The Need for Showers - Our Role

Guys, we continue to receive comments about showers for youth, and I like the continued enthusiasm over the topic. Read 3 comments below.
Eric~

Reader #1
On Bath-tub Only Boys -

Everybody is probably tired of reading about the physical layout of showers instead of the educational value. A series of quick observations and then I'll jump back into my cage.

I am on the alumni council of the university I attended. I am familiar with older dorms and also get to tour new dorms (and other facilities) before the students ever move in. For buildings constructed before the late 1940's and continuing into the early 1960's, there were communal bathrooms on each wing of men's dorms. The typical layout was six sinks with mirrors, two urinals, three toilet stalls without doors and a shower area for four men at a time. There was no consideration of modesty.

Beginning in the mid and late 1960's doors were added to the stalls in old buildings, but it was not economically feasible to alter the shower areas. New construction provided individual shower stalls, but no private changing area.


From the 1970's to the 1990's each shower stall included a private changing cubicle.

And beginning in the 1990s (continuing today) dorms are designed as slick apartment buildings. Each unit includes its own private bathroom and enough personal space for the number of roommates living in that apartment.

Nobody wants to live in the oldest dorms until they have been totally reconstructed to provide a high level of privacy. Personally, I think something important has been lost, but we are living in the "Me" generation.

A Lurker


Reader #2
  Evaluation of the "Roaming Locker Room Coach" Poll
(Poll is no longer available to view)

Running before school, take a shower. Regular PE class 4th period, take a shower. Basketball practice after school, take a shower. Needless to say, I spent a lot of time naked in the school shower. The coaches passed through, but didnt linger. It never bothered me if they were in there.

I figured out I was gay in sixth grade and sometimes wished they would notice.

Anonymous







Reader#3
A Few Thoughts on Showers and Such 

  A Co-worker has a middle school son (7th grade), who is on the school Football team. We are in a US Southern state and so August afternoon workouts (after school) would melt these boy's stamina in probably 45 minutes or less. So the coach has called 6:30 AM work-outs and team practice. My friend's son is suited-out and gets dropped off by 6:30 and commits hard effort to the drills etc.. Even by 8:00 AM here the temps are approaching 90 degrees, so you can be sure these boys are sweaty, and smelly at the end of Football practice

My friend, said,  that after practice the boy tried to use the School showers. Like Dad he is a larger size fellow, and takes his personal hygiene seriously so as not to appear slovenly. So in the lockers rooms he is equipped with soap shampoo and his school clothes, only to find the place is a complete neglected wreck. Hardly any of the shower heads work, (the valves are likely calcium locked), and the walls and tiles are "gross looking" as the boys stated. Many of the team-mates also declared they wouldn't use those showers because it's nasty.

Apparently since the boys in regular P.E. classes ignore showers, and the coach has no  leverage to compel the boys to shower,  the whole event is bypassed. Obviously the end result is a shower room that falls to decay from lack of use, and even more-so lack of maintenance by custodial staff since there are no kids using the shower facility.

My friend's son has dedicated to maintain some form of cleanliness, so he carries wet-wipes to pat himself to a modest level of cleanliness before getting dressed for his day's classes.

It sure makes you wonder how did we get here, raising a generation or two of stinky swamp-ass kids?

Anonymous