A Touchy Subject...

[Millhouse]

I was going to title this the next chapter in Tales From the Sports Crypt, but it's honestly more of an interactive topic.

The title implies what it is, though.

Aside from all the things we talk about here...competitiveness, the annoyingness of the fans, being picked on by sports enthusiastic peers during P.E. and in the workplace, I have a poll of sorts, but I'm not going to use the poll function for this one.

Dressing out. In my day, that's what the gym teachers used to call it. The specific definition of it is to have to dress in a certain attire for getting sweaty.

Perhaps it is just me, but my parents taught me fiercely when growing up the value of privacy, and to say the very least, I was more than uncomfortable of the idea of having to strip and shower in front of other people. Now, I realise that some of us that can't stand sports may not actually have a problem with this, and I do not have an issue with anyone that doesn't. I know other life situations require it (for example, those that serve in the military).

In my generation, by high school it was mandatory if you were in P.E. Now, I'm certainly not railing against cleanliness, God knows some of the jocks in my classes that didn't shower after lugging a meatlump ball around in the field for an hour stank up the entire building, but seriously? Even separated shower stalls (just like with toilet stalls) would make even the acceptable version of Physical Education we talk about here more tolerable. By acceptable version, I mean the physical education we discuss that ideally does away with competitive sports and focuses solely on fitness.

The idea of taking off my clothes in front of other people bothered me so much in high school, I took the elective general physical education class to avoid having to do it.

Maybe it's just me that has the problem. I'd like to hear some opinions on it, even if you don't agree.

Please keep this discussion clean, though, or I will ask the mods to obliterate the thread. I don't want any phallic jokes, jocks.

[Fat Man]

I know what you mean.

When I was in PE, I absolutely hated undressing in front of all the monkey-boys in the shower room.

It's especially hard on us fat guys, because we have larger breasts, and sometimes the lower belly hangs down over the male equipment making it look smaller, and if a fat guy is somewhat pear-shaped it make us look somewhat effeminate, and we get harassed because of it.

We get harassed because we look more like the typical modern obese male human and not like some hairy ape that is 10 rungs below us on the evolutionary ladder like the monkey-boys.

I went to a school in New Mexico where the idea of privacy was a totally alien concept. It was like being in a zoo. Even the restrooms had no doors on the toilet stalls.

I believe that a school should be shut down for violation of building codes it is does not have doors on the toilet stalls and separate shower stalls each with a door that you can lock from the inside to keep others from coming in to harass you.

But no! In my school you had to strip down in front of all the monkey-boy who would harass you and whistle at you like guys whistle at the gals.

It was so embarrassing.

Thanks to PE, many of your schools are like human zoos!

[Earl]

Wow, Millhouse! You've brought up an excellent topic, as touchy as it is. I'm with you. I too had a deep sense of privacy when I was a boy, which was augmented by a deep feeling of inferiority that seems to have taken root in the back of my mind very early in my childhood simply because I was slightly built and was physically weak. How about that for a "touchy" statement? If we could sometimes (but not all the time) dispense with the name-calling and the hype on both sides, this website could be a forum for discussing deep issues, instead of just providing the laughs of a tit for tat. (Again, there's nothing wrong with that. At least to a degree.) Deep, personal issues should be explored in a nonoffensive way. You better believe I had an ingrained sense of privacy. When I was in the seventh grade, my best friend was spending the night with us, as many young kids do with their friends. When I realized that he had disrobed himself completely in my bedroom, I demanded that he at least put his underwear back on. Until then, I wasn't going to set foot in my bedroom. I don't think he had any perverted intentions in mind. At least I hope not! But I have no idea why he wanted to display himself naked to me. (Was this an attempt to have male bonding?) Besides, I knew nothing about sex at that time. I hope none of you mind me getting personal. I do have moral standards, after all. So, if I did not care to see my best friend naked, you can imagine the horror I felt on the first day of my 6th-grade P.E. class during my first year in junior-high school when the coach said we had to take showers together. I actually did it only once. I felt extremely vulnerable the one time I did it, and I never did it again. Couldn't stand it. If my worst bully had been in my P.E. class and had found me naked in the showers, can you imagine what that would have been like for me? Can you imagine what does happen to bullied kids whose bullies catch them naked in the showers? Talk about the ultimate humiliation! (When have bullied kids who have suffered degrading experiences such as this ever been heard by anyone? They can have a voice at a website like this. Would they have a voice on a sports website?) I never took a shower in the gym again. Like many other boys I just got my hair wet and faked it. Now, I know that there is a funny side to this. No doubt "jocks" (as opposed to empathetic athletic boys who actually sympathize with and respect the feelings of their nonathletic classmates and, unfortunately, seem to be way outnumbered by the "jocks") would dismiss me as a wimp for saying this, but I couldn't care less what they say. That's certainly not the only thing they're wrong about. (Actually, I prefer not to use the word "jock." But I've noticed that some people whose comments have been displayed at this website make a distinction between athletes who are decent guys and the "jocks," who are athletes that feel entitled to subject others to one form of abuse or another. Occasionally I use the word "jock" in that sense.) My feelings are very deep. And, yes, taking showers with others is a part of military life; but I'm not in the military, am I? Once again, we recognize that traditional sports-centered P.E. (which, as Coach Tim McCord informed me in a personal e-mail that he sent to me, is still around in some, if not many, school districts) has been the bane of existence for nonathletic boys, a fact which continues to be denied by most sports fans and by the sports media in general, who only care about athletes. Again, Millhouse, you bring up a substantive issue. I look forward to other members' comments, and probably will make additional comments of my own later on. By the way, I won't even take showers at my health club (which is far, far more supportive than any P.E. class I was ever forced to take as a kid), even though they are readily available. I take baths at home in the privacy of one of our bathrooms.

[Ray]

Of course I wouldn't have wanted to shower naked in front of evrybody else but in our school, believe it or not, we didn't shower! We went to the next class stinking! That's why I didn't like it.

The thing I hated about gym class was the inevitable shirt and skins teams. It didn't bother me much to expose my bony, white chest in front of the other guys but frequently we'd have to exercise or walk past the rest of the school population and that was embarrassing.

Plus we had to wear these NASTY, tiny little puffy gym shorts that only reached mid-thigh -if that. I must have looked like a starved holocaust victim as skinny as I was.

[Earl]

Hey, Ray. What was the name of your high school? Stinky High? (Heh, heh. Just kidding.) Seriously, anyone, I wasn't making a case for developing BO. I was just relating one of the many facets of PE that I didn't find to be so appealing. You know, the proverbial "icing on the cake," except it's negative instead of positive. Ray, I wish I could comment on what you've just said; but words fail me. They're part of the dreary mosaic that made up the "Baby Boomer" generation's P.E., which is still with us.

[Ray]

ha ha ha ha --it should have been named stinky high, you're right.

[rotten]

I think the shower rooms at school are hardly used any more. In high school we had to have one and a half credits ( three semesters or a year and a half) I always took the life time sports class, which was mostly dodge ball, because the coach was too lazy to think up anything else. I tried to schedule it for the last hour of the school day, so i could go home right after class and clean up in the privacy of my own shower.

I was a pretty big kid, so as far back as middle school, i really dreaded those shirts vs skins games. It was pretty demeaning to the fat kids like myself. I know if i had mentioned it, the coach would have said something to the effect of , if you don't want to be made fun of, then loose some weight. What a way to help young minds with their fragile self images.

[abitagirl]

Pardon my ignorance, but what is a "shirts vs. skins" game?

[Polite24]

One team wears shirts, other takes their shirt off.

I've never seen this in a gym class though. Only when you're on a specific sports team, or somewhere like open gym.

[Millhouse]

One team wears shirts, other takes their shirt off.

I've never seen this in a gym class though. Only when you're on a specific sports team, or somewhere like open gym.

Again, I have to wonder what yuppie or textbook neighborhood you grew up in to give you the short sighted perception you have.

It was practically an epidemic in Texas schools when I was growing up. Skins and shirts. As if losing a play in gym class wasn't humiliating enough for the non jock. Yes, let's take our shirts off and get skin cancer. Aside from the obvious humiliation.

[abitagirl]

That's what I kept picturing, but I thought it surely couldn't be that! Geez. What the hell? Do they enjoy humiliating kids?

[rotten]

What the hell? Do they enjoy humiliating kids?

Yes, at least the non athletic type

I've never seen this in a gym class though. Only when you're on a specific sports team, or somewhere like open gym.

Maybe you haven't seen it but, in gym class where i live (missouri) we did it from middle school on up, in fact i bet 99% of the guys here have seen it in gym class.

[Polite24]

I grew up in a suburb of Detroit, only 18 now so my experience is pretty recent.


Never had to take my shirt off for gym class, like I said only in team related stuff.

[Fat Man]

I grew up in a suburb of Detroit, only 18 now so my experience is pretty recent.


Never had to take my shirt off for gym class, like I said only in team related stuff.

I have seen this in almost every school I went to back in the 1960s.

We were made to play basketball and we were divided into two teams, Shirts and Skins and I usually ended up being one it the skins.

One of the pervos from the Shirts team harassed me by grabbing my breasts making comments about fat guys with big tits.

The Shirts and Skins was quite common when I want to school.

You have obviously lived a very sheltered life!

That's why you don't know jack-shit!!!

[Polite24]

Haha what the hell?

I've been to high school much more recently than you have.

A sheltered life? What am I supposed to do go to 8 different school districts to see what the fuck they're doing? I've been in one school district my whole life and I was just speaking from that experience.

Speaking of the grammar you called me out on in a different thread

"The Shirts and Skins was quite common when I want to school."

Went, I think would be the correct word there.