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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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How many of us here had (or have) communal showers at school?
Did (or does) this create any blood pressure problems for any part of your anatomy?
We had very crowded communal showers. It wasn't unusual to find you had a handful of soggy state stuff. It was accepted unless you got hard, when you were pilloried.
I can think of more than one boy I'd like to have been pilloried by! Never got hard, though.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Fingolfin
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Likes it here |
Location: Slovakia
Registered: August 2008
Messages: 265
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Well, I always managed not to get hard. But quick and hidden glances were there. Everyone took a look, everyone compared. It would be strange if adolescent boys didn't.
Marek
It is better to switch on a small light than to curse the darkness.
- Vincent Šikula, Slovak writer
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Yes, Timmy,
we had communal showers. I never got hard but I was mesmerised by a guy called Briggs who had HAIR and was fully grown when most of us were hairless.
I was like a rabbit in headlights. He said "What are you staring at?" and I scarcely know what I said. I didn't get pilloried though!
Love,
Anthony
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I was 14 months younger than the average age of my class, and the last to hit puberty by quite a long way. Kids tease, y'know?
I also loathed team games on principle - though I was a pretty good cross-country runner. So I did everything possible to avoid games / PE and the subsequent showers ... including forging sick notes from my parents, throwing all my games kit off the bridge (Magdalen Bridge, in Oxford) on my way to school on the theory that they probably wouldn't make me play games naked, and so forth.
Later on, once I'd hit puberty, it wouldn't have mattered so much, but by that time the system had changed, and my sports time consisted of early-evening swimming at a neighbouring school, supervised by a house-prefect who was a very close friend: we often stayed late after the others had left and showered and much else together before he locked up!
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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I did. It never caused blood pressure problems for me -- it was so ordinary (from the ages of 8 to 17) I never really gave it a second thought. Of course I looked. But in my case was mostly out of simple curiosity about other people's bodies, not really anything to do with my sexuality.
I'm convinced that communal showers are a good thing. Provided no big deal is made about them (and the instant people start bullying or teasing this no longer applies, of course), one learns not to be excessively self-conscious about one's body. Nowadays, most communal showers in the UK have been separated into cubicles, and it means that many men will end up reaching adulthood with the idea that there's something shameful or embarrassing about being seen by their peers in the nude. I can't imagine that's healthy.
David
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Deeej wrote:
(snip) Nowadays, most communal showers in the UK have been separated into cubicles, and it means that many men will end up reaching adulthood with the idea that there's something shameful or embarrassing about being seen by their peers in the nude. I can't imagine that's healthy.
David
I never had a problem at prep school (where as 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 year olds we usually had baths not showers: three boys in a bath at once).
I've never had a problem as an adult: nudity is just one of those things, and I can attest from personal experience that it is probably more embarrassing being the only clothed person in a room full of naked ones than it is the other way round.
But those years from 11 to 15 were ... dreadful.
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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I went to a strange school from age 7-13. It had no showers. Not one. Nor baths for cleaning the mud off after games. We got changed and into our street clothes all muddy.
The only nudity was from those who dared undress fully in the changing rooms. That was very few of us. We almost all did the "keep the shirt over the bits" dance. So we glimpsed, but never really saw, naked peers. Well, except a few exhibitionists who showed each other their arseholes in public, but were prim and proper the rest of the time.
I was a shirt and bits dancer. I was very nervous about the tiny size of my tiny little willy. Not that it was any tinier than anyone else's, I just wasn't sure if it was or not. I just didn't want anyone to see it or to see my bum.
Then I moved to the next school.
Showers were communal and mandatory. I had to be naked in front of other boys. No matter that they were also naked, I could not do it. For three weeks I managed to skip showers. I was shy, shy, shy.
I finally plucked up the courage when there were few boys about and achieved a rushed shower, in danger of the sap rising just from the sheer oddity of it all.
Then I managed to shower within the great mass of bodies in the four communal jets that served 76 boys. I wasn't looking at any of them, not even at the boy I was already falling for. I was looking to be in and out of the shower as fast as possible, towel tightly wrapped about me.
It took a ludicrously short time for me to turn from shy and retiring little fool into an exhibitionist! And the wonderful variety of bodies on display. I never realised before that there were body types. And the wonderful variety of large and small todgers, with two so enormously wide and huge that I really do wonder today how their wives cope.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Yes, David,
I think children need to see their parents naked as a matter of course - keeping them ignorant about the human body can't help to develop a balanced personality.
But it is hard to know where these urges come from. I knew I wanted to sunbathe naked long before I knew what my sexuality was and I have no idea why. My parents never did (as far as I know) and my father was extremely shy about his body.
I agree completely that communal showers and changing rooms are a good idea and so are swimming pools where one can swim naked and such things help children whose parents are either very shy or nudists to get a feeling about how the bulk of society thinks about such things.
It's interesting that in our family it is only the grandchildren who bother to shut the lavatory door (particularly if there is an interesting conversation going on).
Love,
Anthony
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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Well, I don't really see taking a dump as a spectator sport, but a wee is a wee!
Visible and unexceptional nakedness allows us to realise that our own bodies are imperfect. We are, most of us, no oil painting in the buff. We are just people, with moles, blemishes, skin tags, warts, the lot.
It really should be a matter of course.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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acam wrote:
>
> It's interesting that in our family it is only the grandchildren who bother to shut the lavatory door (particularly if there is an interesting conversation going on).
>
> Love,
> Anthony
I am absolutly sure that there is no person on this planet that wishes to see you doing your business in the toilet.
If those present when you inflict them with such a spectical do not object then I am lust as sure they are doing their very best to be polite.
If the conversation is that important.... hold it.
[Updated on: Fri, 22 August 2008 10:50]
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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It's not usually me, Narc,
either of my daughters or their men could do that without anyone raising an eyebrow. And as to whether it is polite or not - that depends on the people.
If we have guests then it wouldn't happen. (So you will never be treated to a show! )
Love,
Anthony
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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Exhales a huge sigh of relief........
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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How wise not to inhale!
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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I too never ever had a problem at prep-school years 8-13 We too had baths three to a room and showers after games. The public school years were harder to begin with untill we all had reached puberty there was a fair amout of ribbing for the slow developer. Something that when I was a prefect i tried hard to stamp out.
Paul
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John..
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: March 2008
Messages: 56
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Hi
i dont agree, you forget that there are site for guys to look at cocks so they do know.
As for me we had communial showers some guys were well hung and did get hard to show off.
have to say i did not get hard in the shower, but did wank with my mates and checked ours cocks out.
Just a guy thing , i understand that our army guys check each others cocks and compare. lol
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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I don't think it's about looking at cocks per se, you know. I think overall body image is best served by seeing the imperfections of the human form naked. Kids need to see other kids naked in order to understand how normal they are.
[Updated on: Fri, 22 August 2008 20:11]
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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Kids do not need to see other kids naked any more than they need to meatloaf on the dinner table.
What does matter is that there is no shame in kids changing together when it does happen.
Further more, it matters even more that the kid with the teenis-weenie knows he will grow up in due time.
When I was a scoutmaster.... yes, I was a scoutmaster.... one smallish boy was long in coming of age so to speak.... Added to his dismay was the fact that he had to share his bedroom with his 1 year older brother who developed exceptionaly early.... (oh... he also had no father.)
The kids picked on him at summer camp... Tents for 8 (the patrol size) and what with changing several times a day for boating, swimming, meals and the like, gave ample opportunity for the other boys to taunt him.
It got to the point where I felt it proper for me to step in and at the end of one evenings campfire I talked to the entire group about "changes"...
Long story short... The younger boy felt better about the timing of his personal changing time and his brother as well as a majority of the other older boys took a forward role in protecting his younger brother from such goings on.
Oh, and both boys made Eagle Scout to boot!!!
[Updated on: Fri, 22 August 2008 20:27]
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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I think, in essence, that is what I meant, albeit expressed differently.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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