Burnley Grammar School

There's a lot of sense to the thinking that we had to remove more clothing than was necessary so they could do secret check ups on whether our own parents were beating us black and blue.

In recent years you always hear strories of parents hurting their children, perhaps it's easier for them to get away with it nowadays if more children are not doing things the way we used to which involved removing most or all of our clothing regularly at school. It makes it easier to hide bruising or cuts over the body.

Agree with so many comments on here at the moment regards double standards and circumcision.

Re: Christine stats, and Yours Truly on double standards based on gender.

Why were boys expected to shower in school more than girls? The stats posted by the ofsted lady from ten years ago at 47% to 32% in favour of boys in school supports my own first hand knowledge at school in the late 70s into the early 80s when boys year on year had to shower whilst girls could avoid it easily or not even be asked. That's fact as I lived it and saw it. Boys in PE knew the girls got away without showers and that their teachers went easy over it and basically didn't enforce it very often, but my goodness we boys faced showers all the time, every time and not only that we were watched over sometimes by two teachers at the same time as if none of us could be trusted to do it. Just going in was not good enough, we had to do the showering bit right or not be let out until we had. I definitely know we put a lot of effort into PE and didn't slack off any time, because we weren't allowed to. We always got pushed to the limit, making us pant with exhaustion and my body would frequently ache after it all and be in a state where a shower was essential. So I guess my school's boys had good cardiovascular health then.

Alan,

Whatever. You could still just clean it regularly though. Job done.

Christine,

Yours was a very scholarly, sociological post.

Just one question: why was the imposition of a shower requirement discretionary? The problem with discretion is we all know which gender that 'discretion' is much more likely to be directed towards. Your own statistics bear this out, where almost half of boys had to shower but only a third of girls.

The same with the bare chest rule which you express approval of. A similarly minimal kit should be extend to the girls (with tops of course!), ie polo-shirt, shorts and bare feet and a equivalently minimal kit outside. Not the blatant PE kit inequality a couple of posters have recounted here.

Fairness is vital. Unfairness is something young people are very quick to pick up on and lingers as another bad memory, of school PE or whatever.

Christine thankyou for providing that valuable information on here, I found it fascinating and I think I agree with your points. It all sounds logical to me.

If you know nobody is taking a shower after the gym at school or outside on the playing fields then maybe those places don't make the youngsters go full pelt at whatever they are doing, perhaps deliberately, so they don't either get too sweaty, or a bit mucky and sweaty outside, whilst if you know you're getting showered at the end of it all then it doesn't matter you can work out at full max, sweat through or dive onto the dirty ground and know you'll be clean at the end of it all.

Most of us here when we were at school had to take showers after any type of PE, and even if you weren't shy or insecure about yourself I don't think many of us would go as far as to say we loved doing it but it did at least seem the sensible thing to do looking back, and schools had a more common sense tough love kind of approach. It was good for us even if we didn't think so in the moment.

Do you have any knowledge about the points Matthew makes about teachers making discreet observations of school children in PE, showering or even school check ups for signs of family domestic abusive behaviour?

Hi Mark,

Thank you for your reply.

The procedure you describe only goes to reinforce my lifelong impression that there was huge variance in the presence and administration of these medical exams from school to school.

In my case there was no disrobing in front of anyone else - well, apart from my girl classmate, who really shouldn't have been allowed to be there.

On the other hand my pants definitely did come off both times and stayed with the rest of my clothes in another room.

I see another poster down below (sorry can't remember your name) has stated that they had medicals every year in secondary school just like this friend I remember. Again I was not that unlucky and the thought of a full intrusive medical exam in my teens absolutely makes me shudder.

As regards that woman examiner who was curt with you, well I wish I could say that surprised me. I'll bet she was nicer to the girls the next day. Women have always been harder on boys than on girls. Primary school teachers are a case in point. I look forward to the day when women are called out publicly for their endemic sexism the way men (rightly) have been for decades. But it is so endemic in their natures and the gender focus in the media and academia is so turned on men that that day will never arrive.

To Yours Truly and Danncy C, I would just respectfully point out that millions of American men, and, indeed Israeli men, in both the present and the past have undergone the procedure and it seems to have done them no harm whatsoever. I know the Americans, especially, do have a loud "Intactivist" minority, and use terms like "mutilation", which no doubt does have a detrimental effect on some men and their mental health, but it remains the normal procedure for a majority of the population there. I am sure if it wasn't that neonatal procedure that upsets the minority, they would find some other cause - having brown eyes instead of blue, perhaps.

I was an Ofsted school inspector for a number of years. In 2014 one of our reports we published on the subject of physical education provisions and implementation practices in various school sectors for those aged 11 to 18 throughout the North West of England including the urban Manchester area and surrounding towns discovered that as of that point in time 47% of schools still made a requirement to shower for boys, and 32% did the same for girls. As of 2024 all state and independant schools that cater for intakes aged eleven and over must by law maintain such a provision in full working order, and this gets checked. Usage is entirely a discretionary matter at individual locations.

What we did find was that in locations where a showering facility was not encouraged or made use of that these pupils appeared to be less physically active than in those where pupils did so, and also that showering after PE was less common in the more deprived areas and much more common in better off more affluent locations, and that these pupils were also more generally active and engaged.

We also found in eight schools in Manchester and Bolton that required showering in 2014 that those pupils had a much better reported cardiorespiratory fitness level that was self reported to us. Lower rates of showering, especially among girls led to lower rates of cardiorespiratory fitness in those girls.

We actually discovered that in the 47% of schools where showering remained for boys at those ages and the lesser 32% for girls, that these schools were physically more active during PE, significantly so, and that showering at school brings considerable health benefits to those that do it. We had a report citing effects on 4000 boys and 2000 girls. I believe a subsequent report elsewhere in the country reported broadly similar findings in line with the NW of England ten years ago.

If you think about this, it makes sense. Children many years ago were definitely fitter and more active in school and just taking the state sector alone 50 years ago, my generation, almost 100% of boys and girls were expected to be placed in the showers on completion of PE by their schools, and they were a healthier, fitter and less overweight generation, and happier too.

Whilst I have no information about the effects of shirtless physical education I think it's fair to state that it goes hand in glove with what I've already said, and that it was largely considered the healthy option that fostered the best results overall in terms of activity levels. I frequently observed such physical education taking place across schools our various teams visited across the NW England during the 1996-2014 period.

Today in 2024 if you are a pupil in any school in England or Wales and are aged eleven and above and go to a school that does not openly require showering or even states this as fact, pupil or parents are legally entitled to request availablity to shower after a physical education class and do so and this has to be delivered. In practice however this rarely happens.

Snipping non consenting children for non medical reasons is grievous bodily harm in my book and abuse that should be deplored. Nobody, not even the parents, should have the right to alter such a fundamental part of another male human being's body like that. The hygiene issue is a red herring. My mother taught both me and my brother about hygiene down there at a very young age. It's not difficult to maintain is it. I had an annual underwear only medical at secondary every October and the first year I was there I had to lower my pants to my knees for about 10 seconds and "prove" that I was in good working order, which I was. A very uncomfortable and unnecessary moment. I'd proved many times to my own mother to her satisfaction that I was okay in that department and if she's been concerned the family GP was easily available circa 1981. The idea that a school GP would think I needed a procedure like that and put the idea in my parents minds disgusts me. I saw someone on here say just that a couple of years back. Luckily I know my parents would have ignored such a thing and always respected my wishes. So I agree fully Yours Truly with your view.

At school I only knew one person among all the countless numbers I knew and saw who had been circumcised and he was one of my closest friends. I remember feeling very sorry for him and I didn't think it made him look as nice as the other boys and me, and he was always very self conscious of the difference he had to show to us all and I was aware he would try to cover himself down below in the showers at school, or even when we went swimming and shared just a cubicle with me and him to ourselves.

The 1970s and 1980s might have had much more liberal standards of modesty or chastity than they do now. My guess is that had at least in part originated with the free-love revolution of the 1960s before them.

Because you will notice how both 70s and 80s films tend to have much more gratuitous shirtless shots in them especially in scenes involving sports-lockers though so I am sure the movies sort of reflected that aspect of the time.

I did continual shirtless gym in school, through the whole of primary and secondary, so quite a long time. I accepted it as something normal I had to do but disliked mixing it with girls sometimes because there were definitely boys around me who liked being shirtless a lot and even more when girls hung about with us, it was obvious some were showing off at times because they had their bodies on display like that.

Yours Truly and Julian P,

I posted this recollection on 9/10/23. Please don't mind my repeating it, as it touches on the suggestion school staff were quietly looking out for signs of mistreatment (Graham Butterfield, a retired PE teacher posting on this site, agreed):

In my first, or one of my first, PE lessons at junior school in the early 1990s, we got changed in the classroom beforehand. The boys put on white shorts with our chests bare; the girls wore white shorts and white T-shirts. All of us had bare feet. The teacher handed round an open metal tin in which we placed any spectacles, sleeper earrings, watches or other jewellery.

We filed along the corridor to the school hall and the teacher told us all to run round the hall in circles. I had been very self-conscious in earlier PE lessons in infant school, but that was easing, to my relief, and at that moment, not quite eight years old, it was rather exhilarating to be scampering around the parquet flooring at peace with myself.

As we children were running round, the teacher, a kindly lady, suddenly called me over. On the side of my left foot, there is a dark, large, flat mole. She pointed at it and asked, "What's that?"

I explained (not much troubled), she accepted my explanation and we went back to the lesson. Only now, as an adult, does it occur to me that she was, perhaps, discreetly observing the children for any, very rare, signs of mistreatment (partially explaining the minimal PE kit) and that the mole could easily have been mistaken for a cigarette burn.

Hi Julian P,

I had heard that rationale for the full medicals as well. although I don't see why the teachers couldn't have kept an observant eye on us when we were changing into and out of our PE kits.

Although we wonder why there seem to be the necessity to be completely undressed for what seems a basic medical exam, I am wondering was it so that the person examining us could see if there was any bruising on our body that was not evident when we were clothe. I.e. a form of social welfare check?

Hi Alan,

It's not my intention to have an argument with you about this but the hygiene argument for circumcision is totally spurious. You said it yourself - neither parents nor teachers told them. It would have taken a PE teacher moments to explain about pulling back and cleaning under their before their first high school shower.

Unnecessaryand non-consensual amputations on baby boys is an utter violation of their basic human rights. You might as well pull out all the teeth of seven-year-old children because if they don't clean their teeth regularly they will suffer dental problems.

Hi Alan,

It's not my intention to have an argument with you about this but the hygiene argument for circumcision is totally spurious. You said it yourself - neither parents nor teachers told them. It would have taken a PE teacher moments to explain about pulling back and cleaning under their before their first high school shower.

Unnecessaryand non-consensual amputations on baby boys is an utter violation of their basic human rights. You might as well pull out all the teeth of seven-year-old children because if they don't clean their teeth regularly they will suffer dental problems.

Yes, Yours Truly.

We had to undress around our class tables at our chairs to just wearing one clothing item, our underwear. I don't know why they didn't send us to the school PE changing room but they didn't. Speed and convenience possibly and it was easier to watch us in class. Girls had been moved into the dividing activity area we had between two classrooms but could still strain their necks and look back at us, there was not even a partition to pull across, then we were all filing along to the hall and any staff or admin would see us if they were about. I remember being told to sit on the hall floor with arms and legs folded and remain quiet until it was our turn.

I don't think we even knew about what was going to happen until that same morning and it got sprung on us. I was about the same age as Matthew said he was in his account, but a few years later in time.

When called up for my turn I remember just standing there and there being two people, one man and one lady, the lady seemed to be a nurse of some rank, and she grabbed my upper arm quite tighly and pulled me closer to her. She looked in my ears, my mouth, listened to my chest, looked at my hands, did something with my legs and lifted up my feet and looked on top and under them. She also ruffled my hair through with her hands and messed it up. I was spun around a couple of times and I had something felt at my shoulder blades and mention of posture, and at one point had to stand on one leg for a few seconds to do with balance. I also had to raise my arms high above my head and keep them there but I can't remember what for. I most certainly remember repaeting to myself 'please don't take my pants off, please don't take my pants off' and thinking that was going to happen as well but phew I was pleased they didn't even try to do that.

While this was happening I remember the man just sitting there with a warm smile looking at me, I didn't know who he was and nobody said who he was. The lady examiner was officious and abrupt, one of those 'come on now, turn around' types who expected you to read her mind about a second before she had actually said something. I remember a lot of teachers themselves being just like that too. As quick as you were, you were still not fast enough.

On completion I remember being given a slip of paper to take home with me and then walking back from behind the screen, seeing everyone else sat waiting and having to walk back to the classroom by myself to dress by which time the girls in my class had come back from the pretending to give us a bit of privacy and were back at their desks working as I walked in the classroom door and weaved myself around the tables to mine and got dressed again, and every couple of minutes another boy in class did the same thing returning from his health check.

I remember the boys in class thinking it would be fun the next day when the girls turn came to see them going off for their health checks but all they ended up doing was leaving their shoes behind in class and walking off to the hall fully dressed. So I think this kind of meets your double standard threshold doesn't it Yours Truly.

Comment by: Julian P on 16th November 2024 at 15:12


..."However, when I was at secondary school, there seemed to be the obsession during school medicals to check foreskins and in many cases recommend circumcision which several of my friends went through which again I suspect was totally unnecessary".

To be honest, Julian, though I am no defender of officialdom, I think this was a good thing. Anyone who ever spent time in a school shower and changing room will know so many lads had a total disregard for personal hygiene. No retracting during micturation or when showering. To be fair, neither parents or school will have instructed them on matters like this. In America neonatal circumcision is a given, so the lads will not have the pain and embarrassment of having to endure it in their teens and twenties. At one time it was mandatory if you wished to join the USMC (United States Marine Corps)

Mark,

Do you mean to say you boys were all made to actually strip in your classrooms in front of the girls in your class?

Hey Mark,

Junior school age boys really were made to strip completely. I can state this from my own personal experience. It's just, we were not made to do so in front of the girls.

I am hardly surprised to read that the girls at your school were treated with more consideration.

This thing about being under-dressed for basic check ups is so true. I had a junior school check up where boys were sent to the school hall and had to all sit in only our underpants with our legs crossed and arms folded and wait to be called up behind one of two screens at the front of the hall. Boys from different classes had taken all their clothing off back in the classroom at their desk and had to walk to the hall as we were, just in our underwear. It was the girls turn the next day and they went off normally, and undressed only behind the screen in the hall they told some of the boys back in class. I think there was a consent form our parents had signed but none was present to actually see our check up.

For those boys that actually had to remove their underwear and wnet to schools with the other sex I wonder if they had to do this as well, it doesn't seem likely does it.

Eight days ago when I had a chance to reunite with former staff and pupils at a Class of 84 reunion I was able to meet one of my main PE teachers from back in the day.

I asked why we were expected to run the school cross country barechested so often and so late in the year. His answer to me was that doing sports barechested is good for the immune system and especially when done outside, and distance running is very good for this. So he played on the health benefits physically. I retorted back about the mental health benefits on insecure pupils.

I certainly don't remember such an explanation in those days. There was never any explanation, but then nobody asked the question in the first place.

Matthew's post about eyesight tests reminded me of the medicals at my school in the late 1980s. There was a general medical for all boys each year and the first part was a sight test. For whatever reason, we all had to take off our shirts and then stand in a line waiting for our turn. Once your sight test was done, you went through to an office where the doctor did the rest of the exam, each boy in turn. Once inside the office you had to strip down to underwear and then (briefly) naked. But when you exited the office you were still shirtless of course. I could never understand why I had to be shirtless just to have my sight tested!

In reply to Matthew's comment about stripping to underwear for what seemed to be just an eyesight test is odd to say the least. And Yours Truly, in response to your comments about mass circumcision. I was at junior school 1958 to 1961 and it seems as if there was the situation where it seemed the thing for so many of the children to have their tonsils removed, when in fact in most cases it was unnecessary.
However, when I was at secondary school, there seemed to be the obsession during school medicals to check foreskins and in many cases recommend circumcision which several of my friends went through which again I suspect was totally unnecessary.

Comment by: Matthew on 15th November 2024 at 23:41


I suspect the idiots were trying to ape the procedures of the army (that and the semi naked PE lessons) - it was their outdated idea of military life.

There was an argument for it during the years of conscription, getting lads ready for the mass nudity and bull of the old army, but seeing those days ended 65 years ago, it just shows how behind the times educationalists are. MInd you, Bridget Phillipson will probably take us back to the 1930s.

Interesting to read that others went to schools that imposed the same PE kit rules on the sixth form. My school was the same and sixth formers were expected to have one PE and one games lesson a week and in the same PE kit as everyone else so shorts only shirtless and barefoot, which since that's what I wore in high school for pe it was fine I think I was more disgruntled at having to do PE

Julian P.

We had an examination one day in middle school where all the boys in our year had to assemble in the hall and get down to only our underwear and then go and sit in batches of boys about ten at a time on chairs along the corridor waiting outside the medical room to be seen. Once inside we were given an eye test by looking at a book and covering one eye at a time. That was it. Back to the hall to pick up my stuff and dress again. I could not understand why they went to such effort and made us remove nearly everything we had on, shirtless and barefoot, just to do an eye check on us. Very weird. I think I was 9 or 10 years old. That took place around 1976 or 1977.

Does anyone have anything like that?

Yours Truly, another decent read and am happy to respond.

Like your sister I tended to conform. Most of us did though didn't we? Looking back now I rather wish I had been a little less conformist and a lot more questioning. As a younger child I am told I was known as a "why? bird" and was always asking why this, why that, and why are we doing this, kind of questions. I'm like that much more now as an adult in more recent years, but I am not sure what happened during secondary years and that general age range. I must have been flattened into submission, it did sometimes feel that way.

You asked the sixth form question. As far as school was concerned in 1985-87 we knew the rules before we made the decision to stay on so we had no cause to complain about it. There were a lot of free periods so we had to fill them up with a minimum of at least one PE lesson each week, done shirtless if in the school gym or sports hall, or if spring summer athletics or a run. It was completely non negotiable even as lower and even upper sixth formers to age 18, we had to participate as required and in the manner the school laid down. I knew someone who was actually thrown out of the lower sixth form within three months for persistantly failing to meet his PE requirement, so he had to leave. I remember he was very upset about it but the answer was to simply continue with some PE but he wouldn't and so was gone. Rather foolishly I thought. In truth Julian I'd been doing barechetsed PE with the boys for 4 years by the time I'd got to lower sixth so was so well used to the situation that it no longer really registered with me as an issue to carry on doing so even in the sixth form and I think the majority who stayed on probably would say the same. Doing something for so long, even if you are unkeen, ends up being normalised. But there is an interesting addition to this however. There were a small group of boys who joined our school lower sixth from elsewhere in 1985 who had never been pupils at the school before and had not been subjected to the rigours of our school regards PE enforcement to the level those old timers like me had. I think one or two might have even found themselves doing a dose of barechested PE in school for the first time at lower sixth age, remarkably. One person in particular sticks in my mind about this. I used to play a lot of squash when in the sixth from which had these viewing areas, and we played squash the same as we were in the gym or sports hall. I played the new addition to our sixth form a few times and he thought it was ridiculous, but of course he conformed!

Another thing you mentioned that is highly relatable is getting used as sixth form boys to do the jobs of the teachers who were paid to do them. In my case this involved being designated a classroom to watch over during wet break times, meaning no break for those who had a class to get off to when it rained just to stand on guard like a lemon. Sometimes upper sixth boys were asked to join in helping on a PE lesson or supervising a changing room in place of a teacher. I was on the end of a sixth former doing this to me when in my youngest secondary year and you are right, they were just as bad as the teacher for being strict, like trying to prove a point to us. When I was in upper sixth I was asked to put my name to a list of boys on the stand in rota for the changing rooms and was very reluctant and didn't see this as any part of my reason for being at school, but it was drilled into us that it was one small part of all about taking and learning about responsibility and some leadership. I only did this twice in the upper sixth and out of an entire school found myself "standing guard" inside the changing room door on a group of two merged classes including my younger brother by three years who was about 14 and a half by then to my almost 17 and a half. I was left alone and had to make sure these boys showered. I'd have been happy to let them all go off as they wished with or without but knew from someone else that let that happen they'd be getting a real rollicking for it. My brother wasn't as sensitive to these issues as me but I just had to pretend I hadn't seen him and briefly stood back outside the door at one point. Sometimes I was told the teacher would suddenly appear as if trying to catch you out not doing as you'd been asked while standing in.

When it came to the rain day break times there were many times I simply didn't show up or made out I'd left the school on a free period so hadn't been about, even if I had been. It only occassionally got checked up. I still do think it's an absolute nerve to expect 16 to 18 year olds to do unpaid work that teachers are paid to do. I can even remember sixth former being asked to go around litter picking, not just around school but even just outside the school perimeter that was not only not our job but not the school's either but the local council!

There was mentioned taking a dining room PE lesson. Again I can match you on that or even trump you with something more extraordinary. I can even remember the exact date it happened, Wednesday morning 17th February 1982. We found ourselves having a PE lesson in our changing room! I kid you not. Quite why this happened at a school with four squash courts available, a huge sports hall, a decnet sized gymnasium, an all weather sports pitch, tarmac tennis courts and an absolutely vast school playing fields with rugby and football pitches and cricket nets I have no idea, it was not like we were short of options. Okay so the changing room was decent sized but not enough to swing a ball and we all crammed in and sat along benches having changed to just shorts and did something akin to rounders in a changing room. A very bizarre experience that I wish I knew why it happened. It was just stupid. At the end of it all nobody had been able to move much or do anything and most of us had spent the time sitting on the benches as this makeshift game progressed and not drawn a bead of sweat or raised our heart rate, but the teacher still got someone to turn on the shower tap and tell us all to drop our shorts and head to the showers to wash off non existant sweat. You have to laugh now at it all.

I just wish to make clear regards the link I gave to the blog last night that although it appears to be run by someone called "No Shirt Dan" that is not me and I have no direct personal connection to that site and forum whatsoever, other than as a guest poster. I see someone else has posted there since me yesterday.

https://shirtlessbarefoot.blogspot.com/2018/05/how-to-start-shirtless-sports-and.html

Gosh there Danny C, I wish I looked as good as the picture of the boy on that blog you said you closely resembled on that. That was really good looking and athletic, I can't believe boys like you at school would worry when you had such good looks and body. It's a funny old world. I'd swap with you like a shot, I never quite shaped up or looked as good as that. I agree on the shorts, you could make three pairs of old style shorts from that amount of material he had there. Thanks for the heads up about that forum.

Hi Julian P,

Thanks for your reply.

As an adult I have seen it stated that the full exam was done to check for undescended testicles, which would explain why girls seemed to be spared the full ordeal.

However that doesn't explain why I also had to strip completely for my second school medical at aged 8 - surely once they were down there was no further need for checking??

That second exam was considerably worse than the first and stepping naked into that room felt like a shock of cold water. What really made this one worse was, in addition to the doctor and health worker/ nurse or whatever and my mum again, our old classroom assistant from Infants' was also there. I don't know why she had to be there, there were already two professional adults in the room. I have long speculated that the school just wanted to have one of their staff there to represent the school's authority even in a fraught and sensitive moment like this.

This woman was utterly vile. She had a hairtrigger temper and seemed to hate kids. She once sandblasted my ears because she claimed I had completed a painting too fast and therefore not only turned in a sloppy result but wasted precious school paint. There was no evidence of kindness in her and as an unusually self-conscious and nervy kid I used to draw her ire. I have plenty of memories of her scolding me harshly, shouting at me or seizing me by the arm. All this between my fourth and seventh birthdays. She once screeched at me because I stopped at the sight of a thorny bramble across the path. She was leading me down to the school's sports day, it was summer and as usual I was in shorts. Basically she should never have been allowed to work anywhere near children.

Given all that it really added insult to injury to see this vile woman in the room. I had to dangle meekly there in front of this harridan while I was weighed, measured, turned around to check my spine and had my heart beat checked. I can remember letting my mind drift away, becoming remote within myself, as a defensive response against the humiliation of it all.

Looking back over all these experiences it just seems my primary school was completely inconsiderate regarding the emotions of the young children in its care. It was as if they saw us as little animals that didn't have feelings. And if you did display emotion you got it in the neck for it. What they wanted was - compliant children.

I never experienced the trauma of having my balls palpated or my foreskin retracted as other respondents here have previously detailed. Much less the following arbitrary mass circumcisions that one respondent posted about several years back.

I came to realise that there was great inequality in the imposition of these violating exams across the country. I can remember a fellow secondary pupil recounting to another pupil about his primary medicals and the boy behind him later gloatingly repeating his tale to another boy - seemingly there were no medical exams at all at his primary even though he was the exact same age as me. On the other hand I recall the mother of an old primary friend telling my mum about his full nude medical at his secondary school which was different to mine. Seemingly there every child had to undergo a full medical exam at the start of every school year. Apart from the inevitable communal showers I never had to get my bare bollocks out ever again for any adult after I turned eleven. Inequality is always the worst thing.

Comment by: Yours Truly on 15th November 2024 at 01:02


...."You stated that even the sixth-form boys at your school had to take PE stripped to just shorts.

That is just appallingly callous and negligent. Imposing a belittling dress-code regime forcing boys in their mid-teens to get nearly naked is crossing a particular line......"

YT I couldn't agree more with you, in fact I agree with everything you have said and your feelings as you have stated them, because they echo mine.

What always angers me is - whether we are talking about 1964, 1984 or 2024 lads have all faced the same problems - to put it bluntly, lads in mid teenage are likely to experience involuntary erections (luckily it never happened to me - I was a bit slower than some of my peers), but you can just imagine the ribald comments that would
cause. If you are only wearing shorts there is no hiding place. If you have a top on at least you can try to disguise it.

Teachers, of whatever age should try to remember back to their teenage years and put themselves in those lads situation.

I sincerely HOPE the days of making older boys remove most of their clothing is over, but I definitely think that a 16 or 17 or 18 year old ought to be allowed to decide for himself whether he wishes to take clothes off or have showers.

To my mind there is something very dubious about teachers who are so obsessed about a lads clothing and his showering arrangements.

In reply to Yours Truly, I vaguely remember the medical exams at infants school. As far as I remember we did not undress completely. I took off my shirt but of course in those days we all wore vests. that may have been removed but we kept our shorts on. Mum was present.

Worse was to come at Secondary school. (All boys school) for the medical exam we lined up outside the room already stripped to the waist. The rumour went round that you the doctor would tell you to drop your trousers during the examination. Upon being told to enter the room there was a boy in front being examined and then i found out that the rumour was true as he was told to drop his trousers and pants and so a got a full view of his behind!! And so my turn came and the instruction came and I just had to blank out what the Doctor was doing when he told me to cough.
I said earlier that at infants school mums were present at the exam. In fact mums were invited to attend the secondary school exams though much to all our relief no ones mum ever did attend. for me it was a greater relief because my mum had died and that manet my nan who was looking after me got the invitation and said she would attend. But luckily I dissuaded her and I am glad I did. To think I would have had to stand there with as a 14 year old fully exposed would have been mortifying.
Why were we put through such experiences?