Nudity in public school physical activity classes
Willison H. Gormly
to take a course in Western Civilization. When we got to Ancient Greece,
there was Sparta and there was the rest of the Greek City-States.
In Sparta every citizen was suppose to have a perfect body, and they
were to display their bodies when they entertained, exercised, perform at
athletic events, etc.
In Sparta, girls and women were equal to boys and men, except that only
men aged thirty years or old could vote.
Sparta had one of the first public education systems. In the Sparta
education system it was mandatory for children of Spartan citizens to enter
school at age 6 or 7 years, and attend school until they were 18 years of
age. Girls received the same education the boys received except they did
not receive military doctrine even though the girls did receive the same
physical combat training the boys did receive. In all physical activity
classes the students would exercise in the nude. Gymnastic means naked
sports. Gymnasium means nude school or exercise grounds, even though it
does go back to the word gymnazein which means to exercise nude.
At age 18 the children would be given the test that they had just spent
twelve years training for. If the girl passed the test she became a Spartan
citizen, and was assigned a husband from the 20 year old men who just
graduated from their military training. If the boy passed his test, he
would then go to two years of military training. After the military
training the young man would be given another test on his military training.
If he passed the test on his military training, he became a citizen, became
a Spartan soldier, and was assigned a wife from the 18 year old women
citizens. He would not live with his wife until he reached age thirty years
of age.
When I was growing up in the United States in the fifties and sixties I
only attended sexually segregated physical activity classes, except for
during the dancing unit. In 1978, Title IX went into effect. I was
surprised when an eighth-grade boy informed me that in his school boys and
girls were changing clothes and showering together. The law was vague until
the courts stated that in changing rooms and other places were nudity was
allowed, separate, but equal was acceptable.
During the sixties I worked at a YMCA. I was no the aquatics staff. As
part of continued employment I had to annually attend aquatic workshops.
During a session on health relation problems the medical doctor stated that
the main health hazard he saw in aquatic facilities was the swimming suit.
It provided a warm, dark, moist environment, and it was ideal for growing
bacteria, and the swimming suit defeated the purpose that required for
indoor aquatic facilities have ultraviolet lights. The ultraviolet light
kills the bacteria that the light gets on.
My boos then stated that when he first became a professional YMCA, it
was only boys and men in the pools, and no swimming suits were allowed as
most of their customers were low income, and could not afford swimming
suits, and to pass a swimming suit from person to person was unhealthy.
It was not long after that I found myself living in what was West
Berlin, Federal Republic of Germany. In West Berlin, I had culture shock.
I cold not go to any beach without seeing naked bodies. I would be driving,
or walking around town, I would see people coming out of underground
constriction sites wearing only their hard hat, tool belt, and shoes and
socks. I would see people working in their outdoor gardens totally naked.
I had to get use to mixed sex public accommodations. I would see people
training in the nude. On television I would see sport events, mainly
swimming and diving, in the nude. At the school, about two blocks from were
I was living, I would see the children outside during their physical
activity classes in the nude. I would see these same children at other
times wearing their very nice looking school uniforms.
Since it was the people who wore clothing was the people who stood out
at the places I visited, I eventually started going around nude like the
majority of other people. As I got use to being naked in the presence of
other people, I began to enjoy the feeling I sensed through my skin when I
was nude as opposed to when I was dressed. Nudity is about the only habit I
brought back to the United States from West Berlin.
I heard about the project where the West German swim team looked at
times when they swam with swimming suits and caps on and when they swam with
caps and naked, shaved bodies. The times improved with naked bodies with
less drag then with the swimming suits.
I have also been around people who exercise with little clothing and
those with heavy clothing on. I noticed that the people who exercise with
little to no clothing on during exercise also have little to no extra body
odor after the exercise session. Those with the extra heavy clothing had
heavy body odor. The heavy clothing would just be like the doctors comment
on the swimming suit. The heavy clothing provided a warm, moist, dark space
for the growth of bacteria.
Even though I am preaching to the chior. Can any one give me a good
reason why in public school hysical activity classes should not be allowed
to preformed in the nude, if the student is comforable with being nude.
philip...@my-dejanews.com
"Willison H. Gormly" <hamr...@midusa.net> wrote:
>
> When I was growing up in the United States in the fifties and sixties I
> only attended sexually segregated physical activity classes, except for
> during the dancing unit. In 1978, Title IX went into effect. I was
> surprised when an eighth-grade boy informed me that in his school boys and
> girls were changing clothes and showering together. The law was vague until
> the courts stated that in changing rooms and other places were nudity was
> allowed, separate, but equal was acceptable.
>
So 1978 was a very interesting year. Any 33 year old people out there who
experienced coed showers, or was this school the only one that was
uh, confused?
Wish mine was about 12 years earlier!
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Joseph Clarke
sure theyll let us play.
al...@rev.net
>> Even though I am preaching to the chior. Can any one give me a good
>>reason why in public school hysical activity classes should not be allowed
>>to preformed in the nude, if the student is comforable with being nude.
>Because there might be parents who do not allow it.
In the USA, there are parents who don't want their children to learn
about evolution. Any serious school system teaches it anyway.
--J. Byrd <http://www.rev.net/~aloe/freedom>
La...@digiscape.com
hard for me to believe there was co-ed nudity anywhere. The male showers were
communal. The females had stalls with a small changing area outside them. We were
all required to take a shower but this was only sporadically enforced. We tended
to avoid the showers not because of an an aversion to nudity but because there
were no blow-dryers and we didn't want to go to our next class with a wet head.
Silly I know, but most of junior high was.
philip...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
> In article <783evg$7h...@news.midusa.net>,
> "Willison H. Gormly" <hamr...@midusa.net> wrote:
> >
> > When I was growing up in the United States in the fifties and sixties I
> > only attended sexually segregated physical activity classes, except for
> > during the dancing unit. In 1978, Title IX went into effect. I was
> > surprised when an eighth-grade boy informed me that in his school boys and
> > girls were changing clothes and showering together. The law was vague until
> > the courts stated that in changing rooms and other places were nudity was
> > allowed, separate, but equal was acceptable.
> >
>
Cheef
tradition that the Theatre Club would take coed showers after the final
performance of our annual school musical. Not all participated, and the
adults were always too busy schmoozing with the audience to know what was
going on. (Or else they didn't want to know, or at least wanted "plausible
deniability".)
-----
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Lee Farrow
La...@digiscape.com wrote in article <36A782DF...@digiscape.com>...
> I am 33(male) and there was no co-ed nudity in my school either. In
fact, its
> hard for me to believe there was co-ed nudity anywhere. The male showers
were
> communal. The females had stalls with a small changing area outside them.
We were
> all required to take a shower but this was only sporadically enforced. We
tended
> to avoid the showers not because of an an aversion to nudity but because
there
> were no blow-dryers and we didn't want to go to our next class with a wet
head.
> Silly I know, but most of junior high was.
>
> philip...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
>
Summerskills School is a co-ed school here in the UK for children aged
between
5 and 18 and they operates a "clothes optional" policy with swimming
lessons.
When I was at school, we had segregated changing rooms connected by a
door, which was an Emergency Exit and so it was left unlocked. After the
teacher
had left us to get changed after the lesson, we would "dare" each other to
run into
the girls changing room and the girls would do the same.
One day, there was a lot of giggling in the girls changing room. Suddenly,
the door
was opened and all of the girls walked into the room nude. The next lesson,
the
boys did the same. Pretty soon, the door was left permanently open and we
used
to effectively "share" one room.
I was only about 8 or 9 at the time, but it has made a lasting impression
on me
and was my first experience of communal nudity.
Regards,
Lee.
Richard E. Wrecked
w_terw...@hotmail.com
La...@digiscape.com wrote:
> I am 33(male) and there was no co-ed nudity in my school either. In fact,
its
> hard for me to believe there was co-ed nudity anywhere. The male showers were
> communal. The females had stalls with a small changing area outside them. We
were
> all required to take a shower but this was only sporadically enforced. We
tended
> to avoid the showers not because of an an aversion to nudity but because there
> were no blow-dryers and we didn't want to go to our next class with a wet
head.
I'm a little late to this thread but it was an interesting one and I wanted
to mention it to my girlfriend and respond with both a male and female
perspective:
We've both lived in the US all our lives and neither has ever heard of Co-ed
anything involving nudity at the highschool level. Colleges, perhaps,
somewhere, but not up to age 18. The situation at high school today is very
anti-nudity even in same sex situations much less co-ed.
I graduated HS in 1987 and she in 1994. I had elementary grades 1-8 education
and high school 9-12; my recollection is that we began changing for phys ed
in the 6th grade and thats when the showering began. It was mandatory, and
just the old big communal room at each place. I had to take phys ed up to
10th grade and it was the same policy all the way through. I dont ever
remember the teacher having a hard time enforcing the mandatory policy with a
classmate; it was so impossible to imagine getting out of it that nobody
tried.
I saw the girls locker rooms at both my elementary school and high school and
they were exactly the same as ours except the communal room had I think a
curtain hanging over the entrance; ours was open. The girls had to shower
after phys ed too. I know they always went in 5 minutes sooner than we did
because I guess they required more time.
My girlfriend Lori's experience was middle school 7-9, then high school
10-12. Her middle school required showers, their room was communal with those
miserable cylinder poles that have 5 or 6 nozzles shooting water out all
around it. Her middle school gym teacher had the cruel but effective tactic
of not giving any towels out until every girl was either in the showers or
had a given a valid excuse - this was really using peer pressure!! (Imagine
having the wrath of all your friends on your back if you dragged your feet
getting into the showers).
Her high school experience is the interesting one, though, and a possible
example of what schools today ought to be doing. Phys ed was required only
up to 10th grade for her also, and like many students that was her one and
only year she took it. Showering was not required, BUT the teacher would
record who showered and give extra credit for it on the grounds that the
student was exhibiting good hygienic practice. A very good idea, I
think...in theory.
In her experience, it did not work out that well. Extra credit be damned,
most of her classmates, maybe 3/4, never took a shower once the whole year.
Of the others (and her classses averaged maybe 25 students) 6-7 started out
each quarter taking showers but half of them would soon stop (some after one
single time --toooo awful!) Each time only about 3 or 4 would stick it out
the whole quarter. Lori was trying to get into a private college upon
graduation (she did! and a good one) and wanted as high a GPA as she could
get, so she decided she could stand it for one year if it meant getting one
grade higher on her report card.
Her school's locker room was unfortunately particularly open, like a big
rectangle. She could wear a towel to the shower room okay, and in the shower
room would be only the same familiar few, that wasn't so bad; she didn't mind
her teacher's presence particularly - the woman made sure their showers
lasted longer than 5 seconds but did not seem to go out of her way to observe
them. But upon leaving the showers she felt that an unnecessarily large
number of the class took advantage of the situation to glance over at her and
the others for "a free look" as they dried off, which they usually did right
outside the shower entrance. There it was at least better than at your
locker next to other people sitting around already dressed. As she said, the
room was too damn open and that was a large reason why only a few in the
class participated, she thought.
The worst was days when, as sometimes happened, you were the only one
showering as you then became the sole focus for idle looks. The more that
showered the easier it was for any one person, because you stood out less.
She became good at drying off very quickly and getting to her locker as fast
as possible.
Anyway, she stuck it out all the way through the year and got nothing lower
than a B for her phys ed grades, which was better than she had normally
gottten in middle school (she is not at all athletic) so she felt it was
worth it. The other girls that showered were like her, trying to maximize
their GPAs, or in a few cases were so bad at phys ed they were just trying to
ensure getting a C. There was almost nobody that took a shower on occasion
just for the sake of washing off and getting clean - the classes seemed to
become strictly either the regulars or the absolute boycotters. She thought
that without extra credit virtually no showers would have been taken and none
by her either.
So, although it was not a huge success at her school (this was a semi-rural
public school in northern pennsylvania by the way) doesn't it seem like an
idea that schools should adopt? It IS doing something extra, and it IS
demonstrating good hygiene. I think it would at least keep the idea of
taking a shower with members of your own sex from becoming completely
exttinct. Perhaps with locker rooms offering a little more privacy (and
individual stalls would of course help a lot) this concept could really take
hold. If there are any parents out there that want to do something more than
bemoan the step by step retreat of nudity from society, perhaps you could
take action by proposing this to your school district somehow.
will terwilliger
al...@rev.net
>On Tue, 19 Jan 1999 20:29:10 -0600, "Willison H. Gormly"
><hamr...@midusa.net> wrote in rec.nude:
>>Can any one give me a good
>>reason why in public school hysical activity classes should not be allowed
>>to preformed in the nude, if the student is comforable with being nude.
>Because there might be parents who do not allow it.
In that case, nudist parents should prohibit their children from
wearing clothing in gym class. They can cite promotion of bacterial
infection as a reason.
--J. Byrd <http://www.rev.net/~aloe/skinnydip>