Little kids have it easy. Gym just happens. But as we get older, our bodies start to change. And pretty soon it makes sense to not wear our regular clothes as we get sweaty in gym. Imagine being soaked in sweat in math class right after phys ed… yuck.
It’s pretty much impossible to find someone who doesn’t agree with those statements. The trouble comes in the execution.
In a perfect world, each school would have fifty separate rooms for fifty girls to get changed for gym. But they don’t. What they do have… is one big locker room where we all go to get changed.
I have yet to meet a girl who can honestly say she has never felt uncomfortable in a locker room. No matter who you are and how confident you are about your body, undressing with a bunch of other girls will make you feel weird. Over time you become dull to that nervous feeling but at first it can be overpowering. And for some, it never gets easier.
Changing for gym normally starts in junior high. At that point, you take off your top and bottom but leave on your underwear. You get into sweats or shorts and a tshirt and off you go. When you come back, you just reverse the process.
If you get good at it, you are only standing in just your underwear for a few seconds each time.
That all changes in high school. As our bodies develop fully, just changing clothes isn’t enough to keep from smelling and being sweaty after gym. And thus… we meet the locker room shower.
In some school girls are still lucky enough to have separate shower stalls. If that’s your school, the process is much like it is at home. You go into the stall, undress and shower. When you are done you dry off and get into different clothes. Other than the floor already being damp from the girl before you it is fairly private and normal.
Newer schools tend to be different. Many now offer the same group showers for girls that guys have always been using. In those locker rooms, you undress at your locker and walk to the shower naked or with a towel. You leave the towel at the entrance to the shower area and go in totally naked. You stand with other girls and shower as a group. Each of you has their own shower head and your own stream of water. But, there is little to no privacy.
When done you dry off with the other girls and only then get dressed. Some group showers don’t have a towel area at the entrance. In those locker rooms, you leave your towel at the locker and walk completely naked to and from the shower.
Can you escape that? Usually not. Most gym classes base a portion of your mark on being prepared for class. If you don’t change and shower you lose those marks. Often, those marks are the difference between pass and fail. If you don’t want to repeat the class, you undress and shower.
Skipping a few days when you are on your period usually won’t affect your mark much and most girls chose to forgo the shower at that time of the month.
And a final note, even if your school is still separate stalls… beware tournaments. Lots of girls are surprised the first time they travel to a different school for a sports event and find out the locker room they are using there is a group shower.
Even if the school itself has separate showers for their own girls, the visitors almost always use the guy’s locker room. And guy’s locker rooms are almost universally group showers.
