Burnley Grammar School

I always felt awkward at school for PE when any teacher told me to go 'skins' and do stuff bare chested, yet I can't really explain why I always felt really awkward about having no top on around others, even with just boys my own age in PE. I wasn't in the least bit shy as a person in general, my own body was actually fine, I wasn't underweight or chubby, I was a good height, had good shoulders, a nice shape and all that, was no weedy little lad with no friends type of school pupil, but oh did I feel the awkwardness the moment a bare chested PE lesson came along with a p**sed off feeling when any school PE teacher made me do his regular 'skins' class once a week in PE in the senior school of mine. But there is nothing I can honestly point to and say that's the reason for the awkwardness. I'm no different now and I'm 53 and have long concluded I'm just one of those men and as a boy who likes to stay shirted all the time no matter what. Anytime I heard the words 'skins' or 'tops off' or 'strip to the waist' or the phrase 'bare chest' or 'shirtless' my heart would race inside that chest of mine in those days.

If any of my PE teachers knew I felt that way I don't think they would have believed it, I didn't seem like that kind of youngster who was awkward like that at the time. I would have always kept my PE top on given the chance. I always thought I was alone like that until I saw this forum tonight.

I think going shirtless is quite a personal thing to the individual and shouldn't be imposed on those in a gym who are awkward with baring their body for sport and exercise in school.

We were often confronted with the opposite sex in our school when me and the boys were bare chested in our PE classes, sometimes girls were amongst us when we did apparatus based gym, female gym teachers often appeared in the gym while we were there or even took part in our class if girls were in it, we even had to walk to gym in bare chests down the public school corridors passing other staff and pupils.

If a good looking lad in good condition and shape could feel awkward in the school PE lesson without his top on then just about anyone can, but I just cannot explain why it was such an awkward feeling. Does anyone else relate to this unexplained awkwardness, and also hating that they were like that and couldn't overcome it even after dozen upon dozens of such skins classes?

Comment by: Greg2 on 4th August 2025 at 12:19
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"......I will add this point for Alan: don’t you remember a mother posting on here some time ago saying that her son’s new gym teacher was a woman who identified as a man? I think this school was in Scotland and this mother, as well as her son, didn’t like this at all. This woman/man was in there with classes of boys every day while they were all showering, and is probably still doing so today. It seems those boys are not allowed to do or say anything about it......"


It is outrageous that if anybody dare to complain about this frankly disgusting and bizarre happenstance inflicted on children and young adults (and very soon to be voters and therefore, presumably, adults in the eyes of the law), it is THEY who are considered to be the bad guys. The damned "diversity" nonsense has gone too far, fostered by governments in the last decade or so, and especially encouraged by the present one - to complain makes you "far right" as the BBC has it.

Frankly it seems that being "assigned the wrong sex at birth" is the latest fad - this should be a matter for the psychologists and psychiatrists to deal with. I will be glad when it goes the same way as CB radio and drones.

In the meanwhile, it seems that the public services, which includes education, do everything they can to encourage oddballs to apply for jobs, - and they get them, - not based on ability, but because of WHAT they are (or say they are). A headmaster/mistress should not give jobs out because it happens that a man likes to dress up in drag, of the sort the Monty Python and Carry On teams used (I recently heard on the radio a woman say she had been to see her GP, supposedly a woman, but with quite a degree of stubble and a baritone voice), why should anybody have to go along with this charade, just to mollify somebody who is clearly mentally unwell. That it happens to children and the LEA and head teachers condone it is truly horrifying. This sort of deranged individual should be nowhere near a school, and most certainly not in boys changing rooms. This is one of the reasons I have always maintained that teachers of any subject should be made to undergo a psychiatric analysis before they are given employment in the teaching sector. We do not need the abnormal to be made normal. There are some very strange people cluttering up the profession, as there were decades ago, but usually nothing as outre' as today, and if they want to be taken seriously, we do not need more.

Greg2 - "I’m sure an aspect of all this is that some males, and females, quite enjoy the thought of situations like this taking place, and so are quite happy for it to continue; there will always be females wanting to be in there with those naked young males."



You are correct. It's a fetish Greg, known as CFNM to those who indulge it. Although this is normally something that men submit to willingly in this case. But obviously in the situations described that is far from the case and men have to submit under duress or compulsion without freedom of choice, including as we have been reading in some primary schools under supervision of female teaching staff at a pre-teen age.

It happened to me at middle school in the seventies. Two women teachers at our school watched boys in our changing room all the time, which was a problem because we had to shower there (no pants on) and they stayed and wouldn't leave us alone, thinking it was alright because we were so young, but the oldest boys were eleven. Par for the course for boys though.

Comment by: Response on 29th July 2025 at 21:28

It’s all very odd really isn’t it? What is it about societies that think they don’t even have to question something like this when dealing with males? It seems as though people want to encourage an understanding that males of any age have absolutely no self-awareness, and so wouldn’t care about such things at all, whereas in truth this is all nonsense as everyone really knows. But, for whatever reason, many prefer not to change things, so this sort of situation is allowed to continue. The woman who, ‘hurt’ that young lad obviously had no clue what she was doing, how could she?

I’m sure an aspect of all this is that some males, and females, quite enjoy the thought of situations like this taking place, and so are quite happy for it to continue; there will always be females wanting to be in there with those naked young males. After all, everyone chooses their own work don’t they. How many examples have been written on here by men remembering female teachers making sure they monitor the boys changing or even showering, even if it that meant leaving the girls to tend to themselves. So, it seems that if you're a young male who’d prefer a private male area at times, as is always available to females, then tough, because those making the decisions quite like things, for their own reasons, just as they are. I hated some of the embarrassing situations I found myself in at times in the past. Something of this irritation remains with you years later, so you're reminded of your feelings when you read about such things still so routinely taking place...I do feel I need to add one counterbalance though. I remember chatting on this subject a few years ago with a female friend. She did mention that most gynaecologists were male, and so many females never liked this. I wouldn’t be surprised if this were not the case today?

Shirtless gym? As I’ve mentioned, I don’t think I ever had to do gym without a shirt, so I’m not sure how I would have felt about that. I’m not sure that I was that self-conscious about just removing my top, especially in just a boys’ class, so if this had been the expectation, together with everything else that was new and strange when starting ‘big school’ I probably would have just got on with it. We never did cross country without shirts either, which sometimes did include a little running down a public road, so perhaps I was lucky. We certainly had the no underwear under our shorts rule though, and I do remember this feeling very odd and daring as our gym shorts were certainly short and revealing in the late 60s. I’d never worn nothing beneath shorts before, and being just out of junior school when all this started and where shorts were the rule, this did feel very strange indeed. Secondary School gym lessons were just boys, but just a couple of times I remember we did share with girls, and they were certainly aware of our no underwear rule. So, similarly to above I expect, males were on course for being conditioned into believing they weren’t supposed to be bothered by such things weren’t they!? Unbelievable as it does seem now, I do remember a few of us being selected to stand in line to have this checked. But only one teacher ever did this to us, and it wasn’t our usual gym teacher, it was our school football team coach whose usual subject was maths, and he was my set 2 maths teacher.

I need to add here that having written this post last night but hadn’t got around to posting it, my last ‘checking for underwear’ comment was certainly not directed towards maths teacher, Dave G in any way, whose post appeared this morning. But, I will add this point for Alan: don’t you remember a mother posting on here some time ago saying that her son’s new gym teacher was a woman who identified as a man? I think this school was in Scotland and this mother, as well as her son, didn’t like this at all. This woman/man was in there with classes of boys every day while they were all showering, and is probably still doing so today. It seems those boys are not allowed to do or say anything about it. So Dave G, there was certainly no reason for you to have felt uncomfortable while monitoring showering, as I’m sure this woman/man isn’t. I should imagine, quietly to herself, she can’t believe she’s allowed in there.

Where schools had a "restricted" kit policy, did you know about it in advance ?

My school made us run xc shirtless, and as part of the course was on normal streets, I had seen groups of boys out running always stripped to the waist, even in winter when I was wearing a nice warm duffle coat - also a friend had an older brother at the school - so I know about caning and such !

"......... I will admit that I found being a stand in maths teacher having to keep tabs on groups of showering boys somewhat uncomfortable and I didn't enjoy telling them to do that, although most didn't need telling....."


Dave, I am not suggesting for one moment that you got any sort of pleasure from this experience - quite the reverse, I accept that without question, but one wonders if this sort of practice continues today.

Now that public sector workers come in all sorts and conditions, with the ludicrous "diversity" nonsense, it could be quite possible a transvestite could be assigned to such a job, so a "man" assigned female at birth could be gawping at young boys. Also, of course, there might be homosexual paedophiles knocking about. It is like giving the keys to a brewery to an alcoholic. .

You honestly have to wonder what planet schools are on.

As a retired mathematics teacher I'm looking forward to the day soon when AI is going to tell us what the answer to Infinity + 1 is, and the meaning of life and the cure for all disease.

When I was teaching at one comprehensive school in the home counties from the 1970s to 1990s the general staff without any proper experience could often find ourselves roped into filling in for absent PE teachers when required if we were free ourselves. This happened in my case mostly in the 1980s and would often just involve casual observation and letting them get on with it, whatever it was, such as a game of some sort like football if outside. I did a couple of stand ins for a gym teacher and the boys were all in their bare chests, I didn't even need to ask them, they all did that. I'd been working at the school for about three years at the time and had no idea of what boys wore in the gym and was surprised, I expected to see vests on them all. I will admit that I found being a stand in maths teacher having to keep tabs on groups of showering boys somewhat uncomfortable and I didn't enjoy telling them to do that, although most didn't need telling.

Russ, the A.I also says this too which has relevance to this history archive board of old recollections and opinion;

'Historical context.

It is worth noting that some individuals, particularly in online forums, discuss personal experiences or preferences for shirtless activities, sometimes mentioning a desire to return to past practices. However, these views are not aligned with general educational policies or health and safety recommendations.

AI responses may include mistakes.'


It's almost as if the A.I has been learning from this forum. Although at the end it says the A.I may include mistakes which it surely has because the line where it says of shirtless PE - 'these views are not aligned with general educational policies or health and safety recommendations.' doesn't match up with lots of comments from teachers and pupils that have been on here in the last year or two, including younger comments this past week from within the past ten years who tell of common shirtless PE being taken. I suppose it just depends what school you go to and how rules and attitudes are interpreted, and the people within them.


Stuart your cross country is exactly as mine was at the time too. We did far more cross country over autumn, winter and early spring and did track running over summer far more, some of that was shirtless too within athletics, but those cross country runs we did were done overwhelmingly shirtless 95% of the time even on some of the murkiest greyest days, come rain or shine, when it looked like the last thing you'd be wanting to do is get outside bare above the waist, shorts and running shoes and ankle socks the kit. Schoolboys like me and you and others at the time on days like that must have been the only ones who ran out like that, you could not really imagine anyone not in school deciding to jog off without tops on like we had to. At the time I used to wonder how it was that various PE teachers on cross country outside PE days looked out the window and saw the dull day with spits of drizzle and a temperature that must have been about 45-50 fahrenheit and thought it was perfect for taking thirty or forty of us out to do three or four miles including through a housing estate sometimes so god knows who was seeing us and what they may have been thinking. Some of the boys probably lived in that area too, but the rest was just open, often soggy ground.

Actually another thing I remember about those days is that we were never allowed to bring a top to just hang around our waist over the shorts as we ran incase it became needed to put on for some reason, and there were some damned cold days doing that. Of course all the teachers I can think of had t-shirt and long sleeved trackie top on while with us all, often navy blue and white I seem to recall. Sometimes they had shorts on, sometimes joggie bottoms. This type of thing has been mentioned before by others, that's a teacher/pupil double standard rather than boy/girl one. The contrast with us could be dramatic and I'd even go as far as to say almost provocative if you were a freezing cold young lad halfway through a cross country run, cold, damp, dirty and exhausted, and made to run shirtless for the teachers like that with no ability to warm up other than to keep running even through stomach stitch. Some of these cross country's could be intense, cold and rather painful even on young youthful bodies. You're right Stuart, no fat boys, I only remember boys of average normal weight or even on the slim to thin side with not a lot of meat. We always seemed to run with at least two male teachers, sometimes a third, the group would often splinter away into lots of smaller groups well apart from each other along the way. Cross country was always taken very seriously by our teachers. They took our times but I'm sure that most of us didn't care as much about our times as the teachers did.


No worries Mark about accidentally using my name in your comment. It's been done before by others I think and I know I nearly once fired off with the verification code in the name box as well as the code box. I'm not a fan of autofilling, just to save three seconds.

Comment by: Clive on 3rd August 2025 at 12:14


Probably because the teachers are canny enough to realise that kids can put two and two together these days, and they will soon discover the "odd man" out. Some middle aged bloke making kids take their underwear off for no good reason would soon be sussed.

As regards these teens who are coming out of the woodwork to say they are in a 1980s time warp, God knows where they train today's teachers, if this is the case. I can believe the grammar schools still go for olde worlde methods, they are still in 1920. As for state schools, I would have thought they would have got a hefty dose of psychology by now. But, as I have always said, teachers are decades behind the times. If they had gone into medicine, they would probably turn up to work in a top hat and a box of leeches.

Some of the young people posting on this site have said that their PE is shorts only no top as was the case for us oldies. But are they nowadays allowed to wear underwear under their shorts which for us was forbidden with the threat of getting the slipper if we flouted that rule.

Near where I live is a (state) grammar school, where boys run cross country shirtless (at least in the spring/summer).

My xc kit (in the early 70's) wasn't much different from what they wear (shorts & plimsolls/trainers). They don't wear socks, but are allowed to keep their boxers on under shorts (from the visible waistbands).

The other big difference is we were all skinny, quite a few of these boys need to lose weight.

Artificial intelligence has the answer to the question on being made to go shirtless bare chested skins at school.

Google's AI says;

"Body image and comfort: Forcing students to be shirtless can be detrimental to their self-esteem and comfort, particularly for those who may be self-conscious about their bodies. A school environment should prioritize the well-being and confidence of all students."


Does anyone disagree with the AI? It almost seems to have developed more intelligence than some of my real life human skin and bone teachers in the 1970s!

Neil - many thoughts are irrational but many still feel them. Flying for one, lots of people have that despite it being the safest mode of transport but they don't worry about the drive to get to the plane. Fear of spiders is another, they're timid little creatures and we are huge and heavy compared to them and can snuff them out with a quick move, yet many are scared of them. All these school issues surrounding the human body, lack of clothing are all part of the same. Some people are just more nervous and anxious than others and it shows in various ways, that's all there is to it in the end.

Response - you make a lot of fair points there. After what you wrote I looked up this 'musterung' you mentioned and enlightened myself to it. I read something about young men actually being afraid of these examinations and simply not showing up, or wanting to avoid the whole thing, and finding themselves chased down by the authorities there and brought by force to these examinations where they could find themselves confronted with orders to strip naked and be medically assessed by groups of women like their mothers and sisters , in Germany within the past 20 years too, who knew. That sounds so wrong to me. I believe it's quite similar in Finland too, right now even. I'm sure the young Israeli women that get called to serve don't face groups of male medics within the IDF to check out their nude bodies for fitness, I don't know if Germany asks women but if they do there I'm sure they are not checked by the opposite sex either. It is an oddity that it only works in one direction, and us boys and men don't have the same automatic rights that women do in that regards. We've already had stories on here a few times of men saying when they were primary age boys that the woman teacher was in their private changing areas and watching even in full strip situations with swimming and showering.

Mark - I watched the shirtless phobia video you linked. Quite a well made little film that was, although it didn't really say a great deal, and was trying to be more arty I think. The graphic at the end dedicated it to all those boys who didn't like to take their shirts off at the pool, but reading this thread even with shirtless fearing guys from schooldays we've had lots come here over time saying they could tolerate going swimming at the pool for lessons in school and being shirtless while feeling very different about it when it came to PE in the gym or outside, so for quite a few boys the pool felt like it offered protection while shirtless in a way the gym did not, and I understand that one.

Jamie - Only 19, and not long left school where you did shirtless PE a lot and had no complaints. Good for you. I was surprised by your shorts in the shower comment though. I would definitely have thought more boys would opt for shorts in the shower if they were allowed in his day and age to do that, but if I'm honest I doubt I would have worn shorts in the showers at school in my time if I'd been allowed to do that, it just seems rather silly to me, if you've got to shower you may as well just do it properly and be done with it, you thought they were idiots and all wearing the shorts does is make it all so obvious and noticeable that some obviously have issues. It reminds me of someone who came on once about a lad who wanted to wear a top in swimming at school and was discouraged by a teacher because it would make matters worse and show him up far more.

What's happened to 'A Yorkshiredad'? Quite an interesting poster, I'd like to know how this summer has gone for your teaching and if the same rules applied like they did last year and how it worked out? For anyone who has forgotten, he had the head teacher who changed rules and required bare chests for summer PE lessons if I recall correctly.

Correction.

The comment by "Terry" answering Jamie was infact a follow up by me, Mark, and not Terry. For some reason my autofill from responding to Terry at some previous point filled his name into the name box instead of mine and I didn't notice until I fired it off. So for the "Terry" comment please read Mark instead. Apologies for that to Terry.


Harry, you said - 'Boys who react badly to PE this way should just talk it out with someone.'

If you look back on here that is something a few people say they did but were met with indifference. Just a few days ago Rick said he did this and wrote this - 'Lacking a top and being a skin was not considered anything any of us should be fretting over, my teacher made that quite clear to me with our little chat.'

At my school for example, you could just tell the kind of reaction you'd get from any of them if you even thought about expressing any PE type anxiety issues, on lack of interest in certain activity, the kit or a shower. It's definitely true in my case and I'm sure others will agree with me that most PE teachers in school a few years ago were very set in their ways, even at quite a young age.

Jamie, bare chests for PE are also on the website for my grandson's grammar school, where it basically just says that school sports shorts are required and mentions bare chests and feet along with it - plus mandated showering. It just sounds like a normal gym to me. Boys who react badly to PE this way should just talk it out with someone.

Comment by: Jamie on 31st July 2025 at 22:42
'I'm just 19. Most of my indoor P.E lessons in gym from when I was 11 until when I was 16 were stripped down shirtless ones in a bared chest as well as everyone else too. No complaints from me about it.'



I've noticed one or two much younger people recently come here and mention doing PE the way many older people remember it, busting the myth that shirtless PE has largely diminished from schools in this day and age. Some boys clearly feel it helped them with body self image and others clearly did not, while some boys just don't even think of it as an issue and others considered it a rather big deal. You seem to fit the latter Jamie.

I've never understood this shorts in the shower thing though. The shorts get wet and have to come off afterwards anyway. It's interesting to read that your modern class, even though given that option, largely chose to shower the expected way like we old timers had to, with no choice about it. I agree with you, anyone who takes a shower in any clothing is a bit of a twit, you can still be in a group open shower and be discreet without waving your tackle in everyone's face! I had communal showering anxiety at school when I started doing it but I don't think keeping shorts on would have been the answer, far from it, I think that just makes things worse actually and is an unhealthy way to act, almost drawing more attention than needs be to modesty issues.

Check this film out and comments from Reddit, not being comfortable bare chested for guys is, and has always been a thing, and you didn't need to be overweight, underweight, to feel it, and school was where this hit most of us with it and was an unforgiving environment where our concerns were either dismissed like Rick J said, ignored, or just never mentioned.

There's a good comment here from a guy aged 44 who said he'd just managed to overcome it for the sake of his children. I mostly did too and I ended up feeling really disappointed with myself that I was so anxious at school about it and made such a mountain of it to myself internally.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MensLib/comments/1m8r29b/i_made_a_short_film_about_the_fear_of_taking_your/

Being weird about being shirtless is totally irrational and the best way any teacher can make a youngster overcome such pointless anxiety is to tough love it with those like that and get them shirtless as much as possible. Shirtless PE is the healthy way to do it. There's definitely nothing wrong with a PE teacher telling boys to strip to the waist for PE lessons, or to instruct and observe showering afterwards. It's normal regular stuff. With some of the idiocy about nowadays it won't be long before boys are treated the same as girls and not allowed to go shirtless in school or anywhere else like the girls and women, and who wants that, I don't.

I'm just 19. Most of my indoor P.E lessons in gym from when I was 11 until when I was 16 were stripped down shirtless ones in a bared chest as well as everyone else too. No complaints from me about it.

We had to shower in a group shower at school, but you were allowed to wear shorts in the shower. In our class only about 3 or 4 boys did this, most of us went in without them on, with nothing, and the ones that wore the shorts were looked at like idiots.

Normal state school 2017 - 2022.

Comment by: Yours Truly on 28th July 2025 at 14:16

Hi YT I entirely agree teachers should not be allowed to enforce their own whims and desires, when it is not school policy. If I were a headmaster in such a school, I would,look askance at any teacher who tried to do so, and he wouldn't get away with it for long, and frankly, he wouldn't remain a teacher in my school for long.


Comment by: Gary on 29th July 2025 at 20:20


You're right, in the same way, passive smoking, at one time dismissed as a myth has been proven to be correct - some high profile night club entertainers such as Roy Castle and Marian Montgomery, who never smoked in their lives, were victims, and it is now recognised as a legitimate cause of carcimona. Skin cancer has been on the increase for many years now.


Comment by: Fred on 29th July 2025 at 02:27

Sorry but I can't be bothered to go through my history and reasons for my views to a casual reader who clearly hasn't read what I have written. Let's just say there were reasons. I would just say that, thanks to very rigorous H&S laws, employers are supposed to make clear to employees any dangers they might face in their job, however obvious, and if you had an employee who was litigious and they sadly contracted skin cancer, you might come into contact with an ambulance chasing solicitor and a no win/no fee legal action.


Comment by: Response on 29th July 2025 at 21:28

"......It is worth debating if this is worse than the experience British schools subjected their boys to. While Germany suspended conscription in 2010, several European countries still inflict it upon their male citizens. They still have to undergo medical examination, often performed by female doctors who are of course never subjected to this institutionalized humiliation......"

It is disgusting what men and boys have to go through, and we know the outrage we would see on the BBC and in the press if women were subjected to the same indignities by men.

It seems to me another very good reason to keep OUT of the meddling EU, though our weak as water PM seems determined to cuddle up to them again. I suspect now that Donald Trump is forcing Europe to pay more for their own defence, Germany might well reintroduce conscription, which is cheap labour.

I would say it as as bad as what British schoolboys go through, and what makes it worse is the pleasure it gives some readers to think they have to go through it.

It will be interesting to see, when 16 year olds get the vote if teachers behave with more consideration. After all, they will have an MP to complain to!

My response to "Response".

Unfortunately these attitudes are prevalent for the men and boys even within the medical profession here in the UK within the NHS. My 23 year old son had to present for a testicular examination in 2018 after concerns about a lump and was faced with a young female GP and no alternative offer of a male for the examination. He was horrified but felt he had no choice and accepted it through gritted teeth.

Males of all ages are expected to accept this while women would not be in equivalent invasive and exposed situations.

Recent comments comparing school mandated nudity to military service bring to mind a comment a German left here some time back. In his own words:

"I still remember the shock I felt when I arrived in the UK for my year-long exchange program in the 1980s and found out that the standard PE kit for boys in my new comprehensive school was short white shorts only, no top, no shoes, barechested, and barefoot, inside and out. As a German boy who was used to wearing a normal shorts and T-shirt kit or even tracksuits and trainers during sports lessons

"the girls in the school were allowed to wear tracksuits outside and a leotard inside, which made us boys stand out even more. What a sight is must have been to have a group of thirty boys lined up outside the sports hall in jus their white shorts. The girls often made fun of us for our revealing and minimal kit"

While this German was spared this discrimination at school back home, his homeland had something arguably just as humiliating in store for him. Musterung, perhaps cognate with 'mustering' in English, refers to the compulsory medical exam all young German males had to undergo prior to their conscription, which Germany inflicted upon all male citizens until 2010. A detailed analysis of what this entailed and the trauma it inflicted upon its victims was compiled in the 2010 text 'Medical Rape' which is available on the Wayback Machine. These are a few excerpts which should demonstrate why more awareness needs to be raised for such discrimination.

"what is still there is the demand for the young person to present himself naked and what is even worse than in the past: it is no longer a ritual among men. Today the young men are mainly checked and
controlled by all-women-teams."

The text includes testimony from several men who describe their experiences and the trauma they suffered since. Here is a heavily abridged anecdote where [...] indicates text irrelevant to this discussion was cut out.

"In 1999, as I was only seventeen, I was called up to attend the musterung. [...] I was called into an examination room by a female doctor. In there was another woman as well, a secretary. [...] she pointed with her finger in the direction of the screen. I was told to go behind there, get (completely) undressed [...] Now I should have to show myself stark naked in front of these two women, one of whom not much older
than myself. [...] the secretary looked at me with a smile on her face."

Shame and embarrassment are universal themes in these recollections. This is another account from 'Peter' who chose the civilian alternative to military conscription after his musterung and was then subjected to another medical examination:

"I had to completely strip. That was extremely embarrassing as it was in presence of not just a female doctor but also a female assistant. [...] She took her time, and, at one time, without warning, she just grabbed my penis and pulled back the foreskin. She was quite rough, and it was even painful. It was horrible to stand like that in front of these ladies."

It is worth debating if this is worse than the experience British schools subjected their boys to. While Germany suspended conscription in 2010, several European countries still inflict it upon their male citizens. They still have to undergo medical examination, often performed by female doctors who are of course never subjected to this institutionalized humiliation. A lot of this has been recorded and uploaded to YouTube, without the part where the conscript is made to expose his privates.

Likewise Fred I rarely wore a shirt, and still don't. Although these days I wear sunscreen.

I'm just much more aware of the damage the sun can do since a builder mate had skin cancer and the death of British comedian, and former brickie, Sean Lock.

My advice, to put a shirt on, was often ignored.

Once again another PE teacher like Anthony gets it in the neck for just doing the job exactly as any sensible minded school and person would expect him to do it. There should be no expectation to keep fully covered up in a PE class, quite the opposite infact.

There's a lot of rubbish put on here from a certain person. If you hated shirtless gym how come you didn't mind showers, there's no logic to that. Strip above the waist not fine, strip above and below just fine. That needs explaining to me. Of course teachers watched guys like us doing all that, it was their job to do that whether we like it or not.

I'm also a domestic builder Gary and run my own business with six guys. It's the older guys we have who keep the t-shirts on while working and the three younger ones we have in their twenties who have been working shirtless a lot this summer and I'd never tell them they can't, as long as the home owner has no objections on major builds, they do so at their own risk. They have been wearing beanie or baseball caps while working shirtless though. I'm 64 and always used to work outside when I left school and started at a builders yard when I was 16 and did so for many years, gained a weathered outdoor look and probably got sunburnt many times. I'll still occasionally throw the top aside and work shirtless in comfort and am a match for any of the young ones I employ, but I'd never say they must stick a shirt on and cover a torso. I will insist on certain builds on hard hats if sensible and I can remember many times seeing the guys on site in hard hats and shirtless! Let's face it, some of them just like showing off if they have a nice upper body and there are a few people going by to admire them.

Any lads when I was in school would have been ribbed something rotten if it became known they found being without a top on anxiety inducing, that's not to say there weren't some, but they'd have known saying anything aloud like that would single them out. That's why our generation and the one below me did things with little complaint such as showers, if you made an open fuss of these things then all you would do is open yourself up to ridicule, mainly from those your own age, and a teacher was highly unlikely to be sympathetic as Rick has actually mentioned yesterday.

My father was a quite overbearing man in the manner that one or two of my own male school teachers were, including PE teachers among that, but he was just a boring studious suit wearing office based accountant.

We never went abroad, despite his quite good job, but we never wanted for anything either. We used to holiday at the same time every year about now, in the first half of August and go off to places like Bournemouth for a week, or Weymouth or Weston-Super-Mare. Real adventure meant the IOW once.

So once a year throughout my childhood me and my younger couple of brothers, he had three sons, I was born in 1966, my middle brother in 1968 and youngest in 1970, would go off to that years chosen resort mainly in the south or west of the country for what was basically a week at the seaside. On these holidays we more or less had to do what he decided, including our mum who always went along with him because he'd paid for it all. On these holidays when we went to the beach and set up for the day he would always tell the three of us to change and wear our swimming trunks and nothing else because we were by the sea on the sand in the sun. We were not allowed to decide ourselves, he told us we were to wear swim trunks, be shirtless and walk the beach without footwear on our feet. He was the same, and it was the same every year for all of us, dad made us be on the beach on holiday shirtless in trunks. It was okay on the beach but I never liked being told explicitly what I coul wear there. Even my swimming trunks were bought and chosen by him or mum, not me. These were swimming trunks proper, not shorts, so were clingy and tight and a bit revealing up front at times.

I remember on a holiday when I was 12 years old he wanted to give mum a chilled rest from us all to herself on the beach and took the three of us with him, to get ice creams along the front in Weston, and then decided he wanted to walk off and around the area with us, one of siblings created about it but he dragged us along with him, in our beach trunks, shirtless, nothing on our feet, dad had flip flops I think, walking on tarmac pavements, feeling bloody awkward, ended up eating burgers in a cafe at one point and even went into a chemist, may even have been a Boots, three young kids, me 12, the others 10 and 8, with almost nothing on bar the tiny swim trunks. Dad had stuck a cotton shirt on for this but we as kids were just expected to not care, do as we were told and behave. Dad was a good hard working loving man, but this was how we were treated in the seventies and our last family holiday like this was in the mid eighties when I was 19, he still acted much the same as we grew older.

So that was the annual summer holiday, dad insisting beach holidays mean men and boys do not wear tops on the sand by the waves and he made sure if it until we left school.

At school, I don't know whether it was school policy or just teacher choice but our school gym at the comprehensive school the three of us went to in Trowbridge at the time was overwhelmingly done shirtless and I most certainly remember how strongly a variety of male PE teachers insisted that PE must be done that way, we even had a woman PE teacher take us for PE sometimes and the shirtless rule continued under her tutoring us too. If we did have a dedicated gym top I simply cannot remember it or what it might have looked like. When I remember the comprehensive school gym for PE all I see are shirtless boys like me all over the place. Shirtless PE at school would have been something I got used to very quickly indeed. Most of us took our tops off automatically without the need to be told, which contrasts greatly with memories I have of compulsory showering after PE at school where many boys were always having to be cajoled by a PE teacher into the full strip off and getting in for the rudimentary communal class skinny dip soak after PE lessons. Showering (fully naked) was seen as vitally important and not to be missed by anyone, eyes of teachers always seemed to be scanning the changing room looking out for anyone trying to avoid one or pretend they'd had one when they hadn't. I never got too hung up about my PE teachers looking at my naked body as I did that, and found it an interesting shared experience to have with my class and friends where we could look at each other and see we were all the same underneath really even if we did vary a bit in size and shape. Nothing to feel too upset about after initial nerves about it were banished.

As I've said before, there really is no benefit in compelling boys to remove their tops. And in fact it's emotionally damaging for many. As the comments here prove.
I was a builder. I've only ever told young guys to put their shirts back on. Sweating in the sun is more dangerous than ever.

Hi Alan,

Hi Anthony Hayman,

Re this whole compulsory shirtless PE thing, I think there is an essential difference between a school where it is mandatory and a school where the PE teacher is allowed to do what he pleases.

I may have said this before, I can't remember.

At my secondary school we were not only allowed but expected to wear tops both inside and out. There was a long list of PE clothing my parents were expected to buy before I started.

Also - thank Christ! - there was absolutely none of this seemingly common practice of forcing half-naked boys into a gym fill with girls who had been allowed to wear far more clothing. I don't know if this was because it was a catholic school and therefore the staff felt extra prudish about it or what, but our lessons were always segregated.

My late father was a clever man who did not receive the appropriate educational opportunities because the school system in his day was frankly atrocious. He always worked but always in the most menial, lowest-paying positions. He was a sour, embittered man who never stopped moaning about money.

I can just imagine his reaction if he had heard me say, after my very first indoor PE lesson, that our PE had ordered us to forget the tops, footwear and everything else the school had ordered my parents to buy and get into the gym in nothing but our shorts.

Comment by: Anthony Hayman on 10th July 2025 at 21:56




".........I think one of the nuttiest things anyone could do would be to no longer allow PE teachers to take a class without tops on or say we couldn't get them showered after working out hard. In the end though, sometimes you just have to drag the more reticent ones along with you and hope for the best outcome for them eventually.

You should not be scared of your body in single gender situations........."

That's right, Tony, if you haven't got a good reason or excuse, denigrate people with an opposing view by calling them "nutty" - teachers are so like politicians, I am just surprised more do not opt for the green benches. Power without responsibility writ large, in both cases.

I am so bored with keep repeating my views on showering - I have no problems with showers, but I do have problems with those teachers like mine, who stood watching over you. As I have said ours did all the time, and we knew the reason why.

You seem to have altered your stance somewhat since your initial post. Now it is only SOME lessons conducted with minimal kit. However, in your original statement you wrote:-

Comment by: Anthony Hayman on 25th June 2025 at 03:30




".....and it is especially important for adolescent boys to become more aware of their appearance and body image and this is best done with exposure of themselves and to each other, and that is why our school insists that boys come to their gym classes with bare chests, school shorts with the crest on them and we prefer bare feet during gym as a rule because it is far healthier and reduces sweat there. Exceptions to this are not generally permitted, we expect the same from everyone......."


This minimalism might have been just about acceptable in the days of compulsory military service, to get boys prepared for army life, but those days have been gone for well over 60 years now and despite the fantasies and desires of a few (usually elderly men who never served or did so in the catering corps) it will never return - we don't have the money and the government is unpopular enough already. Even the top brass in the services are not keen on the idea, they don't like unwilling conscripts. So - as the days of coal mining are long over and the pit head baths, where, in normal circumstances, are men going to spend their working lives naked with each other?. Even building sites these days do not allow bare chested workers, because of health and safety and the health hazards of UV light. It seems that men in general do not want to disport themselves fully undressed. I don't know personally, because I don't visit such establishments, but the number of times that men on this forum have mentioned the "towel dance" at swimming pools and gyms, seems to suggest MEN are uncomfortable with group nudity, so young boys are likely to be even more so - hence, I suppose your need to "drag the more reticent ones along" - not literally, I hope?.

Why should lads have to lose their modesty on the whims of a P.E. teacher?. You have the extreme heat at the moment to justify it in your own eyes, but it is not summer forever.

I also question your final line last night ("You should not be scared of your body in single gender situations.") . We have heard from countless men on this forum that they were made to take part in P.E.lessons in minimal kit in mixed sessions with girls, who of course, had more modest attire - one of the reasons I found your friend Jason's sermon on "equality" so risible. As it happens, I went to a single sex school, but the majority these days are co-ed.

I hope you get through the coming six weeks holiday not feeling too deprived that you can't tell your pupils what to do and what to wear, Tony. Six weeks paid holiday must be hell :-)

I was routinely subjected to bare chested physical education lessons throughout my entire time at secondary school and disliked having to show my body off during lessons intensely. I did say something to a gym teacher of mine at one point quite early when he picked up on this, so I thought I'd admit my anxiety, but it came to nothing much and I remember being told I would get used to it. I never did. It was the same with school showers after gym lessons, boys pretended they didn't mind having them but I know full well that many of them didn't want to take them and found teachers forcing us to get naked quite an uncomfortable/embarrassing/anxious aspect of school physical education lessons in the 1980's and 1990's.

I had my first of a few bare chested physical education lessons at middle school but they became a more anxious thing at secondary where the bare chested gym ethos was ingrained quite firmly among many of the gym teachers at my school, and I can also lay claim to being one of those who went to a school that made all boys do sports day for our parents in our bare chests just like normal gym was. Lacking a top and being a skin was not considered anything any of us should be fretting over, my teacher made that quite clear to me with our little chat.