Burnley Grammar School

Comment by: Maria on 14th August 2025 at 22:33

Hello Maria. It would be worthwhile to hear from that young person now they are older to find out just what they would have to say about that happening to them and if it had any affect, and for that matter hear from that father why he would do that. It seems like it may come down to power. If it was going on for years I would have called some child protection social services anonymously with my concern. You don't have to batter kids black and blue to abuse them. Anyway thanks for sharing that with everyone here.

Comment by: Steve on 14th August 2025 at 08:08
'Yesterday was a hot day up north. My wife and I were in the cafe of Morrisons Supermarket having a drink. The cafe looks out over the tills. I observed two teenage boys going through the tills buying energy drinks. What struck me about this was that both were shirtless. They were pushing their bikes with them. I mention this because both seemed very comfortable being shirtless in the supermarket and the staff did not seem concerned that it may have been inappropriate and could cause upset to some of the customers.'



I was in Waitrose on Wednesday afternoon and saw something similar, one guy shirtless pushing his trolley and also three young lads together picking up drinks, so four shirtless guys just at the point I visited, so even snobby upper class Waitrose is fine with shirtless male entry. On my way out I asked what the policy was on it to one of the manager types and he said they were fine with it.

Recent parts of this discussion on parental clothing choices remind me of a child who lived close to my house in an otherwise pleasant neighbourhood with good families some years ago, roughly 1994 - 2001.

There was a child at the address who was always playing outside with very little clothing on, throughout the summer you would never see him with a top on and rarely even with shoes, sometimes he was even seen on the front garden or in front of his home in his underwear. This behaviour was not exclusive to summer and could be seen at any time. The child was male and of primary school age and behaved like this for a long time. I walked past many times and saw him and he looked clean enough, just a boy in some shorts, but he was always like this. It would be a stretch to suggest the child was being neglected, he seemed full of energy and as far as I could make out was happy and played with others as you would expect a child to do, but did stand out. I did walk past another time and the child was on his garden and in his underwear, a pair of light blue and rather grubby looking Y-fronts and I noticed his feet were very dirty and looked like they had scratches on his ankles, but it didn't seem serious and boys do get messed up now and again and not mind.

I didn't know the family very well but got chatting one day to his mother, small talk, nothing special. I then got invited in for a cuppa and popped in a few days later. The child was in the living room just as I saw him outside much of the time, just in his underpants and no more. His mum told him to run upstairs and play in his bedroom while I was there and put some shorts on. Before I left he came back down just the same, but wearing shorts, no top or shies and socks. Over our cuppa I began hearing how this lady's husband was a bit overbearing. She was a stay at home housewife, the boy was their only child. I didn't twig at the time but later thought she might have been trying to reach out to me in some way, but she didn't again in the actual home over a cup of tea. It was rather awkward but I wanted to broach the subject of the child in a subtle and polite manner, so said something like 'he loves being like that doesn't he', hoping not to cause offence. It was clear the boy was loved like any child should be, by her, but there was an undercurrent that was completely disturbing. That boy's father was making all the household decisions, even deciding what was acceptable or not for his wife to wear in public, and dictating to the child as well, and had a firm hold on all the finances and decision making. It was like he owned his wife and child as things from what I could make out.

This was not a poor neighbourhood, but I discovered this child was being treated by his father as someone who could not be trusted to wear nice clothes because he would get them dirty and ruin them too much and so was being made to spend most of his time with very little on, rarely wearing a top or shoes inside the home, and as I'd noticed, and others had too, outside the home. The lady was not the assertive type to stand up to this and told me 'his father makes all the decisions'. I recall talking about my own washing basket full of clothing and how I would always do a small batch every day and keep on top of things. I had four children of my own and a part time job.

This man making all the decisions in her household was a professional man who was smart himself and drove a nice car. I even used to see their child in the car going out and he was still not what you would consider properly dressed. It was one of those things in life where you have nagging doubts about something though, although there was never any sign of physical abuse and this boy's body was so frequently seen it would be obvious, nothing was hidden and parents who do physical harm to their children normally hide them with lots of clothing, this was quite the opposite, but it still remained the case that a child was being prevented from wearing clothing much of the time at the behest of the father with a weak mother figure. The only time I ever saw the child dressed nicely was coming and going to school but within minutes of coming home he would be outside without his shoes again or a top if it was nice enough to be out.

I gave that lady some of my own children's old outgrown tops one day, a couple of shirts and some nice t-shirts washed and ironed but never saw them being worn.

It must have been going on like this for five years at least, finally seeming to stop when the child was about twelve, certainly outside anyway, whether he carried on inside the same I don't know, I was only ever invited in for a cuppa that once. I didn't care much for the man of that house, I did often wonder what was going on behind closed doors there. It's not normal to be so dictatorial and make excuses to keep a child down like that and I found the reason given by the lady unconvincing, she had plenty of time to wash clothing in a home with just three of them in it. So you can't help questioning why this child would be severely restricted by a parent in what he was allowed to wear at home and outside near his home even in public view. It was obviously not his own free will to a large extent.

I wouldn't have believed such demanding people exist unless I had seen and heard about it with my own eyes and am at a loss for an explanation. Families and those we trust to look after them are often the ones doing the most harm to the children, physically or psychologically.

Good Lord did I just read some of this for real?

I've got two children, young adults now but at one point the daughter was 10 and her brother was three years older, just like "Joanie & Raymond".

Now if me or their mum had ever caught our daughter at the age of 10 viewing pictures of naked adult men, or even boys I suppose, either in a magazine or online I think I can speak for both of us, we'd want to know where she got that magazine from or if online how she found out about it and why she was looking at such material. She would be given some firm advice not to do so again and I'd wish to know why she was feeling a need to view such things at that age and if anyone had encouraged it. There would be many questions because it would be troubling. I would ask her older brother if he was involved in any way, and hope to get answers and put an end to it and remove all access to such material in the home.

We may then both decide to have a talk about certain facts of life and the birds and bees and all that, although I think 10 can still be rather young for that in most cases and uncalled for, at least for another year or so. Each year at that age is significant and makes a big difference.

I'm feeling quite confident that the approach that myself as a father or her mother would not feel the need to do is grab her older brother, peel all his clothes off to show her a real life young man/boy to educate and allow her to give her own brother a hand job until he fires off an ejaculation, and then forbid clothing around the house, so she was comfortable with the opposing sex and knew the facts. My son would not be "a prop", no older brother would be, or any human being. This would be a living and breathing 13 year old with his own feelings and thoughts, can you even begin to imagine the damage something like that would do to them, it's incalculable. Knowing America and some of the odd things that happen there it's quite possible some utter weirdo might do something this crazy and criminally incestuous, anything goes over there it seems and someone is doing it, but I'm treating it as a poor taste joke.

Most teenagers without any parental or sex education would find all this out themselves soon enough anyway.

This is being cut and pasted from a book isn't it Spelvin and you are being crafty in not making these things your own actual words. So as you are keen to answer questions, I'll ask this one - do you support that story yourself if it were a fact and think there is nothing wrong with doing that within a family? If Joanie and Raymond were your own kids, would you find it acceptable for their mum, your wife/partner to do that to your own children? If the answer is no, then why are you promoting such material?

This forum has taken many turns since I started reading it but this is one of the most unexpected and weird ones yet.

I hope James doesn’t mind my retelling what he wrote in his earlier posts. I shall afterward compare his predicament with that of two other schoolboys who also wrote to this forum.

James (March 28, 2016) had parents who seemed to get a kick out of making him show as much skin as possible. When he got home from school, he was told to take off his shirt and footwear and wear only shorts.

As James (September 4, 2014) puts it, “Short trousers were definitely an obvious marker of inferior junior status which is why we hated having to wear them.”

James’ mother, however, made him continue wearing shorts all through high school, while all the other boys were wearing long trousers (March 30, 2016). After buying each pair of shorts, his mother went on the sewing machine and raised the hemline to the very minimum (October 29, 2014). Her conviction was that “If a boy's short pants aren't cut well above the knee, brief and trim, therefore he may as well wear long trousers.” (November 16, 2014)

He was then told that he “looked cute.” (April 1, 2016) Besides his cuteness, she may have had several reasons for keeping him in shorts. As he expresses it (April 1):

"Mainly it signified I was still a juvenile and so to be regarded. Other reasons included, the “cute” factor influenced my mother.
"Certainly they believed that making boys go bare-legged had healthful benefits, developed hardiness, as well as character building virtues, instilled docility and taught humility."

For James, however, his mother’s obstinance resulted in embarrassment (October 29, 2014; October 29; 2014 again; November 16, 2014; January 3, 2019) and teasing from some of his peers (February 8, 2014; December 25, 2017), although the girls seemed to appreciate it (April, 8, 2018).

He was also left with inadequate protection in cold weather (February 8, 2014; November 16, 2014; April 1, 2016), for which he was granted only knee socks (November 16, 2014; December 25, 2017).

A couple of other schoolboys had the same problem. John (December 24, 2014) had parents who took a trip to continental Europe, bought a pair of short shorts which were customary there, and made John wear them to school. Like James, he had to wear shorts with hemlines shortened to his mother’s tastes (August 18, 2016).

Like James, he had to freeze in the winter time (November 8, 2015; March 12, 2016; August 18, 2016; October 30, 2016). This treatment was obviously discriminatory on the basis of gender, because in the winter time, his sister was dressed warm and snug every day (March 12, 2016).

Like James, he had to endure teasing (November 8, 2015). Like James, he had to suffer this misery until he graduated (October 30, 2016).

John explains his mother’s behavior in simple terms: it was “for her own amusement and gratification.” (January 19, 2015)

Simon grew up in in the 70’s. Simon’s mother was constantly buying new clothes for him. She purposely chose shorts which were a size too small and which fit nice and snug on his rump (April 19, 2014). Like James’ mother and John’s mother, Simon’s mother adjusted the cuffs as high as possible. She would then comment on “how nice it looked.” (April 19, 2014)

John's mother chose what he wore every day. Not that her choice mattered much, because his wardrobe consisted only of minimal shorts. (April 19, 2014)

Like James and John, Simon was uncomfortable in the wintertime (February 4, 2016; March 13, 2016).
Like James and John, Simon was rejected by his classmates (April 26, 2014). He remembers sitting in assembly and realizing that all of the boy classmates were wearing trousers and besides him, only the girls were showing their legs (April 26, 2014).

Simon was more fortunate than James or John, because on the first year of high school, the administrators demanded that she send him to school wearing slacks (April 19, 2014).

Like John, Simon offers a simple explanation of his mother’s behavior: it was “simply for her own gratification.” (April 21, 2014)

At least they were all appreciated for their femoral display. Just as James “looked cute” and John looked “nice, Simon’s mother “used to constantly comment on how nice I looked and how bad the other kids looked.” (April 19, 2014)

The former world snooker champion Graeme Dott is in the news today committed for trial over child sex abuse.

One bit in the reporting of this seemed worth a mention here as there's been lots of school showers talk and we all had to put up with our adult teachers watching us do that with our clothes all off when they forced us all to be naked in their presence.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz60ngvnxjyo

"The allegations include claims he inappropriately touched a girl, instructed her to remove her clothes and exposed himself to her, as well as molesting a boy, making sexual remarks and watching him shower."


Watching him shower! That's all our PE teachers ripe for a charge then. So many of us found their presence watching us groups of naked kids a real problem didn't we and hated they could make us do all that in front of them. One of my early 80s PE teachers was always quite keen to expose himself too because he used to shower in the same shower as the boys at my comprehensive school after PE while we were still in it at the end of the day during the final class period and we often felt uncomfortable about it. Do we have a case?

Hello, Curtis!

I was interested in your part of the story which said:

“4 boys decided to dispense with the beach towel dance when changing and began strumming at their genitals like a guitar at some girls for a few seconds for a laugh.”

I have just recently checked a Website at https://shirtlessbarefoot.blogspot.com/ and found a similar story from a contributor named Eddie:

"As a kid up to maybe about fourteen I used to skinny dip where I come from in Medford, Wisconsin with three boys my age and we loved it in a small pond near home and also along a shallow stream.

"We loved it even more if two girls we knew, same age, came and joined us and sat and watched. We used to show off endlessly and make them laugh, we were maybe only twelve at the time, but we'd pretend to play guitar on our 'instruments' as we called them and strum on our p*nises, rapidly twanging them to and fro like a guitarist in a rock band, air guitar style. Just innocent carefree old time uninhibited fun that meant nothing other than we were happy contented kids at ease with ourselves and the world around us in that moment.

"I loved those days like that, loved the water, loved my friends, loved being outside, loved swimming and loved taking my stuff off. I spent a lot of time with my friends at that age shirtless and barefoot aside from the skinny dips in the water. It was how we were. Not all boys were, but we sure were."

Eddie grew up the way all boys should grow up.
If I grew up like Eddie, I would not be like I am now.

Comment by: spelvin on 14th August 2025 at 10:20


For Christ's sake - how much more of this sordid rubbish do we have to put up with?.

IF (a big "if" I admit) you really are trying to get into the education industry, it just proves what I have always believed since my early teens - that every prospective teacher should undergo psychiatric assessment. There is something very dubious about much of what you come out with. As somebody who had two perverted teachers, I loathe the idea that people with dirty minds and ambitions are allowed to get into the profession. It can f*** the kids up for life, but of course that wouldn't worry you, would it?.

You need to get help for your lurid fantasies..

Hello, Yours Truly!

Thank you for telling me about your teacher on August 13.
You told me exactly what I wanted to know.
You wondered if I was “hinting at an ulterior motive.”
Yes and no. I wasn’t suspecting that she had a sexual motive;
I was suspecting that she had a motive of looking or showing.

I like to share with children those benefits which I had missed as a child.
I didn’t get any foreign language education, so I like to provide children with foreign language education.
I didn’t get any music theory education, so I like to provide children with music theory education.
And, to get back on the topic, I didn’t get any corporeal admiration, so I like to provide children with corporeal admiration.

That is why I would dearly love to tell a group of 9-, 10- and 11-year-old boys to strip down to their gym shorts so all the parents can come and admire them on May Day.
Paul wrote of such event in his message of April 30.
That is also why I am interested in whether or not other adults have such feelings.

Hello, Terry!

Nope, I’ve never been over to visit my Britannic cousins.

Hello, Andy!

To refresh the other readers, this is in reference to the mommy who found 10-year-old Joanie looking at pictures of naked men.
Mommy inferred that Joanie needed an education on naked men, so she called 13-year-old Raymond in as a prop.
There followed a session in which Mommy answered all of Joanie’s questions.
From that point on, Raymond had to remain naked all the time he was at home.
I didn’t make it clear that Joanie, and not Mommy, was the party that massaged Raymond’s male member ad eiaculandum.
I agree that it would be wrong if Mommy were the agent. University of New Hampshire sociologist David Finkelhor (1979) would say that that is wrong because of the power imbalance between adults and children.
One could argue that this argument does not apply here because Joanie was 10 years old and Raymond was 13 years old.
But Joanie had Mommy’s approval. The story didn’t say whether or not Joanie had Raymond’s approval. If she didn’t, then I’m afraid you got me: there was a power imbalance.

Finkelhor, D. 1979. What’s wrong with sex between adults and children? American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 49: 692-697.

Hello, Neil!

No, I have a perfectly clean police record. That is why I spent the last two years working as a special ed teaching assistant.
That is why I am currently working as a substitute day care worker.
That is why I am currently being interviewed as music teacher.
On one hand, one could actually strip all the boys down to their gym shorts and show them off to all the parents. On the other hand, one could only wish he could.
I only wish I could.

Yesterday was a hot day up north. My wife and I were in the cafe of Morrisons Supermarket having a drink. The cafe looks out over the tills. I observed two teenage boys going through the tills buying energy drinks. What struck me about this was that both were shirtless. They were pushing their bikes with them. I mention this because both seemed very comfortable being shirtless in the supermarket and the staff did not seem concerned that it may have been inappropriate and could cause upset to some of the customers.

Yours truly,

At the secondary school that I attended it was not common place for boys to be seen wearing short trousers,but when my parents received the school uniform requirement it was stated that boys could either wear long trousers or short trousers.At a visit to the the school outfitters I was dressed in a school blazer,tie and the obligatory short trousers.
When I attended my new school only three boys wore short trousers,all in my class.We soon became friends as we were often ostracized by boys in long trousers.Girls also teased us and one girl informed me that her younger brother who was a lot younger than me was in long trousers.
My mother thought it was healthier for boys to wear short trousers and considered it'character building'.

Comment by: Tony on 13th August 2025 at 20:59


"What's this last few words of this statement all about exactly, suddenly dropping a random mention of male arousal into a comment about a school drama teacher. I don't get it, what's the reason for that? Does anyone else have any idea?"


To put it bluntly, Tony, I think the truth is we have a dirty old man in our midst, a man who seems fascinated, even obsessed, by pederastic thoughts and fantasies, or at the very least somebody who has very unwholesome voyeuristic tendencies. Most of what he writes is lies, but that doesn't matter - like the loathsome "Mr. Chips" who somebody mentioned the other day, whether what he writes/wrote is true, or not, doesn't matter because that is how he would have LIKED things to be. If I had children I most definitely would not ask "spelvin" to babysit for me.

Comment by: spelvin on 9th August 2025 at 13:49
'I didn’t take drama class in high school, but it was obvious that the drama teacher was an admirer of pectoral beauty.
In a convocation on American history, she stripped some of the boys shirtless to play Indians. The boys still wore jeans, but that didn’t hide their erections.'



What's this last few words of this statement all about exactly, suddenly dropping a random mention of male arousal into a comment about a school drama teacher. I don't get it, what's the reason for that? Does anyone else have any idea?

Come to think of it you are right YT. In the junior school we were always doing little playlets mostly with a class doing it to the rest of school in what was just a glorified assembly. I was in one, I have no idea what it was about anymore, where quite a few boys and girls in our class were undressed and dancing about waving and jumping around but I was not one of those undressed. I can remember watching other classes in assembly doing little playlets often with some or lots of the class seemingly stripped down to various degrees.

We used to have to go into music lessons in the school hall in our bare feet just incase we got up and started doing some dancing about to the sound of the piano, but most of the time it was just a normal music lesson. One day a different lady took us for music who may have been a relief teacher and she asked us to get up and start moving to something she was playing but before we did that she instructed all the boys to take our shirts off as we skipped around her piano, I was playing a triangle as I moved too. I can still remember that there were a handful of boys who had plain white vests on under the shirts they'd taken off that they wore and kept those on but she made those who had them all take those off too.

I know some people have mentioned women and junior schools on here before and there was a teacher at one point a few months ago spoke of her time teaching in one, but those school days in juniors had their moments too.

My PE lesson in the hall in junior school was shirtless more than not, with the full mixed class, so music was just more of the same in that regard.

There's a primary school near me that stays open through the summer holidays for activities where parents dump the kids off there for a price per day or week to be looked after and kept busy doing fun and games stuff. I don't think you even have to go to the school to be part of it, as long as you pay, so other kids from elsewhere may find themselves there too. I've been past the school this afternoon, you can see the entire open playing field and playground through a simple wire mesh fence. Various games and activities were going on, I seemed to notice far more boys than girls actually, possibly because looking across I could not see one boy on the school grounds with a tee-shirt on, all of them that I saw, which amounted to possibly 40 or more boys were fully stripped down to the waist and without tops on, bare chests, aged about 9 - 11.

This was somewhat surprising to me, you might have expected among a group of that size that at least some of them would be dressed with more. There was nothing obvious which suggested that there was a reason they needed to be bare chests other than the heat obviously, although I could see some random water being thrown about and some of these large water pistol nerf gun things being used, but only by a few. You have to assume they were all willingly playing around like that without anyone telling them that was how they must dress, it's an out of school time thing after all. There was a much older boy who looked about 18 who looked to be supervising, he was bare chested too, along with an older fully dressed woman just aimlessly roaming about. All were in shorts, and some were barefoot, even on the tarmac playground which must have felt hot although the sun had gone in and it was just cloudy and humid. Quite a few were wearing baseball caps or other hats protecting their heads. Many of these children may not be able to go on a nice family holiday this year and perhaps this is the closest they will get to one in this controlled environment.

The school even appeared to have had a delivery of a pile of sand to make a pretend beach that many were enjoying in one corner. That gives me an idea for my own back garden in the summer, cover the patio with a few inches of sand.

If my parents had paid to send me right back into the school I'd just gone on summer holiday from for six weeks I'd have been really unhappy at that, even if it was just for a week of the holidays. I pity the children of parents like that who just palm them off back through the same school gates when they are meant to be away from the place for the summer doing other things with their friends and families.

Hi Spelvin,

'YT, did your teacher also seem to like boys’ torsos?'

If she did she kept it to herself.

Apart from the dreaded (by me, anyway) nativity plays which always seemed to necessitate us removing most of our clothes before getting into costume and two ghastly full medical exams there was no stripping off. It was a primary school, not a nudist colony.

That particular teacher I referred to before was coming up to retirement in 1978-9, which means she would have started teaching in the early 1940s, which was an era when boys wearing shorts was a universal commonplace. Young boys in long trousers was, as I remember it, only becoming the dominant trend in the 1970s and I expect it just irked her because it wasn't what she was used to. It probably explains the weird, random shorts-only rule for boys at my infant school as well. To teachers of her generation boys wore shorts and that was that.

You seem to be hinting at an ulterior sexual motive. I was never aware of one, either from this or from any other teacher during my schooldays. Some of your questions are quite strange, by the way.

This particular teacher was a withered old prune who must have been coming up to the 60 mark and so was presumably beyond all such urges when I was taught by her. The most deviant thing they ever made us do at primary was country dancing, which felt like a degrading punishment for something we hadn't even done. .

The 1970s seem in retrospect like the wild west. Teachers could get away with overstepping the mark and frequently did so. I can remember plenty of unofficial corporal punishment - which was quite illegal btw - plenty of shouting and screaming at what were still very young children, and one rumoured case of serious assault where a male teacher was rumoured to have broken a boy's arm in a fit of temper. I have posted about all of this before and won't go into detail again.

I honestly never encountered a pervert in my schooldays (and this despite going to catholic schools, har har). So I can' help you there.

There was an interesting line right at the end of the Chris Clarke post on 11th August at 14.40 where he said he felt grown up when he was told to do PE shirtless at school, compared to another school he attended briefly where this was not the case. Now that's interesting because I remember the view we had of senior school while still in primary school and in my case I knew ahead that they did a lot of PE in bare chests and looked upon this as a definite thing that more grown up boys did a lot in PE, and so it transpired in my own case. So Chris I fully get what you said there and did once associate shirtless PE at school with being an older more grown up boy.

Obviously there will be others who did shirtless PE at younger ages in primary or first schools, but it's the teenage school years where you tend to be thinking about things much more like your body and self image.


I've just re-read the Adam Bell comment from 2023 that Spelvin mentions. 82 pages back! As many pages in the past 3 or 4 years as there were in the previous 14. He was certainly a brave lad to do that at 15 on his birthday and I would have egged him on to do it too at school if anyone like him had been suggesting it. The two week suspension for deliberately walking into the girls changing room with no clothes on for a few seconds seemed a bit harsh to me, but I noticed a character I'd forgotten called Mr Chips who appeared, left lots of posts and evaporated again into thin air. He said he would have caned him for that. Reading back again at Mr Chips he looks a right old suspicious writer and doesn't sound like an old school headmaster or teacher he suggested he was.

You've certainly stirred a bit of debate here Spelvin but I won't be too quick to judge you just yet and remain open minded on your discussion points and reasons for them for the time being. Have you ever been to the UK or studied here by the way?

Comment by: Alan on 12th August 2025 at 10:00
'Could you please stop all this rather grubby under-age sex talk, spelvin?. It is not what this forum is meant for. It sounds a bit childish.'


For once Alan I actually AGREE with your statement here. I've sussed this guy out for sure.


Comment by: Spelvin on 12th August 2025 at 01:14
'One more factor which I forgot to mention: they’re safe from predators too'

If you're an American you'll know who Chris Hansen is then if you catch my drift. You seem far too interested in underage persons in a certain way and the story of the 12 year old being w**ked to climax by his mum showing his sister how boys work was laughable but also said a lot about the person who posted it - YOU.

Let me be the first to openly say it - you're definitely into fetishism but steering right onto those p****phile rocks.

Hello, Response!

And thank you for responding!

I imagine that it's less coercive to get Lanyu boys into loincloths than it is to get British boys into gym attire.
I say this because Lanyu boys have adult male models who wear loincloths.
In Lanyu, the loincloth originated in a search for practical wear for the fishermen.
Lanyu Island is surrounded by flying fish, which are always jumping out of the water.
Catching those fish is their number one industry.

If you rummage around on the Youtube site long enough, you might find videos in which adult males do the same folk dances while clad in loincloths.

On the other hand, it's cute for British schoolboys to skip around the May pole with bare legs and bare tummies because British men don't skip around the May pole with bare legs and bare tummies.

Or at least, American men don't.

It's hard to say concisely when they dress down and when they don't.
They have made a trip to the main island of Taiwan, where they landed at the destination and boarded the subway cars exactly as you see them in the videos.

In the capital city of Taiwan, such an appearance was as unusual as it would be in Western society. The whole thing appeared on the evening news.

However, they also made a trip to New Zealand. (Either they're well heeled or they know how to apply for grants!)
There, they performed their musical numbers wearing T-shirts and knee-length shorts.
They must have heard somewhere that the English-speaking people are a bunch of prudes!

Comment by: spelvin on 12th August 2025 at 02:07
I just finished digging through the archives for all the messages which I missed. I found many interesting items, but I especially want to congratulate Adam Bell, who contributed on November 19, 2023.





Catching up on years worth of posts. Have you been in jail or something?

Most of the circumstances the Taiwanese schoolboys are dressed like that for seem to be musical performances. Do you know if those boys were volunteers who agreed with full knowledge that they would be dressed like that among their female classmates?

Or did the teachers compel all boys to dress like that? Has that school (or schools on that island) stipulated such a policy on their website that boys will be so attired for this and perhaps other activities? For instance, are they similarly dressed for PE?

Hi everyone.

I've been dipping into a selection of random comments on here from across the years and finding it a fascinating read because so much rings a bell with me, and mentioning bells I saw a comment on fire bells going off while someone was in gym so similar to something that took place with me many years ago. I had to go to our school fire assembly point in our very basic PE kit with the others. My own parents at the time found the whole thing so very funny when I told them afterwards, and while I had and have no real problem with shirtless PE being foisted on me or others without choice about it there are places and situations you don't want to be put in like that if it can be avoided, and while most teachers were broadly fine there are always the ones that like to be contrary and awkward to kids in school and won't listen to good suggestions if they come from a pupil, more often than not there is a PE teacher in the lists of those types, and I'm no exception to this.

We had a massive sports hall at school which had a large fire door down one end of it with an easy opening bar across it. You were never allowed to open it unless for an emergency even though it would have given very quick access to the outside where we sometimes went in PE if we left the sports hall for some reason to do something else. Someone opened it one day when they shouldn't while a teacher had left us alone and discovered the thing was actually alarmed. When the teacher came back he chased the culprit around the sports hall lashing out at him with a skipping rope which thrashed his backside three or four times. It was quite funny really.

We used to do a lot with skipping ropes at school, our teacher told us they were not just for girls and very good for boys to use too for our health and fitness and to get the heart rate raised. He also nearly throttled someone with a skipping rope once when he wrapped it around an unruly neck until the boy went red and nearly passed out. That's your job gone now if you do that with lots of witnesses. The old boy is still alive, maybe we could get some middle aged witnesses together and have him prosecuted for historic assault on the floor of the school sports hall against a defenceless scantily clad teenage boy.

So as I was saying, our school used to actually tell us on a specific day that there would be a fire drill at some point. I thought that defeated the whole purpose if you were ready to expect it. There was this day at my school when I was 15 we had the fire bell drill warning but it had not gone off before lunch on this day like I expected it too, which meant it was going to go off in the afternoon. I had PE first lesson back in the afternoon, and knew from previous examples that they never set the fire drill at school to go off in the final lesson period of the day because it would delay people getting home or picked up by the buses, so it was almost certainly going to go off before mid afternoon break time and in my PE lesson. Which it did.

When boys did PE lessons in the sports hall we were always without any exceptions in a very basic white shorts, bare chest and bare foot turn out, just like the boys in the picture on here but without the trainers on. That was alright by me but I get why others dislike it so much. Our PE teacher had made it clear to us while we changed for PE that there might be a fire drill during the lesson and to be aware and ready to leave if so. Because we used to do PE in a very basic turn out it was suggested that maybe we should bring something, a top, along to gym with us just incase, our school shirt was the suggested, we had no actual PE top, a vest or T-shirt because we never used them in sports hall at school and it was never part of our PE kit in that area. If the bell rang for drill then we could grab our shirt from the side quickly and stick it on and get through the emergency door. Our PE teacher refused to let anyone do that and clutter up the sports hall with unnecessary items as he saw it. So having changed for PE we went to sports hall as usual.

The fire assembly point was beside our sports hall just the other side of the emergency fire doors on the sports hall. I was quite nervous in this lesson, despite shirtless PE not being a big issue with me, in permanent anticipation of the fire drill bell sounding while we were doing PE in that sports hall in our basic PE kit in just our shorts, knowing if it went off we'd be going straight through the emergency door to the outside assembly point just as we were, and about ten minutes before the end of our PE lesson just as we were about to finish up and hit the showers and change and dress again that fire drill sounded and the PE teacher ran to the fire door threw it open and shouted at us all to get out as fast as we could, without running. We were the first pupils in the school out there and when some of the others started joining us seconds later they laughed at our class. Suddenly I was so aware of my body more than ever. Some cursed our PE teacher not allowing us to bring a top incase of this eventuality that seemed likely during our lesson. Someone in my class said he did it on purpose. I think it was October, it was not warm. We were standing on a multi purpose all terrain pitch covered in tiny gravelly bits which me and others complained about as this felt really sharp and uncomfortable to stand on with zero footwear on, but we were just made to stop talking and stand still until everyone had been head counted.

What gets me about reading the comments on here is how all these total strangers come together who all went to completely different schools all over the place and yet many had very similar day to day things happen. I think the whole school shower one is perhaps the most obvious when it comes to PE in school. Nobody ever refused to take one did they, we all did it. There is something about older people remembering things like that at school that really draws out the passion nowadays.

Good site, I'll keep on reading. It's just a shame we can't post up pictures from schooldays past of our own, I've got quite a few from my own school sports days which were a shirtless event for boys at ours and the school cross country team who often seemed to run shirtless, and although I was not on the team itself our school took the regular boys cross country shirtless many times too and that was treated like a proper endurance race that I personally was always up for but which others found hard to manage.

Hello, Mark!

I’ll answer a few of your questions.

“what you were expected or compelled to do and wear throughout schooling”
Girls wore dresses or skirts.
Boys wore long trousers.
There was no dress code that I recall. We all dressed that way because we never imagined attending school any other way.

I’m afraid the Seventies did not come until much later.
I think it would be exciting to remember attending school “half-stripped.”

“. . . either with PE . . .”
In junior high school (that’s grades 7-9), boys and girls were separate.
We wore footwear, gym shorts, and T-shirts.

“. . . and swimming,”
Again, boys and girls separate.
We wore swimsuits anyway.
The whole time I was growing up, I never even heard of coed swim classes with the boys swimming nude.

That happened only in certain parts of the country, and I never even heard of such a thing until about 10 years ago.

Some people wonder why there is not more evidence of such a thing, and therefore question that such classes were ever offered.

However, there are now middle aged and elderly men who offer testimonies, both favorable and unfavorable, of such an era.

I can tell you what little I know for a fact. On Thursday, October 31,1940, The Sheboygan (Wisconsin) Press ran an article on page 12, announcing separate swim classes for girls and boys which were being offered at the community center. Girls wore swimsuits and boys did not. There was a photo of the girls posing in perfect decency. There was also a photo of one of the boys, standing on the diving board and presenting his rump side to the camera. The article identified the boy by name and address.
I know all this because I ordered the newspaper from the archives office.

“. . . your thoughts at the time on it all”
Hard to say. I grew up with extremely prudish parents, and I was taught to suppress my feelings.

Hello, Ronnie!

Here is why I am interested in:

“proudly riding a bike on Sunday, wearing a swim suit and nothing else”
Because I was never that proud when I was growing up, and would like to identify with such a child.

“being allowed to wear only shorts at home”
Because I could have used a little corporeal admiration, especially from adults.
I would have been relieved to know that it is all right for a person to want to show his/her body.
I realize that forbidding a child to wear anything but shorts at home is overdoing it.

“girls admiring boys who are shirtless for gym class”
Like I say, I could have used a little corporeal admiration.
For that matter, it seems that other people on this board could also have used a little corporeal admiration.
We have seen messages about girls whispering, giggling, and whistling at the boys, but very little about girls giving the boys the attention they needed.
We have also seen messages from boys who dreaded the parents seeing them skipping around the May pole in deshabille, but very little about the parents complimenting the boys on how nice they looked.
That is why I was so interested in Iris’ post. If the other parents enjoyed the epidermal display as much as she did, I hope they told the boys that.

“towel dancing by boys of the present generation”
We weren’t too keen on being seen by the girls, but we didn’t towel dance in the locker room.
I think that foolishness started when sexual abuse hysteria reached its feverish level.

“nude swimming class at a boarding school (September 6, 2013), which was often interrupted by women teachers ordering individual students to get out of the pool and talk”
I would have appreciated an adult female who implied that my nudity was acceptable.

“coed dance class which the boys had to attend shirtless”
I would like to have a memory like that.

Hello again, Mark!
Hello again, Ronnie!

I am sorry if my posts have been shocking to you.
Now that I have explained my point of view,
I hope that we are closer to a mutual understanding.

Spelvin, you may have done this years ago on here but for newer readers and posters could you please give us a factual indication of your own education and what you were expected or compelled to do and wear throughout schooling, either with PE and swimming, your type of schooling where this happened, your thoughts at the time on it all, as well as away from an education setting around home and about the place as a young person, with reference to the time frame too.

Even though shirtless coed phys ed was frightening for the boys, that is no reason to abolish it completely. Requiring bicycle helmets and knee pads is a good thing, but risk-taking is part of growing up. That includes making new friends and risking getting rejected. That includes playing a solo in a piano recital and risking making a memory slip. That includes climbing a jungle gym and risking falling. And yes, that includes going outside with no shirt on and risking getting whistled at.

But there was just one thing wrong with shirtless coed phys ed: they didn’t do it right.

Whereas:

<<<Children like to try courageous feats, provided they can pair up.>>>

What do girls do if they want to flirt with boys? They do it in pairs!
What do boys do if they want to flirt with girls? They do it in pairs!
What do girls do if they want to go out in public immodestly dressed? They do it in pairs!
What do boys do if they want to go out in public immodestly dressed? They do it in pairs!

<<<If immodesty persists long enough, it won’t be exciting or frightening any more.>>>

<<<Almost anything can be done in immodest attire, not just gym activity.>>>

<<<With a little bit of instruction, fully dressed girls and half naked boys might be able to communicate with each other with confidence and with courtesy.>>>

Be it resolved that:

The students should have been divided up into foursomes, with two fully dressed girls and two half naked boys in each group.

The students would be provided conversation openers to break the ice. Tell me about your family. How do you like your teachers this year? Did you see Upstairs Downstairs last night?

The students would do everything together. On a rainy day when an outdoor recess is not possible, they could play card games and board games together. At lunch time, they could eat together. In their regular classes, they could quiz each other. What’s the square root of 49? What’s the capital of Norway? What’s the formula for table salt?

Beginning soon enough, and applied often enough, the vestimentary imbalance would become second nature. A girl would learn that the uncovered body which she sees now is no different from the covered body which she saw earlier. A boy would learn that the girl who is looking at his exposed nipples is not going to bite.

Does anyone have a time machine?

Comment by: spelvin on 12th August 2025 at 02:07


Could you please stop all this rather grubby under-age sex talk, spelvin?. It is not what this forum is meant for. It sounds a bit childish.

On May 3 through May 6 of this year, James and Yours Truly had an interesting discussion on women’s attitudes toward boys wearing shorts. At present, this discussion can be found on pages 15-16.

When Yours Truly was in junior school (which I take to be about Grades 4-6), he had a woman teacher who issued the mandate that “all you boys should be in shorts.” YT’s parents accepted the teacher’s behavior as quite normal, so they readily complied.

James was a few years older when his woman teacher kept a running tab on how many boys were wearing shorts. In James' case, this was probably immaterial, because his mother only allowed him to wear shorts anyway.

Neither YT nor James was happy with such a mandate. James got ridiculed by his classmates. YT felt “half-stripped” and “vulnerable and embarrassed” from wearing Seventies style shorts.

I notice that the discussion on pages 15-16 dealt only with women’s attitudes toward boys’ legs, while Iris’ recent message deals only with her attitude toward boys’ torsos.

I’m curious:
YT, did your teacher also seem to like boys’ torsos?
James, did your teacher also seem to like boys’ torsos?
James, did your mother also make you go shirtless?
Iris, were the boys in your photo album bare-legged as well as bare-chested?
And furthermore, do you also like boys’ legs?

Comment by: Chris Clarke on 11th August 2025 at 14:40



"........... the simple fact is that nearly all boys would not care in the slightest about it, and nearly all teaching staff, hopefully all of them, are not looking at pupils in ways they should not be doing.

There is nothing wrong with shirtless PE lessons being asked for, required or fully mandated across the board for a group in a class situation. If the PE department elects to require that all boys within a school should do that, so be it, there should not be a problem with that. This kind of a mandate should be no more of a problem than requiring all boys to wear a tie to school done up properly with the top button secured, thus strangling some of us. I hated wearing a tie and having my top button done up, always felt like it was too tight on my neck and uncomfortable. It was great when I went to PE and could get my shirt off and into kit, or go shirtless a lot too.

Shirtless PE is about taking a disciplined approach to PE, making it clear we all have bodies that require care to keep in good condition. Why go to a PE class and seek to hide that body? When groups are shirtless like that it does create an extra level of achievement, an unmistakable sense of being, bonding is often said..........."


Chris, with all due respect, have you not read the comments on this forum?. I assume not since you say: "nearly all boys would not care in the slightest about it,", well, as somebody a bit older than you, me and many of my contemporaries DID care about it, and have said so openly, even on the page you are currently reading. There is a bit of pusillanimous word juggling here as well "asked for" - you were TOLD not "asked". Are you a teacher yourself, by any chance?

It seems you base your findings that there was more "discipline" in the school that made you take your shirts off than the one which didn't. Well, I agree with you, I would hardly say that was a scientific analysis. If you enjoyed discipline you must wish that you had been born a decade earlier, then you might have enjoyed the cane - one of the accoutrements of discipline, and - if you were extra lucky - you might have encountered our Mr. Boreham, who caned for the slightest excuse (some invented by himself) who derived great personal pleasure from the practice.

I'm sorry, but I do get pissed off with the "bonding" excuse, and I can only assume your teacher never wanted for Granny Smiths with Student Chris in the front row of desks. The "D" word, which is a red rag to a bull word to me, was the get out of jail free card for pervy teachers, who relished the "yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir" type of pupil who accepted everything without question, even punishments. Why was it deemed necessary to be naked to "bond" with other pupils, many of whom you wouldn't give the time of day to outside of school?. Also I wonder how many of the pupils from your second, "lesser" (in your eyes) school would have wanted to return with you to your original school?

I just finished digging through the archives for all the messages which I missed. I found many interesting items, but I especially want to congratulate Adam Bell, who contributed on November 19, 2023.

On Adam’s fifteenth birthday, he had an unconventional celebration. When he was undressed in the boys’ locker room, his male classmates offered him moral support if he would run across the hallway and invade the girls’ locker room.

Adam ran back to the boys’ locker room, accompanied by twenty screaming voices.

It reminds me of another story, which is the same thing only reversed: Patrick was a very shy and very studious high school student. He stayed after school every day to run experiments, look up library material, and run sundry other academic chores.

One day during the volleyball season, a girl approached Patrick and requested help. When the two neared the girls’ locker room door, another girl came out and joined the first girl in pushing him inside.
There he was greeted by the entire girls’ volleyball team, fresh out of the showers. They greeted him with “Don’t be shy.” “Do you like what you see?”

I don’t know who I would rather identify with, Adam or Patrick.

I was disappointed that none of my cherished British cousins remember any swim classes enrolling swimsuit-clad girls and unclad boys.

If the following story is true, and I hope it is, a class in a Wisconsin high school met these specifications. One day, a school board member visited that class.

A well-endowed athletic hero was standing on the diving board, waiting his turn. The board member’s twin daughters were standing near the diving board. That put the girls’ eye level straight on the athlete’s glorious icon.
The girls looked with wide-eyed wonder first at the exhibit, then at each other, then at the exhibit, then at each other.

The school board member stamped over to the girls and lambasted them to Hades. Then he stamped over to the blameless athlete and lambasted him to Hades. Then he stamped over to the swimming teacher and lambasted him to Hades.

To the amusement of everyone present, he stamped over to what he thought was the door to the hallway but proved to be the door to the girls’ locker room.

The story has a sad ending, though. After the following school board meeting, the class met with all class members in proper attire.

Hi Curtis,

Just on the subject of sisters vs brothers:

I remember my little sister coming back from her first PE lesson shocked and bemused because her PE teacher had directed the girls to remove their underwear before putting on their gym knickers. Us boys were never made to do that, which I gather is in sharp contrast with many male respondents on this forum.

Me being the dutiful and concerned elder brother I lost no time in gleefully teasing her about it until she put me back in my box with a withering put-down (my sister has always been able to defend herself).

I post this just to point out that girls didn't always get things their own way. I gather that no explanation was given for it and it was the only time the girls were ever made to do it. Just another example of PE teachers making up their own rules, I suppose.

As regards changing rooms, do you mean to say your changing room was left open to the view of any passers-by, including passing girls? That was completely wrong. Our changing room had a hallway that led on to the changing area with the shower unit alongside the hallway. The exit to the playing fields had the door sideways on in a sort of portico, so even with both doors swinging open no passer-by could have glimpsed us showering. I would have thought that was the arrangement at every boys' changing rooms, but apparently not.

Some time back another respondent accused me of having won the lottery as regards school PE and I suppose that must be true. Being cast into a gym in the sight of girls naked but for a pair of shorts at a vulnerable age when you are developing and your body has a life of its own sounds like the ultimate fucking nightmare frankly. I never knew until I started reading this forum that secondary schools even did stuff like that.

At my school girls had partitions in their showers whereas for us boy it was the universal 'pants off and get on with it' communal shower regime that secondary school boys everywhere had inflicted on them.