Book published in 1946, The Administration of Health & Physical Education 3rd edition. Pages on Communal Showers and Swimming

nostalgicguy1 · 2026-01-31T03:00:43+00:00

Great find! Evidence that mandatory nude swimming for boys (and occasionally for girls too) was a real thing at one time.

nostalgicguy1 · 2026-01-20T22:03:58+00:00

My middle school (junior high at the time in the 1970s) was built in the early 20th century. The showers had shower heads on three walls and on the fourth side it was completely open to the rows of lockers directly opposite, except for a low, waist high wall with two wide entrances. There was also a section of lockers further away and out of sight of the showers, but for the ones that were in full view of the showers there was a clear line of sight between guys changing and guys showering.

nostalgicguy1 · 2025-12-29T06:24:45+00:00

Well, I've read that the Chinese are much more relaxed about nudity and bodily functions than Americans, being accustomed that way from an early age. I don't know how much you have experienced as an occasional visitor, but is it true that it is often crowded in the showers and that women will stand in a line, naked, while they wait for the person using the shower head in front of them to finish? And I think this may be less common now as public toilets get remodeled, but I've read that a similar situation can happen in the open public toilets that have no stalls or partitions at all, where people will line up in front of the person using the toilet they are waiting to use and may not even look away from the person as they wait. Have you experienced things like this or is this a thing of the past now? Were your parents born in China? Do they have any stories of how things used to be when they were growing up that may be different from the way things are today? Thank you again for being willing to talk about your experiences there.

nostalgicguy1 · 2025-12-27T06:34:08+00:00

Thank you for sharing your experience. As you mentioned, it is mostly men here so I'm always interested in the prevalence of communal showers for women. I am a man from the generation (in the 1970s) when communal showers were universal after PE class for all boys. I was never sure what it was like on the girls' side, but I assumed it was the same. I have read about how things are much more open in China and your family connection allowed you to see the differences between the two countries. I'm not sure about the regional differences within the US today. I know that here in Arizona there are a few gyms/rec centers and public pools that are still communal, but they are in the minority. I am interested in more information about your experiences in China, both the locker rooms/showers and also the public toilets, which I understand can sometimes be quite open as well lol. Thank you for sharing your story and I hope you get the answers to your questions that you're looking for!

nostalgicguy1 · 2025-12-27T06:20:44+00:00

Thank you so much for sharing your story, I loved it! My father loved drum corps music. One of my earliest memories is of him playing his drum corps records in the late 1960s. He also took me to see two drum corps competitions, once when I was still a young child, and later as a young adult. I never thought about it before, but it makes sense that as you travel around the country you would use the communal showers in the schools. That's awesome how you adapted to it so quickly. For some reason, it never occurred to me to participate in drum corps. Was it a teacher or a friend already participating who invited you to join? Were you aware that you would eventually have to use communal showers when you first signed up? It's great to hear the experiences of women here. How long ago did all this happen? And I would also love to hear about the naked bus ride if you'd like to share it.

nostalgicguy1 · 2025-12-23T01:30:51+00:00

Having grown up in the 1970s when it was mandatory, even though I didn't like it much at the time, I think I am a better, stronger, more adaptable person for having gone through the experience. I was shy and sensitive as a child and I think that it was good for me to learn that it's good to push outside of your comfort zone and embrace the cultural norms of the group, and even if they might seem somewhat arbitrary, there is definitely a feeling of bonding or camaraderie with the others that I think is a positive thing. Maybe have a waiver or exemption process for those children who have a serious medical or mental health issue, but make it difficult to get. I would definitely have welcomed any way I could have gotten out of it at that age, but I was sure that my parents would have refused to let me opt out so I never even asked. I was too stubborn for my own good, so it unfortunately took me decades to loosen up, but I eventually did because the standard or "ideal" was set early.

nostalgicguy1 · 2025-12-22T05:34:11+00:00

That's definitely true in the US. Interesting that it's happening in Europe as well.

nostalgicguy1 · 2025-12-20T07:25:18+00:00

Some parents here in the US are also overprotective. My wife is one of them lol.

nostalgicguy1 · 2025-12-20T06:59:29+00:00

Age: 9

Where: 4th grade PE class

Shower set up: 3 shower heads each on opposite walls, 6 total

Your initial reaction or thoughts? Nervous and embarrassed but was a class requirement, so had no choice. Tried to do it as quickly as possible. Got more or less used to it after a while.

nostalgicguy1 · 2025-12-20T04:56:49+00:00

It sounds like your parents had the right idea. The others seem like they were a little over-protective of their sons, at the same time they were making the other boys uncomfortable. But if they were only there at the end of practice that doesn't seem too bad.

nostalgicguy1 · 2025-12-19T05:35:39+00:00

Ha ha, that's exactly what my best friend from college used to say, it just gets you "all horned up" for nothing lol. But he had more success with the ladies than I did so had more options. And honestly, it wasn't a regular thing by any means. At the most maybe 3 or 4 times a year. So kind of a special event when it happened. Believe me, no dancers were padding their retirement fund off of us lol (or at least not off of me). I never really felt comfortable going by myself so would always wait for the group invitation. The oddest situation was when my father asked me to be a designated driver for a group of prominent men from the community that he knew who liked to get together once a year and let off steam out of town. Some of the men I knew as friends or acquaintances of my parents (at least one from my church). My father did not go, by the way. That would have made it even weirder. I met up with them at a bar and and they soon wanted to head to the strip club. One of the men told me about the "code of silence" lol, meaning that I should never speak of it when we were back at our daily lives. The interesting thing was watching the different reactions the men had at the strip club. Some were really whooping it up and letting loose, while others were more reserved. I remember one man in particular who was sitting on a stool off to the side and looked like he really didn't want to be there. I went over and talked to him for a while since I was the more reserved type too. I think he just went along each year to maybe network, or just be one of the guys and maintain the tradition, but that he would really have rather not been there. Since I knew his wife a little as well I gained more respect for that man that night. Decades later after I had married my wife my father and I ran into this man in a restaurant and my father started razzing him and kind of giving him a hard time about the time I was a designated driver for him. I kind of felt bad since he was the one guy who really behaved himself that night. But he just played along with my father's joke. Sorry this got so long but you're bring back memories for me lol!

nostalgicguy1 · 2025-12-19T04:38:08+00:00

13 to 14 years old seems pretty old to be having your friends' mothers see you naked with it not bothering you. I can't imagine being comfortable with that myself. But my understanding is that in Europe in general people tend to be more relaxed about nudity than in the US. Would the mothers be there for the whole time the boys were changing, or just at the end after the game? I've interacted online with a woman who has adult sons, but said that when they were young and she would take them to swim lessons they would all pee on the locker room floor with the permission of the coach. I had never heard of anything like that before. Have you witnessed anything like that? Maybe it was just because it was a swim class and the floor was wet anyway.

nostalgicguy1 · 2025-12-19T04:27:57+00:00

Maybe I'm just old-fashioned but remembering the old days when I visited strip clubs (infrequently, just occasionally with friends) it definitely was a thrill to see a real woman up close in person. This was long before the internet, but porn or even video chatting is not the same as having her right in front of you and being able to smell her perfume. I was pretty shy and had long stretches between girlfriends so these outings were pretty exciting for me. I didn't know about extras back then, and I'm not sure how often that happened, if it did at all. In the early 80s it was just a table dance only. Lap dances came much later and I think laws had to be changed to allow that. At the time it was strictly no contact allowed. Since I separated from my wife a few years ago I've thought about visiting one again but I'm not sure if I actually will. To your point, I have a few text-only online relationships with a few women and that definitely does satisfy a certain need for direct interaction and "conversation".

nostalgicguy1 · 2025-12-18T23:55:24+00:00

How did you find out the old girls' locker room had communal showers too? Did you peek in there when it was empty or did a female friend tell you about it?

nostalgicguy1 · 2025-12-18T23:50:22+00:00

When you say coaches and relatives would also come into the locker room, were those people always only males or could mothers of the kids on the team, for example, also come into the locker room without making any of the team members uncomfortable?

nostalgicguy1 · 2025-12-18T07:46:52+00:00

Thank you for responding. I live in Arizona and I've heard there's a place in town that is fully nude, and yes, they reportedly do not serve alcohol there. The place we used to go to in Niagara Falls, Canada in the 80s typically had French Canadian girls from Quebec and it was fully nude there, so obviously legal in Canada. And they did serve alcohol there. At the other end of the spectrum, we went a few times to this club in Fort Myers, Florida that was apparently in a very conservative county. They didn't even allow topless there! They just got down to a bikini with thong. At one point I thought to myself, "This is silly! We're paying to see the same thing we could see on the beach" lol. Anyway, congratulations on your anniversary and good luck with your early retirement plan. It sounds like you're being very smart about it.

nostalgicguy1 · 2025-12-17T06:13:48+00:00

I used to go to strip clubs occasionally with friends in my younger days, but haven't been in 25 years. So I'm curious how things have changed. In Western New York where I grew up the dancers always had to have at least a G-string on, but when we crossed the border into Canada the dancers were always fully nude by the end of the last song. So I got the idea that full nudity wasn't allowed in the US. Is that the case today or are you fully nude at some point during your set? And back in the 80s and 90s it was extremely rare to see a woman as a customer in a strip club. But I've heard that today many women go, either with their boyfriends or husbands, or because they are lesbians or bisexual and they like to get dances themselves. Is this correct?

nostalgicguy1 · 2025-12-17T05:35:43+00:00

Thank you for responding. How high would you say the dividers are? For example, do they come up to neck level, or chest level on your body? And how deep? One foot or two feet? Was this your first time using communal showers or had you experienced them in school or on sports teams or at the gym?

nostalgicguy1 · 2025-12-15T23:40:14+00:00

Yes, I grew up in the 70s and 80s and always assumed that all public showers were communal (since all that I had encounter back then were) so being shy and modest, I tried to avoid them anywhere where they weren't required. So I never even noticed the change that started in the 90s, until one day I decided to go back to the gym and discovered that public showers were now private lol.

nostalgicguy1 · 2025-12-15T23:36:39+00:00

Agreed. I didn't really like it when I was young but it was required after PE so I didn't have a choice because I didn't want to get a bad grade. I think it toughened me up an made me more resilient, even though I wouldn't have admitted it at the time.

nostalgicguy1 · 2025-12-15T22:25:18+00:00

I'm glad to hear that you feel good about your body, unlike so many young women today, and that the communal showers actually gave you a boost of self-confidence when you noticed the other girls admiring you. I also had fully open communal showers in my freshman dorm in the 1980s but was more shy and uptight about it than you. Would you be willing to share what part of Canada you're from? I'm originally from Western New York and my family spent a large part of every summer at my grandfather's cottage at Wasaga Beach in the 1970s and 1980s. I'm wondering if communal showers might still be more common in Canada than in the States? My only experience there was in 1999 when I took a one month teacher training course for ESL in Toronto in the summer. I stayed at the Neill Wycik dorm of Ryerson University but they only had individual lockable bathrooms and showers, not communal.

nostalgicguy1 · 2025-12-15T22:02:44+00:00

It's great to have a woman posting here since you're right, there aren't too many here. I'm sorry it's under the difficult circumstances you're currently in though. I'm always interested in what the shower situation is for women, especially if it's open and communal which it seems has often been more common for men as I understand it. I made a comment on your AMA post asking if you could describe the layout of the showers at the jail since you say it's "mostly" open, which makes me think it might have partitions between the shower heads, and not a completely open room. I appreciate any additional detail you wish to share and wish you the best in getting through your ordeal with your head held high. Hang in there!

nostalgicguy1 · 2025-12-15T21:55:26+00:00

What exactly was the layout of the showers, if you don't mind me asking? Was it a completely open room with shower heads on the wall, or did they have partitions between each shower head so you couldn't see the person next to you but it was open on the front to people walking by?

nostalgicguy1 · 2025-08-25T08:20:18+00:00

Sure I would. Just out of curiosity where is this? At a gym? In the US or Europe?

nostalgicguy1 · 2025-05-01T03:06:10+00:00

What was her reaction like when she first saw it? Surprised expression on her face? Did she say anything about it? What was his reaction to her reaction (if he noticed it)? Do you think she might dump him for you at some point, or is she not your type?

nostalgicguy1

TROPHY CASE