Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Sweat it out
A question for the women in the room: In high school phys ed, did y’all strip naked for showers? Purely an academic question, naturally, since you never know when I might have to write a scene featuring high school girls in a locker room setting, and I wouldn’t want to get it wrong, would I?
Well, we stripped. It began in junior high, and I’m not sure what the point of it was. Lord knows it wasn’t necessary. We didn’t get all that smelly. At the time, I considered it a rite of passage, or perhaps a hazing ritual. We dissected cadavers in med school in small part to learn anatomy, in large part to overcome the taboo of not cutting people open with sharp implements. So what was the point of getting naked with a bunch of other guys? For what part of adult life did that prepare me?
This is no small point. Like girls, boys mature at different rates. In my 10th grade gym class, side-by-side in the locker room we had a boy who lacked the slightest poof of pubic hair (NOT me, so get that out of your mind) alongside a fellow I’ll call The Donkey (also not me, but if you want to think I’m lying, I won’t argue with you).
The Donkey once told the story of how his girlfriend had broken up with him, but had wanted him back within the fortnight. Implicit was the suggestion they had been sexually active and her dalliances elsewhere had not matched up. We all shook our heads knowingly. With clothes on, we would have figured him a BS artist, but in the locker room, we trusted the evidence of our eyes.
I used to wonder, and perhaps worry a little, about the prepubescent kids. The Hairless Ones. To me, this would be more profoundly disturbing to the adolescent male psyche than girls comparing their breasts’ Tanner Stages. Some girls never get past a Tanner 2, yet they’re just as feminine as a Tanner 4. But the guy with the Tanner 1 prick really does have something to worry about. His whole sexual future depends on making progress. If he’s thirteen and hairless and surrounded by a bunch of Tanner 2s and 3s and even a well endowed 4 (The Donkey), why shouldn’t he worry?
It’s not the worst part about PE. The worst part is war ball. Nevertheless, it ranks up there if you’re one of those Tanner 1s. So I’ll ask again: why was this necessary? Admittedly, I have to get nekkid around the guys in my gym’s locker room, but we’re all adults. It ain’t the same dynamic.
Maybe it’s that old life lesson that the world isn’t fair. I learned early on that some kids were richer than me, cuter than me, stronger or faster than me, more talented than me. That’s the way it was. That’s the way it always would be. I would never be the star quarterback, no matter how much I willed it, and I would never run a mile in under nine minutes. I would never play guitar like Peter Frampton, play chess like Bobby Fischer, or look good with an assault rifle like Patty Hearst.
And I would never, ever be hung like The Donkey.
D.
I think it was 8th grade gym class where we had to take showers. Not all the time; just sometimes. I don’t know what the point was either. Add to that the embarrassment of being the last to shower, and not knowing it, and having attention called to you for not turning the shower off, even though you didn’t know you were the last in.
And, basically, it was a complete waste, since mainly you stripped naked, ran in, splashed water on yourself, and got out. I don’t remember if anybody ever even used soap.
In high school, we never had to take showers that I recall. Though high school is probably where it would have been more necessary.
When you see the stuff in the news these days, you kind of have to wonder whether the grade school showers were something more for the “benefit” of the gym teachers than to the students. They really served no purpose, and the gym teacher’s office was like right next to the showers. Of course, back then, you didn’t think of those things. But, now, ewww!!!
I think I’m sold on homeschooling even more so than ever before! 😉
I never stripped for showers – there was never any time for a shower because to dry and style my hair would’ve taken ages.It was a sweaty swap off back to my clothes. And we were never that smelly either – teenagers either completely stink or drown themselves in scents. I was a drowner.
I only took the required freshman year PE, so my experience in high school lockers room is relatively brief. We spent the majority of our time trying to avoid taking a shower. Wet washcloth under the arms, a quick run into the showers and back out again if the coach thought we hadn’t washed up–but no serious showering. The girls made a big deal out of it, and once they did, anyone who seriously took the time to shower would’ve been labeled a lez. And Lyvvie is right. The 80s/early 90s had some serious hair issues. NO WAY I’d wash my hair. My bangs!!
the only time we were supposed to take showers was after swim class, freshman year. however, my year, the hot water heater broke. and they couldnt have us taking cold showers…so no more swim class. i was EXSTATIC. but even when we did have showers, they were individual, with curtains and changing areas and stuff. i saw some boobs when changing in the locker room just into gym clothes, but we were all very modest and turned our backs for the most part.
i have no idea about the guys though…i never thought about it.
PE was mandatory from grade 8 to 11, and I never once set foot in the showers, nor do I recall anyone else doing so more than once or twice a year. The guys, however, had to shower every time, and the teacher stood in the locker room to make sure they did.
Since our PE teachers were all guys, they couldn’t get away with doing the same thing for the girls (except for a very butch Ms. S, and oddly, she never came in while we were changing). Mr. J, though, always sent us for a run when it was raining, and met us at the door as we came back in, with our t-shirts wet and clinging.
I’m not, and never have been what you US folks call a “jock”, so my communcal showering was largely limited to swimming days both before and after the swim – and even then you always showered in your “togs”. At the start so you didn’t get the pool “dirty*”, and afterward, to get the chlorine out of your costume so that the bus didn’t stink on the way home.
*I’ve never liked communal pools; I’ve ended up with too many ear problems and sore eyes after using them.
Blogwhoring alert!
The Flasher is now open for May entries. This month the task is to write a story that includes a song lyric. see:
http://theflasher.wordpress.com/
End of blogwhoring.
But with the assault rifle, who’s gonna argue with you?
(Of course it’s compensation. If I could kill things with my penis from 100m, I wouldn’t need an assault rifle now, would I?)
(No, it’s not original, but I thought it was funny so I’m stealing it… And besides, I’m compensating, so who’s gonna argue with me? ;-))
Y’all are doing quite well by yourselves, I see.
I, too, recall the coaches always being present right next to the showers. Guess they liked boyflesh? (No, no, no . . . they were there to keep us little kids from being victimized by the bigger kids — yeah, that’s it!)
The boys had a small, crowded gym locker room right off the gym. There was a gang shower, pretty much just a tiled hallway with showerheads in it, and we had to shower, no exceptions.
The girls had a much larger locker room downstairs. Each girl had a separate change area with curtain, and each pair of change areas shared a shower.
Why the difference? I don’t know. But at that time we were taught that, as males, your personal feelings about things don’t matter. Don’t cry. Don’t complain. Don’t admit weakness. Do what you’re told. Now. Or else.
Oh, yeah, that brings up another memory: we were regularly hit as punishment, and one of the funny things was to go into the shower and see who had marks from a floor hockey stick on his ass. The sticks were ridged in an unmistakable pattern, and they hurt like a motherfucker.
Are you kidding me? I went to high school in the South. We didn’t have any freakin’ showers. That qualifies as indoor plumbing, doesn’t it?
So y’all went skinny dipping to clean off, is that it?
Strangely the only time I had to take showers with the other girls in the locker room was in junior high. We all had to line up naked as we went into the shower and Miss Moot (I kid you not, that was her name) would check us off on her list to make sure we went past. I always thought she kind of liked young naked girls. In high school, by which time you might think we would actually NEED a shower, we didn’t have to take one! Of course it was a different town – we moved after junior high – so I have no idea if the high school kids in my old town had to shower or not. I was relieved, to say the least, that it wasn’t required.
Now if only they didn’t have that nasty habit of picking team captains and then letting THEM pick who gets to play on their teams. I was always the last picked. It was mortifying.