Burnley Grammar School

James your comment - 'In one of my schools I went to we had to all shower in chilly feeling water and were not allowed to use soap or any other wash product on ourselves, so it was effectively like getting caught out in the rain without your clothing on. That's not cleanliness, that's just getting wet!'

That's so true isn't it. That made me smile when I read it. Many of our PE teachers just wanted us to get wet, not wash. Why have I never thought of that! I did things just like you too.

I was browsing the shirtless blog that was mentioned on here a few weeks ago and there are a couple of interesting comments on there that I thought were worth a note here.

There's a PE teacher called Phil who has written this last week;

'I'm a middle school PE teacher and we play a lot of skins against shirts games with the boys. Everyone is expected to do this equally so nobody feels they are one more than the other, and all are expected to be skins just as regular as a shirt.
Telling boys to remove their shirts on PE and be skins is not done to embarrass or shame them.'


There is also this yesterday afternoon from Ryan bringing things right up to date;

'Bare chests are compulsory at my secondary school in Bolton, England. I'm 21 now but my brother still goes there. The school guide says 'tops are not required for boys gym activities', and my brother has followed in my footsteps there on that. He hates it, I was meh about it. Communal showers are compulsory too and were taken in a large open square room lined on three sides with shower jets well above head height. You were not allowed to refuse, even on religious grounds.'

Comment by: Mike Checkley on 26th March 2025 at 23:36


"....... When I was at school many moons ago I found that the communal nature of our physical education lessons where going bare chests was nearly always compulsory and showering was not allowed to be avoided meant our nudity and shirtless lessons created a lot of close bonds with many of us."

Mike - you have said it yourself there "many moons ago". JUst because boys were treated appallingly decades ago is no excuse for disrespecting them in 2025.

If forced nudity created such "close bonds", why not go the whole hog and live in a naturist camp. When I was in a big band, perhaps we should have all played stark naked!. After all you can get quite hot and sweaty reaching for the high notes. Not this brassman - red in the face is one thing, red anywhere else is a no-no.

Comment by: Yours Truly on 27th March 2025 at 23:38

Thanks for saying what you did there. I've always thought there was "something else" about the reasoning for the mass school showering of us all at school years ago and the determination of the teachers to fully enforce it on everyone. They were crazy firm on it, like a forced ritual, which came at huge cost to a lot of people's mindfulness.

In one of my schools I went to we had to all shower in chilly feeling water and were not allowed to use soap or any other wash product on ourselves, so it was effectively like getting caught out in the rain without your clothing on. That's not cleanliness, that's just getting wet! But at least we all got naked and that seemed to be the most important bit for some reason.

Hi Ian D,

You cannot clean yourself properly in cold water. . . Which means that cleanliness was not the real reason for the cold showers your teachers inflicted on you. One more instance of evidence of a hidden agenda to this whole school showers ritual.

Comment by: Mike Checkley on 26th March 2025 at 23:36
Call me old fashioned if you like but I think young males should be expected to do their gym work in a bare chest and take a shower afterwards in school and not complain about being told to do any of that kind of thing. There;s far too much sefl indulgence going on nowadays. These kind of things are designed to make boys grow up and mature and show a sense of self discipline. Expecting privacy in a school is just silly. When I was at school many moons ago I found that the communal nature of our physical education lessons where going bare chests was nearly always compulsory and showering was not allowed to be avoided meant our nudity and shirtless lessons created a lot of close bonds with many of us.




Mike, when I was at school in the 1960's and 1970's I had to do all my gym from primary right through to the end of secondary school in just my PE shorts, and there were showers in both schools that everyone was made to use as well. So I was a quite young age when I got to grips with how school treated boys when it came to PE lessons and privacy and modesty about oneself took a back seat. I was very modest and shy about myself and showing my exposed upper body or being naked. Even just changing sometimes. I just wish I hadn't been that way and really regret it because I have to rather agree with your own analysis and think I would have benefitted from being far less concenred about myself to that extent.

The worst at school for me was cross country shirtless running through soft mud and narrow bramble lined trails. It was mad that we had to run shirtless through such areas near to prickly sharp twigs, at one point there was a place were we couldn't run and had to walk slowly and navigate by pushing branches and twigs out of the way ahead of us which would often scratch our bare skin. A running top would have prevented this for the most part.

Reading through this topic has reminded me of many PE sessions at my own school. It was an all boys grammar, where privacy was often low on the list of priorities. Actually, it didn't exist at all.

From starting senior school we would have a weekly PE class at the sports field, this would happen if it was hot, cold, flooded, windy, under a snow drift etc. The changing room was in a small building in the middle of the fields, I can't even put into words how cold that building was in the winter... I absolutely hated it. What made it worse was that it was also the rugby season, on a boggy field, so we would often return to the changing room covered head to toe in mud and grass, what a sight we were.

Our PE teachers were like the Spanish Inquisition in the changing rooms, they were always where you least expected them, ready to scream at you for slightest transgressions. As you can imagine they were very particular that boys would shower properly and thoroughly and put on fresh clothes before going back to the main school. I guess this seems reasonable thinking about it now, but it was fairly bizarre at the time. For example, some boys would wrap a towel around their waist (shorts and underwear still on), run into the shower, wet their hair and continue getting dressed hoping they wouldn't catch on...

Well, they did catch on, from that point onwards there was a teacher at the changing room door. If you walked past with a towel wrapped around your waist he would pull it open to make sure you had nothing on underneath. Then, down the hallway in the shower doorway, another teacher would standing watching to make sure nobody was messing around and the boys were cleaning properly, making sure we all soaped properly up and did then full all over body wash, including between our legs and under arms. One was so picky with all this it was a surprise he didn't tell us all to wash under our foreskins for him, he was always looking at our willy's it seemed. Perk of the job for him quite possibly.

This went on for quite a while, until we were in the higher years and could be trusted. It was definitely uncomfortable and the last thing I wanted to do from 11 onwards... talk about embarrassing.

I am convinced the water in the shower was somehow below freezing... it would take hours for my testicles to come out of hiding after a shower in there, I think the water was made deliberately cold on purpose to make us scream and holler about it. Coming off that freezing cold windswept school sports field already shivering and then having to strip naked and be herded off into quite cold showers was endurance in itself and at times fairly demeaning how we were expected to do it.

In the teachers gym office next to our changing rooms they had three separate showers for themselves with a curtain to pull across. Even grammar schoolboys didn't get afforded such luxuries.

Call me old fashioned if you like but I think young males should be expected to do their gym work in a bare chest and take a shower afterwards in school and not complain about being told to do any of that kind of thing. There;s far too much sefl indulgence going on nowadays. These kind of things are designed to make boys grow up and mature and show a sense of self discipline. Expecting privacy in a school is just silly. When I was at school many moons ago I found that the communal nature of our physical education lessons where going bare chests was nearly always compulsory and showering was not allowed to be avoided meant our nudity and shirtless lessons created a lot of close bonds with many of us.

Comment by: Chris G on 26th March 2025 at 08:22
Comment by Alan 25th March

"The reason that many PE teachers in the 50s and 60s behaved like Army Drill Sergeants is that's precisely what they had been in their previous life. Of the three PE teachers that I had in my Secondary school years, two were ex-Army sergeants, the third being a Catholic friar!"

Fair enough, Mark - but we are talking about teachers "at work" (though they did little exercise themselves) in the 1980's - twenty years after N.S ended and they should have had the gumption to realise that the boys of the 1980s were different to those of twenty years earlier - just as the school students in 2025 are different to us. I assume that if they treated todays boy and girls as they treated us they would find themselves in hot water.

This is something Phillipson might address, were she not too busy with her "teeth brushing lessons"

Comment by Alan 25th March

The reason that many PE teachers in the 50s and 60s behaved like Army Drill Sergeants is that's precisely what they had been in their previous life. Of the three PE teachers that I had in my Secondary school years, two were ex-Army sergeants, the third being a Catholic friar!

Jon Mapeley I don't think your own experiences you have shared are that uncommon for boys who went to school in those years, many will have felt much the same as you, and done just the same and been the same personality types too. You sound similar to me.

Comment by: Jon Mapeley on 23rd March 2025 at 23:43



I have never been able to understand Jon WHY the attitude of P.E. teachers was so militaristic at the time we were at school - the old excuse that they were toughening boys up for National Service hadn't been applicable for twenty years by then, and though I am the first to admit it might be a possibility in the future thanks to our absurd Prime Minister sabre rattling with Russia , of all countries, compulsory military service ended in the early 1960s. It has to be I think, either they are taught in very old fashioned ways at the colleges that turn these bullies out, or it is their frustration at being at the bottom of the pecking order in schools. In any case, many of them are totally unsuited to the modern school, or indeed life in the 21st century.

I can well understand your fear, as I felt exactly the same myself at the same time. There is no need to be so aggressive towards boys, and perhaps that is why so many lads turn aggressive themselves. Perhaps if the teachers were more civil that would rub off on the pupils as well.

I was at secondary school in Cheshire during the early 1970s. We had 3 sessions of PE & games every single week and had to have forced mandatory showers after each PE lesson, no matter what extent of sweat or dirt, or not, we had accumulated during the course of any given gym class. This went on right through school right up to leaving age. There were usually around 30 - 35 of us boys in the showers at once. I can still remember the first time doing this when I was 11, I didn't have any brothers and so wasn't used to seeing or being seen by other boys naked and it took quite some getting used to, being in such a large group of completely nude people my own age who had been ordered to do so and not chosen to do it. At least at that age we all looked pretty similar without our clothes, this was the one thing I always remember thinking, how we all looked so similar when stripped of everything we had and were among each other. It was very strange at first but I got used to it, albeit rather reluctantly.

Someone actually said to me once that they thought boys who were only children or had no brothers back at home were probably the ones that found being introduced to school showers and communal nudity after PE the most difficult because they did not share such situations back home with any brothers, especially if there was bedroom sharing involved with larger families and more brothers.

I think it was a very steep and sudden learning curve for some of us, and that includes the introduction to the imposition of the mandated shirtless PE lesson for the school gymnasium of which I was expected to partake most weeks. I suppose I must have been a bit shy about it but my one memory of this is a sense of strong irritation at it and knowing that I could do PE just as well wearing a half decent t-shirt, but that was nearly always denied the boys at my secondary school in gym.

I was at secondary school from September 1980 until June 1985.

I was a really quiet and unassuming boy at school with a good academic record and seemed to please all my teachers, except in one subject - PE.

My school required that boys took PE stripped fully to the waist as mandatory skins, without exceptions. I didn't know that was going to be the PE kit when I started there and felt almost physically sick with nerves the moment I found out and had to do it that way. I'm pleased to find out there are others who felt much the same. Shirtless was never how I felt comfortable with myself.

There were moments in school PE that I used to think I was in a borstal of the time, such as a PE teacher we had who made us run in shirtless groups around the gym and we had to get faster and faster as he screamed his lungs out as us, so the more tired we got he wanted more not less out of us. It was things like that, stripped to the waist being shouted at and worked to total exhaustion that made me think of school gym PE as more like a punishment session than a method of keeping fit and active. Much of the time stuff like that didn't feel like much fun to me. I was not alone.

Showering was of course always expected and there was no getting away from it, it kind of loomed large over PE lessons certainly when we began doing them. School showers pre-occupied my mind a lot before I got to actually do them and I thought about it a lot just before I started secondary school. PE was the one thing about going to secondary school that I dreaded. Nothing else bothered me though. Much of that dread was accurate, especially in the first couple of years.

Coming back to the changing room on the day of my first school PE shower the boys who had been with another teacher were already back and showering and I got an instant sight of four or five of them just standing facing me stark naked and wet with a teacher talking to them as they did it. I'd barely got in the room before that teacher pointed his finger straight at me and said "YOU, SHOWER!" and in seconds I was in taking my own naked spot along side those I'd just looked at. All I remember about it was a complete feeling of other worldliness like I was in a bad dream!

It was quite strong treatment for the average quiet twelve year old schoolboy.

I mentioned this young man earlier in the week and he's placed a new film of his progress today. Can you imagine being the poor classmate of young George here sat next to him changing out of school uniform for PE.

I agree with what you said Terry. How many thirteen year olds like him could intimidate the PE teacher, I think this boy could manage it without trying.

From School to Shredded.

https://youtu.be/w4-_Brwt0TA?si=iw4M8jGk6jFqTK0E

Can I intrude on you Brits here a moment.

I live the United States and during the 1960s starting in 7th grade through the 12th grade in PE which we called boys gym, we had to change clothes and take showers. Everyone boy had to have a gym a uniform, which consisted of a reversible t-shirt, shorts, jock strap, white tube socks and sneaker (in those days they were canvas). Changing your clothes and showering was required. If you did not have PE clothes, you received a zero for the day and the PE instructors did which to make sure we showered and there was minimal horseplay. We did not have spanking in our schools, but I remember sometimes the threat of it even though it was not officially allowed.

There was not privacy in the locker room. The locker area was open with lockers along the walls with changing benches in front of the lockers. Open shower room with the shower heads in the walls and open drying area. The toilets did have stalls, no doors. So privacy was a minimum. I remember apprehension at the beginning of 7th grade at the factor of having to change and take showers with other guys but I got used to it. I also remember that in the 7th grade many of the guys were in different points in puberty. Some had pubic hair and their testicles had dropped with penis getting longer and I also saw for the first time uncircumcised penises. While we all knew not to stare at each other, I think alone with myself we all looked.

I also remember that our PE teachers told us it was important to change into gym clothes because we would be sweaty and should not go back to other classes like that. Also, it was hygiene important to shower after physical activity and important to keep in bodies clean because we changing. Also, to dry our bodies after showers because if not we could get jock itch and athiete's foot.

We got used to and accepted the PE nudity. Some guys were more comfortable and romped around the locker room nude like roosters in the locker room, others were more modest and did it but had a level on discomfort with it. I consider just part of growing up. Was it unwanted probably but it was just another experience in life.

I totally agree with Adam's post on 21 Mar 2025 17.47. I was a shy kid and not keen at first either with shirtless pe in just shorts (shorter than in the photo) & pumps or naked showers. Seeing other boys just getting on with it made me realise we were all in the same boat and that was the uniform for pe so I had to get used to it. We did have some mixed lessons with the girls and that felt slightly awkward at first, but we also had swimming lessons together anyway. I thought the other boys always seemed more confident than me & had better bodies. I think they probably had the same feelings. I did enjoy the freedom of wearing so little especially outside in the summer . The pe teachers we had were strict, but I think they were more concerned with safety more than anything else. Corporal punishment was around at that time. I didn't experience any of Alan's issues, I think he was unlucky. I enjoyed my time at school. I was at a mixed grammar school 1961-66

Alan, whilst I somewhat agree with the thrust of your argument with Adam, the trouble is that at the ages we are talking on this forum, very many impressionable youngsters will and do believe the idealistic sights they see in magazines and on influencer YT channels, pornography and TV.

If you ever stumble across any of those superficial airhead style TV shows on ITV like Love Island, the men are always getting shirtless, probably the producer insists on it, and they all have gym honed torsos that look nothing like the normal regular guys their age you would pick off the street, who still have good and healthy looking bodies, but not with all the definition and all that, plus fake tans. When you see shows like naked attraction, the bodies seem more varied and some are quite normal but the majority seem to be all inked up, but most people are not inked up like Beckham, or have any at all, but media promotes this idea.

Comment by: Adam on 21st March 2025 at 17:47



"Unwanted maybe by some, but even so, I think it is an important part of learning and developing, to be naked with others, to become accustomed to it and not hideaway prudishly, and also to understand that everybody is different, otherwise the thinking would be only airbrushed models are normal and body dysmorphia will become a problem even more, being openly naked does lead to a more friendly cameraderie and the want to be fit too....."

I'm sorry, Adam - I have heard some fairly weak arguments for enforced showers and bare chested P.E. in my time, especially on this site, but this takes the blue ribbon for all time.

Do we really need to get naked to prove that the painted and powdered models we see in adverts. are typical of most men?. I remember when the footballer David Beckham, not satisfied with the enormous salary he got from Manchester United, modelled undercrackers for pin money, and then enjoyed displaying all his tattoos that he had defaced himself with. Some people are natural exhibitionists, and good luck to them if that gives them some sort of weird satisfaction. You could make the same argument for nudity with girls, in glamour magazines, just so they can prove that not every woman has a 40" bust and staples down their middles.Surely we all know that?.

Anyone who believes that models, and advertising in general, in any way reflect real life must be very naive.

Meanwhile, why should those who dislike disporting themselves naked - especially when you have a teacher gawping at you - be forced into doing something against their will, just to prove a point that doesn't need making in the first place?

Unwanted maybe by some, but even so, I think it is an important part of learning and developing, to be naked with others, to become accustomed to it and not hideaway prudishly, and also to understand that everybody is different, otherwise the thinking would be only airbrushed models are normal and body dysmorphia will become a problem even more, being openly naked does lead to a more friendly cameraderie and the want to be fit too.

It was compulsory to never wear tops and be barechested in my secondary school gym where being barefoot and no flashy trainers was also the rule, and fully naked with the whole class in the compulsory showers. It may seem hard to some modern kids but was it really so bad? Despite all the close up nudity of our own and others we all were made to confront by our gym teachers and barechested lessons I don't remember very much open and obvious discrimination about what we all looked like in our various states at that age, although it was obvious we were all looking at each other and taking it all in.

I am certainly glad that during my time at school in the 1970s -1980s we had open changing rooms and showers.

At games lessons at my secondary school (in the 1970s), the changing room (an outide hut building) had low benches with coat hooks at eye level above them, all boys got changed together. I was very shy in those days and didn't much like being naked in front of others but like everyone else in those classes we just knew it had to be done.

The showers were in a tiled room about 10' by 8' with doorways (but no doors) at either end of one of the long walls. The short walls each had three shower heads, I think they were all controlled from one stopcock so would all be on or all off at the same time. So there would be a queue of boys, all naked, waiting for a turn at a shower head. We were made to wait naked for our turn without holding a towel against us. I still recall the awkwardness of how to stand there naked with no clothes on and where to put my hands/arms. The last thing you wanted to do was make it obvious you were sticking hands over your exposed genitals, so I think I just folded my arms defensively.

On occasions, the head teacher himself would take a games lesson if there was nobody else available. He was keen on what we used to call 'physical jerks' so a session with him would often be 30-40 minutes of aerobic exercise in the gym. He was strict about making sure that boys were not wearing underpants under their shorts. The regular games teachers didn't care about this and we wore our underpants with those.

He had a curious approach to showering that I will never forget. As each batch of six boys entered the shower he would instruct them to stand under the shower head, facing the wall for 30 seconds and then turn and spend another 30 seconds with back to the wall, full frontal in his view. The next instruction was most bizarre! He would tell the boys to stand in the middle of the shower room - away from the water and jump up and down for 10 seconds, legs apart and waving arms! I presume this was to shake off excess water before drying. On reflection, jumping on a wet soapy tiled floor, was inviting accidents to happen and there were slips ups. None of us really needed the head teacher to tell us how to use a shower even if not many of us had one at home.

If he took the boys rugby lesson and we were especially muddy he would insist that everyone must wash our hair if we'd been throwing each other on the ground. There was always a bottle of shampoo hanging about for this purpose and we'd have to line up naked, hold our hand out and be given a dab on the palm of our hand and use it. We already had to use soap during our shower anyway. I remember the head teacher saying he would not be sending any of us back home to our parents looking worse than when we had arrived at school that morning.

Games lessons and gym in PE at my school were ridiculously bare chest heavy in terms of amount like that we did. Most gym was done this way and there was no choice about it, much the same way there was never any choice about taking showers under the close watchful eye of the teacher and even the head teacher and his instructions on how to do it.

I was one of those boys who instantly felt a sense of awkwardness the moment I revealed a bare torso for PE and took my top off. I used to think I was the only boy in games who ever felt like that. I always had this feeling of being completely at the mercy and whims of my games teachers and my head teacher and often feeling quite unsettled by some of it, like jumping up and down to dry. We did have towels with us, or the head teacher insisting when he took our games class that all we required was our shorts and nothing else, not even our pants, as if we were swimming, meaning we had to be naked to change for games while he watched us.

Dennis, I quite agree with you. On the last line, if you've seen the film Kes which was out when I was starting comprehensive school (1970) you've basically seen my own PE lessons and the kind of teacher I often had, right down to the relcutant lad pretending he's showered so he doesn't have to because he doesn't like doing so, we had a few of those types with mandatory communal showering required for the whole PE class at the same time. Our PE teacher would also frequently send boys to the headmaster to be given corporal punishment, depending on what you'd done it was either the full cane bent over a couple of times or a smaller one or leather belt across both hands.

I was in a group of troublemakers in my day who got sent to the headmaster for mucking about, our pE teacher just packed us straight off to him as we were and we waited to see what the headmaster would do with us, in my case it was immediate belt across my hands which was very painful indeed and stung furiously. The three of us were in his office as we'd turned out for the school gym, white shorts, nothing on our feet at all and a bare chest, our usual gym look. Standing in the heads officed like that was punishment in itself.

I once beat the teacher to the ground in a really great tackle during a rugby practice and he got up and slapped me across the face like a woman does to a man, just for showing him up, then he congratulated me on doing well all the same.

Comment by: Tony on 17th March 2025 at 18:58

Good lord that boy is too perfect. No thirteen year old should be that level headed and mature even if he's the most sensible boy in the class. Did he hit puberty at 8 or something. He has the good looks, the nice body, a great personality, is sensible, looks intelligent, has great parents, a mum who makes all his food, a dad who shares his own interests, a nice home, makes you sick doesn't it! Good luck to him. Ironically there's a good chance he might never have done any shirtless PE at school. I watched a few of his other George Lifts videos, everyone struggles to believe he's only 13, even a group of twenty somethings down a gym when he told them he was born in 2011. He'd easily pass for 25.

His PE teacher might as well tell him to not bother with his school gym lessons and go and do his own thing, there's nothing his PE teacher can teach this boy, he can teach his own PE teacher just about everything instead. Quite a remarkable collection of videos on his YT Channel, a pleasure to watch someone from the young generation so grounded so young.

Comment by: Dennis Cruickshank on 18th March 2025 at 23:42
Regards you comment Michael on 16th March.

"Boys should all face shirtless gyms, it does them good, most of them...... and few boys dare to tease even in school showers........."

You sure about that, Dennis?.Any evidence to back it up?

Regards you comment Michael on 16th March.

Boys should all face shirtless gyms, it does them good, most of them. Starting to do things you don't like when young in life is a good grounding. Boys don't tend to tease each other about their shirtless bodies anyway, and few boys dare to tease even in school showers. Everyone does the same, many are all thinking the same in these situations. I was also quite anxious by all these things when I first did them but the very tough approach my school had to boys at our school which made us all go shirtless in and out three days a week of PE and proper full showers we were not allowed to make excuses to avoid soon made me overcome anxious feelings because I had no choice about it. Early 1970's in my case, school PE was really quite hard and rough at times.

That kid looks a lot older than 13 to me. He seems level headed but shouldn't get too carried away with all that, whatever age he is. I wouldn't recommend he takes creatine under the age of 18.

Imagine being this boy's PE teachers at school.

It says he's only 13! He looks and sounds 18 to 20 to me. I have never seen a 13 year old with a body like that, or the maturity this chap seems to have. He's clearly very comfortable in his own skin, or is he? Something about a 13 year old being this obsessed feels premature. Nice lad though. He'd give every other lad in his class a real inferiority complex and even his gym teacher I should think.

A typical school day - 13 year old bodybuilder.

https://youtu.be/__bCDd9guyA?si=fSwCTcTSnwutCuqy

To all the men who want to see boys and girls taking mixed showers, can I just remind you that you would have to sell the idea to fathers who will be repulsed by the idea of their little girls being exposed to such indignities and will take them out of school, and mums who will be equally angry about subjecting their little boys to that sort of treatment.

I shudder to think what devout Muslims would make of it - and they have the ear of the present government.

Dream on, David and co!

Comment by: Ex-Navy David Turkington on 14th March 2025 at 22:56
'When in Stockholm, Sweden, some years ago, I switched on my hotel TV and came across a documentary type show of school kids of both boys and girls, shown fully nude front and back, intermingled and sharing the very same open plan communal showers and change rooms for PE. I asked one of the Swedish engineers on the job I was on at the time for an explanation and was told that it was the government mandated response to reduce the country's high sex crime rate. When children of both sexes became accustomed to such intermingling from an early age, physiological differences became no big deal as it yet largely remains in our own Western culture. There was full acceptance across the sexes, sexual inequality vanished in every aspect of life, and there was a sharp decline of the former sex crime rate with the new generations.'




What an interesting observation David.

Based on what you've said above and in light of recent media reporting perhaps we should be forcing all muslims in this country to gender share communal showers at school from a young age if it will have a later affect on the sex crime rate, so instead of making the women and girls all cover up and hide behind masks we should be going completely the other way and laying it all out there, no hiding place for anyone.

I'm not trying to be flippant here, it really is a serious point.

It's hard to know what I would have made of being introduced to a mixed showers regime at say the age of 7 or 8 at school. Probably easy acceptance at that age I suppose. If forcing such a regime on children at school after a simple PE class at that age and above was really proven to make a major difference to the rate of sexual crime in this country then I would approve of that.

Aren't the Japanese a nation with very low sex crime rates and a lot of mixed and adult nudity? There may be something in this.

I'd like to come at the whole enforcement of shirtless PE and showering on uncomfortable schoolboys from a different angle.

I was a very unconfident child and often reticent to take part in things with groups of others, especially boys my own age. I had a quite strong fear about not having a top on or anyone making me do that and always avoided any situation as a child where this might happen. Luckily it didn't....then I hit secondary school when I was 12 and that was the age I felt my childhood actually ended, but in both good and bad ways.

I was churning myself stupid inside at the thought the PE teacher would make me shower at school, really badly. I remember all kinds of mad rumours that went around about things that would happen in them. But I was equally bothered about just taking my shirt off and going shirtless in the PE, and my 1970's comp made me do this and I was oh so reluctant.

But a funny thing happened to me that I never expected. They forced me into removing my shirt for PE with the other boys and then taking everything off to shower and quite fast, within maybe a month I not only accepted this but seemed to no longer feel any concern about it, and soon after that I realised that I was becoming a much more confident person, especially in shirtless gym PE we were doing, and my confidemce seemed to keep growing to the point I no longer feared going shirtless but almost preferred it, I couldn't believe the change in me.

I remember saying to myself at the time that if I could overcome that deep feeling and lack of confidence about myself and the anxiety it had produced then I could overcome just about anything.

Anyone who has a bare chest phobia or anxiety around others should put themselves in that situation and see if they too can surprise themselves. I would never have believed the change in me that being forced to do shirtless PE and to naked shower at school gave me.

It's true that the only thing to fear is fear itself. This was one of my own examples of this.

Comment by: Ex-Navy David Turkington on 14th March
It’s such a balanced and healthier attitude that the Scandinavians have, or perhaps had, regarding dealing with children. I frequently saw much the same during documentary film studies of the world years ago at uni. I also spent a lot of time in Germany as a kid and they certainly had a better attitude there too, which didn’t routinely disregard boys compared to how they treated girls, which many still seem to think is the correct way to go about things here. Much more of an understanding of how things really ought to be for a healthier minded society.

Mark on 14th March 2025
I certainly learnt from experience during my childhood that some females will take advantage of situations they feel completely comfortable in.