Nudity in the gym locker room

Porky's had some great group shower scenes:

 

It is absolutely a generational thing.

I was in high school from fall 1972 until June 1976.

In those days it was not at all unusual for kids in varsity sports to take three showers a day:

1) At school in the morning after weightlifting or morning workouts

2) During the school day after gym class. Showering after gym class was required -- you got sent to the office, and flunked P.E., if you didn't.

3) In the afternoon/evening after a game or practice for your main sport.

By the time my youngest sibling graduated in 1992, showering at school was almost completely unheard-of. After the practice or game was over, you went in the locker room and MAYBE toweled off -- that was it.

 

Showers were mandatory when I was in junior and senior high school (1972-78). In fact, part of your grade depended on it. A PE teacher would have a class roster and clipboard and check your name as you exited. It sounds creepy now, but it was no big deal.

My son just finished his freshman year of high school, and played two sports, and he's never showered at school. He had first period PE in eighth grade, meaning he'd shower at home, have 45 minutes of PE, then stink the rest of the day.

There's a reason every teenage boy either smells funky or reeks of too much Axe.

That said, I have no problem being naked in a gym locker room, but no more than necessary. No nude shaving or primping.

 

Same here. PE was a nightmare because you would spend 10 minutes getting dressed, 5 minutes calling roll, 10 minutes getting pelted with red rubber balls and then 15 minutes showering and changing.

At my son's high school, I don't think any football players used the showers in their four years. Wrestlers were the only ones who had to because of the prevalence of skin rashes and such.

 

Growing up in the northeast in the early 70's our gym class had mandatory showers after gym class in the 3rd grade... Showers after hockey game and box lacrosse game in AAA hockey when you hit squirts (play 2-3 games a tournament day and even the kids really stink) 6th grade swim class at school every Monday no suits, it was it was, and this was a public school... looking back it was the norm... of course decorum now plays a role but back then you'd be mocked forever if you had a problem with nudity in certain areas regardless if you were old or young ... different times... We didn't have 500 channels... video games, ipods.. we had sports we played..

 

I graduated in 1987, and our Catholic allowed no time for showering after gym.
I wish we could've showered. I hated getting dressed after a gym class that caused me to sweat.
If you showered, there was no way you could make your next class on time, unless you had gym followed by a free period.

 

We had 12 minutes between the end of gym and the bell for the next class.

One minute to strip off your gym uniform and toss it in your locker (including 15 seconds hanging the really sweaty stuff on hooks to air out)
30 seconds to get into the showers.
60 seconds to soap and scrub up, slather on a handful of shampoo (a must in the hippie-hair 1970s)
90 seconds to rinse off, shower all the shampoo out of your hair.
30 seconds back to your locker.
90 seconds to towel off (HAIR FIRST) and spray on the Right Guard (big stuff in the 1970s).
180 seconds to get dressed.
30 seconds to brush out your hair and make sure nothing's dangling out any unzipped zippers.
30 seconds to grab your books, slam your locker shut, and get going.

Two minutes to haul ass to your next class.

 

I don't remember what kind of shower/dressing time we got, but it wasn't 12 minutes.

And part-timer will back me up, late for class at our high school was detention every time.

Boys wore jackets and ties. The school had no air conditioning. I wanted to shower after gym.

 

I think we had 8 minutes in between classes, and the gym teachers knocked off 4 minutes early to get us into the showers.

It was quite a regimented thing -- they had obviously worked it out down to about the minute.

Now on the flipside, teachers, especially if your class was on the side of school completely on the other end from the gym, would usually cut you some slack if you walked in a minute or two late, if it was apparent you had made a real effort to get there quickly.

But of course this was also in the mid-70s when "attendance" was kind of a theoretical concept anyway. Basically most teachers were pretty much happy if you showed up at all.

Half the time after gym class, you'd jump in and out of the shower, towel off in a hurry, throw on your clothes, grab your stuff, and walk out the door to walk downtown to play pinball.

Oh, and I haven't even mentioned the 18-year-old drinking age. Woo hoo!!

 

A few of the guys in the next class would always smell like Right Guard, and of course there was always one guy who reeked of Brut.

 

Smelling like Right Guard was usually better than the alternative, which was smelling like Ass.

 

I'll be 40 on the 10th. I've always tried to cover up ASAP.