From time to time on here, we have a lively discussion about gym classes and open shower rooms.

Guys like me point out that it's absolute madness to force young school students to get naked and shower together. It's embarrassing at best and grossly improper at worst. In my old schools, the shower rooms were totally open and the middle aged coach showered with the boys.

Then the asshole macho men on here, ex-athletes, and (often) military men, make fun of the modern sensibilites of the young. They usually go on to spout some unmitigated nonsense about the "male bonding" which occurs when guys get naked together.

Just a thought. Does anyone doubt that the despicable crime which occurred at Penn State was aided and abetted by the macho male athlete mentality? (It even occurred in an athletic department shower room!) It could only have happened as it did, and be covered up as it was, in a university athletic department. (Or in the Catholic Church of course.)

How else do you expect them to get clean? Wear swimsuits when they go shower? Shower one at a time?

you're an idiot, dude. And thanks for lumping the Catholic church into what individuals do.

Whatever.. Had showers when I was in school and didn't do anyone any harm. So now the have gym class and don't have to shower, Then they go to their health class and talk about personal cleanliness. Doesn't make sense to me to have a bunch of guys going around school stinking. just my opinion of course.

It's mostly an issue of the outdated open shower rooms that the old schools often have. Modern shower facilities in lots of schools offer individual shower stalls to afford privacy. And it's been widely reported that many middle schools and high schools no longer even require showering after gym class.

Showering after relatively mild physical exertion is more an artifact of the macho athletic mentality than it is a hygiene necessity. You can shower when you get home. I sure would have, rather than shower with all the naked boys and the 50 year old phys ed instructor.

An idiot I may be. And the members can respond with their own views on that if they choose. But the situation in the Church has been widely reported by the media, and openly acknowledged and addressed by Pope Benedict.

The priests did the acts, but the hierarchy of the Church covered it up for years. At Penn State, an assistant coach saw the act by the defensive coordinator, and then the University athletic department swept it under the rug. Didn't even report it to police authorities! It was the institutional coverup that made the crime at Penn State analogous to the situation in the Catholic Church that I alluded to.

The fact that it happened in an athletic department shower room may be viewed as an irony in light of the general idiocy of the macho jock mentality. Specifically the mentality that makes grown men spout nonsense about how guys getting naked together produces desirable "male bonding."

Thanks for joining the discussion to express your opinion. An opinion probably more widely held than my own. I would suggest that the solution to the open shower room problem is to build modern shower facilities which afford individual privacy. In the interim, the non-showering option is hardly a serious personal hygiene problem. Otherwise it would not be an option offered by school policy.

Sorry, but you simply can't know that "it didn't do anyone any harm." You know that YOU were not harmed. But you can't speak for everyone. For me, the towel-snapping bare-butt macho jock environment of the athletic lockers and open shower rooms was an everlasting embarrassment and degradation. One that extended from middle school through early college.

Guys that age have a hard enough time trying to come to terms with themselves and the wider world, without adults making it harder for them, and forcing them to face open shower rooms and outdated views of macho manhood which have no place in modern schools.

PS: Beyond open shower rooms, not least among the other indigneties heaped upon innocent students by the physical education establishment is the forced association with phys ed instructors. Guys always called "Coach", who are just intelligent enough after four years of college to have earned a teaching certificate in phys ed. Most of them very close to the level of Neanderthals.

Just an opinion of course.

We had the open showers too in junior high. Every so often on Fridays was a run day so we ran around the gym to music. The gym teacher required all of us to shower. It was really a formalty because I wasn't that hot or sweaty to begin with and the way we all lined up and just walked through where none of us got wet really. I know a few of the students washed up. When I was in high school I wasn't part of any sports teams and in gym class nobody had the time to take a shower and almost everything we did didn't require us to get sweaty. The irony is every year for registration we had to pay a $6 towel fee for something we never used but was probably for the likelihood of those students who joined athletic teams. Don't know what the money was used for.

LOL.....that useless $6 towel fee surely went to the atheltic department. Always gotta funnel some extra money to the atheltic program.

Your experience Str8Male was exactly like mine. We were required to shower, in theory. But all we really had to do was walk through the shower room and then back to our lockers. And a shower was unnecessary anyway. We didn't get any sweatier than we did at recess back in elementary school. I'm always amused when people comment on the stinky students who don't shower these days. Just what kind of gym class did they have at their school? Certainly one that raised more of a sweat than mine did.

When I went to jr high there were no showers. High school only required showering before swim class, realy only a rinse soap was not alowed, after swim class it was your option to rinse off the chlorine pool water. Funny thing was the pool water was never contaminated for years before I went there , but about 2 years after showering was eliminated the pool was closed for a year because of serious bacteria contamination.I guess it was worth being naked with all the other guys in the gang shower to be safe health wise.Shame back then I never had a thing for guys there were some nice hung guys in my swim class.

Actually, by the time I was in high school, I enjoyed the open showers. Reason was, my orientation by then was definitely gay, and I really enjoyed looking at the naked boys and their swinging dicks. Most guys by late high school have fully man-sized dicks and balls.

Funny to think about macho guys and their idea of the "male bonding" which they think occurs when guys get naked together. They'd be amazed about why I like open showers, and just exactly how I would like to "BOND" with the guys.

I was in the army and we would all have to shower together, 8 guys in the shower at a time 30 to 50 more standing in line naked, sometimes at night when noone was in there i would shower alone and masturbate knowing someone could come in, i also masturbated on my bunk and i was top bunk so all the other top bunks could see me

God that's hot!

Who else was jerking?