DEAR STRAIGHT TALK: I’m starting middle school this fall and will have to change for gym class in the locker room and even take communal showers. The gym teacher is strict about making everybody shower every day. I’m very shy about my body and know I can’t handle this. Nobody ever sees me naked but my sister, my best friend when we have sleepovers, and once in a great while, my mom. Anybody else will be a problem. My older sister has been through it and says she felt uncomfortable and embarrassed at first, but soon it was no big deal. She says the girls don’t go out of their way to look at each other and nobody puts you down if your body isn’t perfect (mine certainly isn’t). She says she also realized that it doesn’t really matter since you all have the same body parts. All this is logical, but it doesn’t change the way I feel. I’m starting to get really worried. Please give me some advice on how to handle this. — Worried in Sacramento
Editor’s Web Note: Like the spotted owl, school showers have become an endangered species (in this case, taken over by gobs of deodorant). None of the responding panelists even have mandatory showers. Teens of every generation have cringed at the idea of public showers, but schools used to require them anyway. I suspect the reasons for their demise revolve around obesity, hover-craft parents protective of their child’s “self esteem,” and liability issues around “forcing” anyone to be publicly nude when there could be “gay” people in the shower. What a upside down world! Sexualized nudity of perfect bodies has become an everyday virtual phenomenon, while real-time non-sexual nudity of ordinary bodies has become something to fear. Is a cold shower in order?! —Lauren
Comments
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I would like to tell “Worried” not to worry about having to take communal showers. I’ve never been overly modest and wasn’t shy about my sisters or girlfriends seeing me nude. Even so, the idea of having to take communal showers really scared me since I had always showered in private like most people. However, it only took 2 or 3 times to get over it. I realized that nobody was the least bit interested in looking at my private parts and since we all had the same body parts it really didn’t matter if the other girls saw me, anyway. It was really no different than when my sisters saw me when I undressed in or our room or when I undressed in front of friends at sleepovers and slumber parties. After 2 years of taking showers, I don’t even give it a second thought. It’s like they say, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” The fear of taking communal showers was much worse than actually doing it.
Don’t Worry
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I felt the same way as Worried about communal showers. I can’t handle being naked in front of anybody but my sister, my mom, and a couple of very close friends. The showers in the locker room are totally communal with no privacy. They aren’t strict about forcing girls to take showers who don’t want to and many don’t and I didn’t my first year. However, last year I had gym class in the afternoon and couldn’t stand being sweating and smelly when I didn’t take a shower during the hot weather. What I did was keep the bottom of a 2 piece bathing suit in my locker which I can change in and out of under a towel and wear that in the shower. That way I at least don’t have to expose the most private part of my body. The top part of my body is still exposed which is still embarrassing, but I’ve learned to handle that. I got some strange looks at first and some girls teased me about it, but I decided that it was their problem if they were worried about what parts of my body I cared to expose, and I’d rather be teased than have to expose my most private parts to everybody. Anyway, it works for me, and I can take a shower in the hot weather without having to totally expose myself.
Margie
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“Worried” who is so upset at the idea of taking communal showers needs to get real and realize how lucky she is. Millions of people are starving, homeless, unemployed, lost their homes to floods or earthquakes, and living in war ravaged countries, and the biggest thing she has to worry about is that other girls who are the same as she is might see her naked in the showers? If that’s the biggest thing she has to worry about, she should count herself extremely lucky. Would she rather live somewhere with no running water where you can’t take a shower? From my own experience, while taking communal showers isn’t my favorite thing in the world, it’s no big deal since we’re all girls and all the same.
Katie
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At my school they don’t force girls to take showers and a majority don’t since they are communal with no privacy. My twin sister and I weren’t comfortable being naked in front of anybody but each other and had never used the showers. However, last summer we had jobs working in the kitchen at a summer camp for 6 weeks and they only had communal showers. We obviously couldn’t go 6 weeks in the summertime without showering, so we had no choice but to use the communal showers. As twin sisters who have always shared a room, we obviously aren’t shy about nudity with each other, so it made it easier for us to go to the showers together. We just took a deep breath and forced ourselves to do it. It took about a week, but after that we were totally comfortable using the showers. All the girls in the showers were only concerned with their own personal cleanliness and nobody was interested in looking at us, so we realized their was nothing to worry about and we’re all the same anyway. After school started we also began showering after gym class since we had gotten over our shyness at the summer camp. It feels much better to shower and wash away all the sweat and smell. I agree with Lauren. If you confront this, you will be able to overcome your shyness like we did.
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I have a totally different problem related to the communal showers and actually wish I felt the way that Worried does about them. My problem is that taking communal showers turns me on sexually and that really scares me and makes me worried that I might be gay or bi. Both seeing the other girls naked in the showers and their seeing me turns me on. I also sometimes can’t resist going out of my way to walk around naked in the locker room after taking a shower. I try to act totally casual about it like “we’re all girls and all the same so it doesn’t matter,” but inside I’m turned on. I’m attracted to guys and have never had sex with another girl and don’t even have a desire to do so, so I hope this means I’m not gay. I remember a Straight Talk column a few months ago where it said that it’s not uncommon for girls to feel a sexual attraction when they see other girls’ bodies and it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re gay, so I hope that’s true in my case, but having these feelings still scares me. I share a room with my 11 year old sister and seeing her naked doesn’t give me these feelings (thank God!) but when she has friends spend the night seeing them naked when they get undressed also sometimes gives me a turn on. I’m able to keep these feelings to myself, but it still scares me.
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Your sister’s right. I felt the same way you do, but once I actually started taking showers it was no big deal. Nobody looked at me and I realized that it didn’t matter since we were all the same. If you think about it, since girls bodies are the same when one girl sees another girl naked it’s no different than if she was seeing herself. If you look at it that way, you’ll see that there’s nothing to worry about. Just do it. It may be hard the first few times, but it shouldn’t be a problem after that.
Alexis
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I felt the same way and had a good friend who had gym class with me who also felt the same way. We made it a point of getting in the showers together and showering next to each other and talking about silly things to each other and trying to blot everything else out. It really helped and we actually found it to be a bonding experience between us. After a while we got used to it as others have said and we don’t worry about it any more. See if you can find a friend who is “in the same boat” so to speak who you can bond with when you first have to go through it. I think it will really help.
Sally
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I noticed that all of the comments are from girls, so I would like to write about communal showers from a guy’s point of view, because for guys like me, communal showers are much worse than I think they are for girls. It has ruined by life. At least girls can admit to feeling this way. For guys it’s considered a “macho” thing, and any guy who tries to avoid taking showers is labeled a “wimp” and/or “queer” so you don’t have much choice even if the PE coach isn’t strict about it, although most are as part of their “macho” thing. I felt the same embarrassment that many of the girls who have written do about taking showers and it caused a problem that no girl has to face. It caused me to get erections. Since there is no privacy, everybody could see my boner and there was no place to hide and everybody started saying I was gay. However, it is not because I’m gay, because I’m not! It was just an uncontrollable reaction to the embarrassment I felt in the beginning. The harder I tried not to get an erection, the worse it got. I stopped getting erections after a few months and that was 2 years ago, but the label of being gay still has not gone away and girls won’t have anything to do with me. Any guy who starts to be friends with me gets labeled gay, so I don’t have any guy friends either. When I try to say I’m not gay, they say “then whose your girlfriend?” When I say I don’t have one, they just laugh. If anybody has advice for someone like me, I would really like to hear it.
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I am gay and it may surprise many people, but I was just as shy and scared at the idea of taking communal showers as Worried and many of the others who have responded. However, like many of the others I was also able to overcome it and no longer have a problem. I don’t go out of my way to advertise the fact that I’m gay, but I don’t hide it either and it is well known at my school that I am gay. My problem is that many girls assume that because I’m gay using the showers is a sexual thing for me. Nothing could be further from the truth. Unlike J.H. (who doesn’t even know if she’s gay, and she probably isn’t because if you are, you know it) using the showers is not anything sexual for me in any way, shape or form any more than it is for anyone else. I’m only in the shower for my own personal hygiene. I am not sexually interested in the other girls’ nude bodies and do my best not to look at them, although it’s impossible not to see anybody nude unless you close your eyes which would be dangerous in the shower. However, many girls are visibly uncomfortable about being in the shower with me and some make very cruel comments about it, assuming with no basis that I’m getting sexual excitement from seeing them. It’s similar to the gay-straight sleepover issue that has been discussed at length in Straight Talk and the consensus was that it is not a problem to have sleepovers with and undress with someone who is gay. The opinions were even mixed with regard to the idea of sharing a bed with someone who is gay. I really wish that everyone would realize that people who happen to be gay only have a sexual/romantic interest in other gays and that things like sleepovers and communal showers are nothing to worry about.
Patrice
