Clitheroe Royal Grammar School

To answer Jason - yes you're right, getting out of one PE lesson by faking sickness didn't actually achieve much!
What made me nervous was basically that I'd never experienced group sports with my shirt off until that point (I was actually 14 at the time). I'm sure if I'd been used to it from a younger age it would have seemed less of an issue.
Perhaps I'd also have felt different if it had been standard for every boy to do PE with a bare top. It seemed quite unfair that the teacher could just pick out certain boys and make them skins but not others.

Glenn - I once read a story about a boy and his father walking across a field to go to a fun-fair. The boy was walking along quite happily carrying his shirt. As they approached the crowds the father told his son to "put your shirt on - no-one wants to see that." I don't think the boy had anything other than a normal body for his age but a comment like that can leave a lasting impression even after the actual words have been forgotten. Unfortunate remarks can lead to a boy being shy about taking his shirt off in front of others even if he has a perfectly normal body. Parents can do a lot of damage if they say silly things without thinking.

Never understood boys in school (and there were a few at mine) who got so worked up at the prospect of having no piece of fabric covering their top half in a PE lesson when a teacher said so. How can anyone be made anxious by their own bare chest? I've read a couple of comments in archive older posts elsewhere on here where the now adults admit to this despite then saying they actually had normal or even nice looking bodies, so what was the problem then. Is it comparable to an actual phobia or what. If anyone would like to give a decent answer I'll give it a sympathetic read.

Is there even a name for a bare chest phobia or does it just come under body dysmorphia, or is it just an extreme shyness thing, or just about self esteem issues? It seems like there is a trigger point in some people or something that suddenly comes over them, kids of 6 or 7 almost never care about it but then by 13 or 14 they do.

So what was it about being a so called 'skin' that made you so fearful Richard?

In the end you were still forced to get on with it as you say and surely that just made things worse than if you'd just done it in the first place don't you think.

Having read Rob's post, I will own up to being one of those boys who faked feeling sick in order to avoid shirts v skins in PE! It worked in the short term, the teacher allowed me to go to the school nurse and I missed the lesson. However, in the long run it didn't work all that well... the teacher made me a skin for the next few lessons!

The lengths some people will go to get out of being a skin in skins v shirts. I saw something very similar to this once myself. Boy suddenly started complaining of a belly ache just as he, myself and half of us had to lose our tops to become skins and our PE tutor smacked a ball hard into his belly and gave him something to complain about for real. He was then given a ten second countdown to become a skin or else. My main PE teacher was always a bit of a bully in class like that. Same year as this clip it happened coincidentally, in 1985. We were 14.

https://youtu.be/fMwIYmgviP0

Like other commentators on this discussion I am in agreement with the concern about a still quite young child in school making what at face value sounds like a mildly homophobic comment just because teacher took him and his class for a games lesson barechested. It's clearly playing to a fear of some kind and his dislike of it.

In this day and age I find it very surprising. At my own school in the late 70s - early 80s my games lesson in the school gymnasium up to spring term of fifth form was always to turn up ready for it never wearing a top. For three and a half years of games classes in gym that was the rule for me, my mates and all the others. Those were far less enlightened times regarding bigotry of all kinds but nobody made any kinds of connection between us all being together in games not being allowed to wear our tops and being shirtless among each other, to being gay, and in our games lessons we would have some physical skin on skin touching of each other during some lessons, normal conduct of the class to me.

But I'll go further because as I got older in school I was aware there were a couple of chaps in my class who I thought might be potentially gay when we were about fifteen years old. Just a hunch, nothing more. I later found out that both of them indeed were gay and when I met one in his twenties he had a male partner in tow. It didn't seem to give them problems at school, either doing games without tops and I never heard anyone make any gay comments at them either. One of them was infact quite tubby in an age when most boys showed up quite skinny. He might have had a couple of reasons there to feel unhappy with his lot but it never showed and I knew him well.

What seems to be a big deal to some boys just isn't to others. But it's definitely worth a chat with the child who made the gay comment to discover the cause. It may seem like a throwaway childish comment but there's clearly more to it for him to have said it aloud.

Completely disagree Fiona with that second Out Front magazine article which says gay men love taking their shirts off on hot summer days. That is definitely a straight man thing surely.

Has anybody gay actually written on this site, or somebody who knew they were at school or slowly realised. I can't imagine how that might affect somebody who has to endure shirtless lessons and showers, or perhaps such things and PE lessons seeing others in various kits, or lack of and states of undress acted as the catalyst for realising their sexuality. Is anyone prepared to admit it. I'm straight so can't oblige on that one I'm afraid.

Thanks Alan.

Jenny - This might not be particularly helpful in the circumstances, but a bit of Googling alongside my post-lunch coffee reveals that there is actually a culture of not wearing a shirt amongst gay men, particularly at public events such as clubs, parties, parades etc. See, for example:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/mbkd5q/why-shirts-off-matters-at-queer-parties
https://www.outfrontmagazine.com/stuff-gay-people-like-being-shirtless/

That having been said, however, there is a rather longer-standing culture of males, of all ages, conditions and inclinations, going shirt-less for all forms of vigorous activity, physical exercise, impromptu sports, gardening and the like, especially in hot weather. Has your son shown any inclination to strip to the waist over the summer? In recent months, my son has spent much of his out-of-school time in shorts, minus a shirt, both inside and outside the house, as have my brother, his sons and my father, none of whom would regard themselves as gay. And, as I have said, he and his schoolmates almost universally, and by choice, dispense with shirts entirely during indoor PE lessons, and regularly complain about having to wear a shirt when PE takes them outside in fine weather. But "them's the rules", and by and large they stick to them. And finally, if you were to ask your son's classmates if they ever wear a top to sleep in, I expect that the majority would say that they never do. After all, the transition from two-piece pyjamas to bare-chest and boxers is a well-documented rite of passage for many, if not most, pubescent boys, as I know from experience; teen sleep-overs in our house can be very revealing at times.

So, I think you are wise to just let things ride for a bit, and keep you eye out for how things settle down in the gym. A discrete sniff-test of his vest sounds like a good rough-and-ready indicator. It's important to keep sending him to school each PE day with the specified kit, just in case anyone ever questions missing items - read these threads for numerous historical case studies!. Bring them to your son's attention even. Equally important is not to dismiss his concerns as "silly".. He's in a new situation, with a lot of boys similarly placed, many of whom probably have similar fears.

A message to Martin;

I was in complete agreement with everything you said when I followed up your comment of last week with my one. Nothing you said would I argue with.

I have not the slightest idea why you chose to attack me personally for my follow up to you. I thought I was backing you up rather well infact, in my own way. Clearly something got lost in translation. I'm pleased other thread readers understood my point.

Looking at what Jenny has written on here brings back thoughts of my time in school from 1972-77 at my secondary modern.

PE could be okay half the time, a nightmare the other half. It depended who you got taking it, what you were doing and where. PE teachers all seemed to think every boy in school loved football, rugby or any other outside team game. If you didn't you were looked at like you were a freak. They didn't seem to make any allowances for those who lacked aptitude for some of these things.

When you mix up the ultra competitive boys along with the ones who try hard but are never going to make the grade then it's a recipe for trouble. The ones who are good get frustrated, and so do the PE teachers who should know better, and the ones who do their best feel, well, second class members of the class.

I was crushingly self conscious. I always disliked intensely when someone would watch me closely doing something in PE and just the act of watching me personally would have the effect of making me do whatever it was, worse.

Another thing, I was at a school where PE an awful lot of the time was a stripped off to the waist lesson, inside or out on the personal choice of whichever teacher you had for PE lessons. I was never a fan of strutting about like that because I was so self conscious about myself. When we had to do PE classes like that I instantly felt my self confidence diminish somewhat and would start focussing on what I looked like. I'd go as far as saying feelings of embarrassment would come across me. It was even more so with showering which I often tried to evade and would get in trouble for. I wasn't alone, there was a small gang of us who did the same.

Just the sight of the school showers scared the life out of me at first.

I remember playing up so many times when PE lessons came along during one especially intense period at school over a few months. Making out I hadn't got kit, firing excuses off and bringing faked notes and generally frustrating various PE teachers. On one occasion I actually held the lesson up for what must have been ten minutes when he sent the class off to the gym without me and was at the end of his tether in the changing room, hopping mad with me as I stood there fully dressed and not changing when I'd not brought any kit in.

I never said a word to anyone back at home how I was behaving or what I felt. Never. I suppose the only clue would have been in some of the comments written on the school report but I don't remember them being dreadfully critical despite my behaviour other than using the usual teacher cliches.

But you know something, I have enormous regret about being in school and acting up like that looking backwards to it and so wish I could change what I was like at the time and just embrace it for what it was. Sometimes in our lives we are our own worst enemy and PE at school is one of those times when I most definitely was in my life.

Fully agree with you Graham.

I re-read the thoughtful post from Steven a number of times trying to fathom out why it illicited the amateur psychology comment, and was none the wiser for doing so. It made no sense other than being deliberately provocative in my opinion. I'm afraid I along with some others tend to the view that the history site is being plagued by a single disrupter. I've seen the comment last week on the Burnley thread where four comments made by somebody were picked out as being written by artifical intelligence! Clearly preposterous nonsense. Luckily on there it has been completely ignored as it should have been. To be honest I wonder if I should have written this on here but this will be my only word on the matter.


A very interesting couple of pieces by Jenny I found. But like Paul has said, I agree with his comment about what your son said. That's worth getting to the root of why he would think along those lines. There is nothing 'gay' about men or boys being together without shirts on. Are beaches considerewd gay, no, so why does he think the gym is in school if he's asked to be the same. In these more enlightened times ask him why he thinks that. Back years ago with more archaic views I never heard anyone make the slightest hint of comments like that when we were together much the same in school for PE, with most, if not all our clothes off. What about swimming for instance, has he ever done that at school or will he be doing and does he think swimming together is 'gay' too.

Don't worry about his lesson requirement. That's normal, or was until not that long ago anyway. It sounds like he's not comfortable in the requirement he was asked last week and maybe that is his rather cackhanded way of admitting it to you. You know your own son and if that's likely. Is he shy and likely to be about such things?

I hope you come back and let us know.

Jenny - It's way back in the mists of time now, but my parents would have sympathised with you on the disparity between theory and practice for school sports kit. When I went away to a boarding school at age 15, the kit list specified the usual PE shorts/vest/plimsolls, which we did actually wear all the time, but also such exotic items as cricket boots, white trousers and white sweater (summer term only), none of which I actually ever wore as I opted for tennis in the summer. The boot had ben on the other foot, so to speak, at my previous school, because while PE shorts and vest were specified, in practice, any old white top was deemed acceptable, and most of us just wore our everyday underwear vests - yes, it was that long ago! When topless PE was introduced after I had been there a couple of years, there were very few parents to be heard complaining about unused PE kit, but quite a lot complaining that their sons had stopped wearing vests at all, even in the winter.

Jenny, You might find the comment made by Giles Ames on 15th August in the Burnley Grammar string interesting. I replied on 24th August about the change in attitudes over the years towards male non-sexual nudity.

Martin, Bob, Jason, Andy and others:

Give us a break from all the bickering, please. It's getting somewhat tedious, not to mention disruptive to the more on-topic discussions trying to take pace on all of these pages.

Really troubling to hear that a kid of just 12 thinks it's a bit gay to be in a group of boys in the gym while shirtless doing a PE class in school. You need to get to the bottom of his thinking and where that came from. Going nude into the school showers with other boys his age or taking his top off to do a PE class should not bother you at all but the gay comment he made to you really should give rise for concern about where he developed that thought at such a young age from.

Bob on 12th September 2022 at 13:06

No idea what you're talking about but you have been caught out, clearly you're the multiple poster projecting your wrong doing onto others.

Jenny - I agree with Jason. I can understand you being unhappy about spending money on kit that is not used but, other than that, it sounds like a sensible school policy on kit and showers. It may seem old-fashioned but that does not make it bad!

Martin/Andy.

Clearly Martin is the very same person who has been disruptive to the other thread with the belligerent attitude. The style of writing, poor attitude to others, tone and way the posts are replied to match up completely.

Stop taking people for fools.

Jenny if your son is doing his PE barechested and barefoot and is taking a naked shower among his classmates afterwards then that is perfectly normal and nothing to worry about in the least. I commend the school for its healthy attitude. I think you sound like you agree. What is concerning is that this PE set up is now considered by quite a few to be an extreme way to do it.

James on 8th September 2022 at 13:41

A post from the class bully I see.

Bob on 8th September 2022 at 14:29
Jason on 8th September 2022 at 22:56
John on 9th September 2022 at 11:45
Andre on 10th September 2022 at 16:59

And lo and behold in a short space of time we have those cowering in his shadow supporting his stance.

Grow up gentlemen and act as adults now.

Comment by: Fiona on 11th September 2022 at 12:06
Jenny - were your son, or any of his classmates, bothered in any way by either the bare-chested PE experience or the subsequent, presumably clothes-free, shower?

What other kind of shower is ther apart from clothes free Fiona? The biggest complaint I got about that was that I sent him off with too big a towel filling his bag up and that he has to lug a towel around all day in his bag. Nothing about actual showering itself - yet anyway. When I read what you said it made me doubt my presumption so I did ask what seems a silly question and the answer was nothing, no clothes on to shower. I suppose if you are a school that wants your children to shower after their PE it would be rather silly to say you could keep something on, a pair of pants or something alike. But then they would get wet and have to come off anyway wouldn't they.

He did not volunteer any information about his school day very enthusiastically but when I did sit down and talk about it he spoke freely about his whole day. You mentioned the lack of the vest I sent him with for PE. He was quite anxious about that as it was not expected because a vest was mentioned as part of the inside PE kit to be worn but the PE teacher made his own choice and apparently they were told to just leave them in their bags and not even bring them to the place they did PE, the school's sports hall.

His reaction to me, to doing his PE lesson without his vest, wearing nothing on top, was something I did not expect to hear and did raise my eyebrows just a little. He said and I quote verbatim, "it felt a bit gay". I was surprised as this is not the language I normally hear from my son and I don't think I have ever heard him use words like that before. I asked why he was saying that and it was because there were so many boys all the same together bared chest with each other without vests on and there was an element of physical contact during the lesson. I told him not to be silly and stop talking like that. I did wonder if other boys had said that while in the class or afterwards and he just picked up their words or whether they were infact his own.

I'm going to keep a keen eye out for how things settle down at his school. I'll still be sending him to school each Wednesday with what I've been told to provide and I will keep an eye out to see if the vest comes home needing a wash or comes home clean and fresh still, but I will just ask what he's up to and hope for an honest reply.

I do wonder about his associating his PE lesson with the comment he made to me though and have been wondering if he might also have been reading something online I'm unaware of to give him that kind of view.

Fiona he has a full outdoors kit, two different kits infact. After spending the money I have I will not be pleased if he ends up doing PE outdoors without what I've been told to provide. My husband went to the same school years ago when it had a completely different name pre-academy status and tells me of his own PE in the way many remember ages ago now, and distance running with his PE top hanging off his waist when told to but I would be extremely surprised and rather annoyed if I found out my son was put through that kind of old style behaviour.

George, it's a mixed academy school. I've actually no idea if his PE will keep the genders separate in the future or whether they will share at any point like they did at his lower schools up until now.

I'm probably one of the oldest mother's as I had my only child in my mid 40's.

Jenny - Both my brother and my father did PE topless at secondary school as a matter of course, but that was back in the dark ages of the 20th century. At my 16 y.o. son's secondary school, PE tops have always been mandatory for outdoor activities like cross-country running etc., but in the gym have been optional and, apparently, rarely worn, since before he started there.

Jenny, does your son attend a boys' school? If girls attend too, do they do PE separately from the boys or do both genders do it together?

Good call from you both Andre and David, I concur with that.

Jenny - I was interested in your description of the lesson as 'old fashioned'. I would be surprised if all his lessons were the same as that, as it seems you had a school vest ready, presumably on his new kit list like schools give out. Actually what surprised me was that he got thrown in like that with his first lesson back to school but perhaps they mean to start as they go on.

I remember starting at my own senior school back in the seventies and our PE teachers seemed to break us into the new ways surprisingly gradually. Many of the early lessons were casual, relaxed affairs, not especially competitive, we wore precisely what the uniform list had said we should, shorts, white socks, trainers and stripey vest. It continued like that for much of the first half of the term. There were showers in our changing room but they didn't get touched either, despite bringing a towel in. I'll admit I was a bit relieved but doubted it would last, and was right. We came back into school after a week off and there was a dramatic transformation, same teachers and all that but suddenly the lessons upped a significant gear and the showers kicked in for us with no opting out allowed by anyone in class at all.

I think you have a healthy attitude and are right not to be too concerned but just be aware of things.

Jenny - were your son, or any of his classmates, bothered in any way by either the bare-chested PE experience or the subsequent, presumably clothes-free, shower?

Comment by: Jason on 20th May 2022 at 22:22
Why would anyone doubt barechested school PE still exists, why shouldn't it?


My 12 year old started secondary school last week at a school in Warwickshire and took his first PE lesson on Wednesday when he was packed off with a small towel, some shorts and a thin vest for his indoor class taken in the school sports hall. He came home later to tell me he and the boys spent the lesson not wearing the vest and conducted class along with everyone else with a bare chest and feet, followed by a group shower together afterwards under supervision. It seems a little old fashioned but he coped and as they were all the same I see no reason to feel concerned about it. I already knew he was going to a school that promoted an after PE shower policy for all. I was in two minds on the issue but remain open minded and will see how the year progresses. I will be very surprised if all his PE indoors lessons turn out like his first one and will be asking him and monitoring.

Yes, it's the usual post puberty forced naked swimming in British schools that the fantasists love to propagate on parts of this site every now and again.

There is an authenticity in Nigel's post that is lacking in Martin's.