.
Now it is the opposite.
I guess that the older gents are used to wearing speedos from their youth.
Today I actually take the middle road and wear shorts above the knee, but certainly not those ridiculous almost knee length board shorts or whatever they call them that youths wear today.

The difference is that the bikini is fashionable whereas the speedo is simply just not. Board shorts are fashionable, bikinis are fashionable but honestly it's pretty clear that speedos just are a bit too much. It's not something we want to see on the beach. I've only worn them when necessary in swimming competitions.

I agree with Marshall. Ladies of all shapes and sizes seem to be wearing smaller & smaller bikinis on the beach and often they are not flattering and leave quite a lot of flesh exposed.. However, if men dare to wear brief trunks eg Speedos
( and again I agree that sometimes they also are not flattering) people think it is wrong. Where is the equality in that?

Marshall's post really sums it up. I've seen posts before on here about shirtless pe being unfair. At the end of the day, like Marshall said about swimming, we always considered being shirtless to be the standard kit for PE. As well as this, most of us were shirtless at home anyway so it wasn't seen as something unusual to not be wearing a shirt.

I find it quite interesting how over the years men in this country have become more prudish and started to cover up more, from nude swimming to speedos to large board shorts. Meanwhile, women have gone the other way- from almost fully covering swimsuits to bikinis.

Speedos are supposed to be for swimming in my view, not for just walking around in the beach. Board shorts would be better for the beach. The main advantage of swim briefs is how streamlined they are. It always makes me cringe a bit seeing middle aged men wearing them on the beach. It's not something anyone wants to see to be honest.

Marshall, I suppose I have been looking at it from the wrong perspective. Although wearing briefs does make one more streamlined and improves swimming performance compared to doing swimming in the nude.

Nowadays it seems brief type swimming trunks (Speedos) are reserved for serious swimmers. At least I can feel comfortable wearing them abroad where they are more commonly seen.

Back Marshall all the way .. in my day quite normal ... never batted an eyelid!

I know for the younger generation it would seem horrendous to swim without trunks, for us it was what we always thought was the norm. Just like we did football in football kit, we just accepted swimming as something that is done without anything on. We weren't embarrassed, even for the galas since it's not like there were any outside spectators and the teachers that were there couldn't care less about what we were wearing. We were worried about whether we would win or lose, not about being nude.

I'm sure Bradley you accepted that briefs are the commonly accepted swimming kit, just like we accepted nothing as being the right kit.

Marshall, this is quite shocking to say the least! I remember when I was in school I was selected for a swim competition where my team and I were given these tight swim briefs to wear. Even that was a bit too uncomfortable to be in, can't imagine how bad it must have been to be wearing nothing at all

I'm not quite sure since it was a long time ago but as far as I know the only spectators were the swimming teacher and the team captains, who were also teachers. So there weren't any outside spectators not involved in organising the gala.

Marshall

Did bother you having to swim in a gala presumably in front of a lot of in the nude?

Thanks for your answer, Marshall.

Were there any spectators during your swimming galas?

If so would there also be females included, like female teachers or staff, or relatives?

Alf, I will answer all your questions in order below:
The teacher was our PE teacher who also taught swimming.

The classes were 15 to 20 people in size, same as a normal lesson. We had one lesson a week.

It was compulsory for all students. The teacher wore swimming shorts and a jacket.

I only joined the school in Year 11 when I was 16 years old. Before that, I lived in a different town and went to a different school, where we did not have swimming lessons. As far as I know all years did their lessons without swimwear.

It was a boys' school.

For swimming galas we still had to be nude, although only the best swimmers actually got selected (me included!). As far as I know, our school never took part in any inter-school swimming competitions.

The showering procedure described by Rob on 9 June is the situation at my local leisure centre although it is noticeable that hardly anyone under about 30 uses the showers. That tends to be the generation who wear long trousers and sweatshirts or fleece jackets in the gym.

At the refurbished swimming pool that I use, the showers are mixed sex, meaning you can't remove your trunks. Instead of a communal single sex changing room you have to use an individual cabin so tiny that it's difficult to dry yourself. In my experience of German leisure centres the showers are mixed sex and everyone showers naked together, The Germans accept this as normal.

Rob, I definitely wouldn't feel comfortable being nude in front of strangers in a sauna. When it's in front of guys I know it's not a problem at all but it would be awkward in front of strangers. I guess if I grew up in Finland I would be more comfortable with that culture but, being British, public nudity isn't my thing!

William. I meant that a teacher forcing a child to take their trunks off when swimming is indeed child abuse. Teacher can say "you need to shower after swimming and showering should be done without trunks" but if a student does not want to shower naked the teacher cannot make him take his trunks or take them off himself. He'd have to either give the kid a detention, inform a parent or allow him to shower with trunks (most likely the third option to avoid any controversy).

In my school what happened was the teacher told us at our first ever lessons that "showering is done without trunks" and we all got on with it. Teachers never supervised us showering and no one had a problem with it. But forcing a child to even take their shirt off these days would be controversial.

Bradley, Yesterday you said nude showering isn't child abuse but on 1st June "Teachers cannot force children to take off their trunks while showering as this would indeed be considered child abuse".
Either way, I'm glad your university sports teams are as relaxed about nudity as we became at school - thanks to compulsory nude showers.

Bradley, agree absolutely with your first paragraph; you just have to go along with whatever you are expected to do.
Similarly,now in university,you are able to feel like one of the boys,a man even,without any inhibitions about being naked in the changing rooms with your mates. Nothing wrong with that;just enjoy yourself! How confident would you feel now about going nude in a mixed sauna?

Rob, I do feel that my generation is too inhibited compared to people in other countries. But I'm sure you can agree that when everyone is covering themselves, you don't want to be the only one who's not. It just wasn't considered approaches to ever be naked in front of others.

Interestingly, it's not the same at university (men's, don't think the same applies for women's teams but not sure) sports teams. Straight after practice at the changing rooms we take everything off, walk to the showers and back and even talk about the match and everything for a few minutes and none of us even think about the fact that we are wearing absolutely nothing. But sports teams only consist of certain types of guys and the vast majority of my generation certainly aren't like this!

Marshall,
We didn't have the luxury of a swimpool at the schools I went to, so I am curious about how these swim classes went on.

When you say "teacher" during these lessons do you mean an ordinary teacher who just supervised the swim class or a swim coach who actually taught swimming lessons?

How big were the classes for swimming and how often were they during the week?

Was the nudity during these classes compulsory for everyone or just at the teacher's whim?

Was the nudity required at every age or just in juniors?

Was it a mixed school, and if so did the girls wear swimsuits for their classes?

Did you have swimming competitions at the school, or inter school competitions, and were suits worn for these occasions when there would obviously be spectators, or did you still have to be nude?

Fred, you'er right about mixed saunas abroad ,I've experienced them in Germany and Austria and a couple of months ago posted my comments here. Bradley,you said that it was important to overcome our inhibitions and referred to attitudes in other countries. I am therefore surprised that you took so much effort to protect your modesty when showering at school. After our P.E.lessons we would return to the changing rooms and take our shorts off and leave them on the benches with our other clothes and walk naked to the showers,where as I've already mentioned, we all had to stand together under about five large shower heads. We very quickly lost any lingering inhibitions.

William you're right about the inhibited nature of people these days. Everything is child abuse even when a child isn't being harmed.

It's all about intent. If a teacher wants to humiliate, wants to take advantage of a child that is abuse. But my teacher certainly did not intend to do these things when we swam nude.

William I didn't say that nude showering is child abuse. I was talking about nude swimming. Its important that showers are done without trunks as a matter of hygiene but swimming without trunks seems unnecessary humiliating, especially in front of others and a teacher. My experience of showers was that we'd wrap a towel around our waists, face the wall, turn the tap on and then wrap our towels back on and walk out. It's worth noting we had curtains as well.

Nowadays it's just not appropriate to do swimming lessons wearing nothing. There's no need for it.

William
I agree with your comments compared with European countries we tend to be more inhibited about nudity, or showing too much of our body. Hence the fashion for so many lads to wear such long swimming shorts.
I believe in some countries, e.g. Sweden etc. people have saunas where male & female share the same sauna naked.
As I wrote in a previous comment, in the 60's we did not seem to worry about nudity when all lads together

Bradley

Your comments are always interesting because you left school recently, but why do you think that compulsory nude showers are child abuse when on 22nd October in the Burnley Grammar discussion you said "showers were compulsory, done nude, which we had no problem with"?

A number of times you have made the point that "trunks prevent certain parts of the body from being washed"" and "the area covered by swimwear is one of the places most prone to infection". You are right. What causes the spread of disease in swimming pools is not nude swimming but unclean swimmers.

We all know that most people in Britain do not have a soapy shower before they swim in public pools. That is why our pools have so much chlorine in them. Is not the reason that, compared with many European countries, we tend to be more inhibited about nudity?

All right-thinking people want children to be properly protected, but if we see child abuse where none exists young people will become more repressed about their bodies, which may cause them problems of inhibition that we who got used to nude showers or swimming have generally not had to contend with.