How to Start Shirtless: Sports and Exercise
Another one of the many invaluable steps to take is making the change to being barefoot and shirtless for physical activities. If you live in a really warm climate, and especially if you live by the ocean, this post is for you. Unfortunatly, this advice doesn’t really work for cold climates.
I’m assuming that most of you that read my blog like sports, or at least play them once in a while. I’m also assuming that this is the same for your sons as well. One of the great things about sports is that it’s perfect for the barefoot and shirtless lifestyle. Shirts vs. Skins is common and people usually all just take off the shirts if it gets too hot. In my neighborhood, all the dads and sons have a big cookout and flag football game, and no one ever goes with a shirt or shoes on. It’s almost an unofficial rule at this point. You can transfer this into your own life, when you and your sons play catch in the yard or basketball in the driveway, it’s a perfect opportunity to get you all to go barefoot and shirtless. This should be a breeze if you’ve gotten your boys to the point already that their just in shorts at home all the time and they just go outside without puting anything on. If you’re not at this point yet, you can just tell them that it’s so they can cool off or that it would be wasteful to dirty up the clothes. They’ll thank you for it later. If your boys are going to someone else’s house or a park, you might want to give them some shoes, but it’s up to you. Personally, my boys always stay barefoot and shirtless unless there’s a strict dress code or the temperature goes below the 40 to 50 degrees range. Finally, all of the purely movement-related sports, like track, hiking and climbing, can easily be done in just shorts, especially if done outdoors.
Along with sports, I will assume that pretty much all of you have you and your sons excercise to stay healthy. Excercise is an amazing opportunity for going barefoot and shirtless. For one, you can jog or bike anywhere in just shorts. Having your boys do this will teach them valuable lessons on being comfortable walking barefoot on sidewalks and streets. However, I advise you to start them on the grass at a local park, then move on to sidewalk, so that their feet can slowly toughen up to the increased wear and tear. As for weightlifting, just have them go barefoot and shirtless beforehand and there shouldn’t be any problems. To sidestep, one of the things that this excercise will be good for is your sons’ body images. While your kids should be going in just pants no matter what, making them feel good about it too is a key goal. If they lose more weight and get more muscle, they will like their bodies even more than they did before. Overall, the mixing of physical activity with the barefoot and shirtless lifestyle is a key step in the process.
is it ok to sleep shirtless or naked then for a young boy? Does your kids do it?
ReplyDeleteSleeping in a minimal amount of clothes is perfectly normal and often extremely comfortable. My sons both sleep in boxers.
DeleteI Sleep nuDe
DeleteKids, boys and girls alike, want to sleep naked when they are toddlers and the parents chastise and shame them into wearing "jammies" which scars them for life. The reality is that sleeping naked is the best and healthiest way to sleep. So if your kid is a toddler, just don't chastise him about sleeping naked. If you have already shamed your kid to wear jammies, you need to have a talk with them and let them know you are OK with them sleeping naked. Encourage them to remove one thing at a time over several months - shirtless, then just in underwear, then finally totally naked. However, if YOU are sleeping in jammies, then any efforts to get them to sleep healthy will likely fail.
DeleteHey bro, you say there is common for boys and father beings always shirtless, and the boys are encpurage to be that way. Where are you from and where do you live now with your sons? I find this interesting
ReplyDeleteI am 13 years old, and I like to be barefoot and shirtless. Everyday after school, I play football and other things with my friends from the street. I was wondering if it was okay if I am shirtless playing with them even if they are not shirtless.
ReplyDeleteBro, it's ok because you are a boy and it gets hot. Boys should be shirtless if they want to
DeleteIf I had sons I show them it's no big deal to be barefoot and shirtless. One it's comfortable and two it will help build self-confidence and make them feel more comfortable in their skin. If it were up to me I would be shirtless all the time unless I was going out where I had to wear clothes or if company came over and the weather is a big factor too. I believe that boys who go barefoot and shirtless now at a young age can help them for when they're older as they go through life. I guess all I'm saying is I'm a big believer in the whole barefoot and shirtless thing. The human body is a work of art and should be respected. God bless all of God's creatures.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't force it by all means I would just let them decide if they want to or not. It's their body their decision. If they feel comfortable being barefoot and shirtless more power to them if not that's okay too.
DeleteI just want them to feel comfortable and know it's okay.
DeleteIt can be a massive big deal to boys to have to go shirtless in school, and even being barefoot is a big deal to a lot. If you're one of these kinds of lads, and I was, it makes school Physical Ed a real bad confidence issue. My teachers in the early 90's all sang from the same hymn sheet when it came to Physical Ed lessons and were constantly asking for boys in class to be going shirtless, either in or out, nearly always inside and in fair weather outside when it suited. Very unpopular used to be the class division into shirtless and shirts boys some days. Most boys instictively preferred shirts on it seemed to me. Barefoot was common in Physical Ed gym, hated my feet being out like that. Boys that don't feel confident about being shirtless or barefoot in such situations just endure it in silence for the most part.
DeleteDon't get me started on Physical Ed school showers. Our school required them and they had these rather different pole style showers that four or five of us would have to stand around facing each other around the communal shower, so staring right at everything rather than against a wall. Hideous getting forced into that with nothing on at all, everything on show.
Agreed Trigg, it felt like a big deal to me at the time (which was also early 90s). It was rare for anyone to be barefoot in PE, only if a boy forgot his trainers but being shirtless happened a lot more often. Not all the PE teachers enforced it but some insisted on that division of the class you mentioned, with half of us made to be 'skins'. A few boys in my class were more confident and didn't mind but most, like you said, dreaded that order to take our shirts off.
DeleteI was like Trigg. Really bad at one point in schooldays but finally got defeated into forced acceptance. My body was quite normal/average for my age. The school gymnasium was mostly a shirtless environment for boys of all high school age in the latter part of the seventies. Some loved it and it came so natural to them. I wish it did to me but we're all different. Your gym teacher never acknowledged any of his boys in class may find issue with being bare chested. I think it was always assumed all boys are okay with a no shirts rule, fully baring the upper body.
DeleteI think the shirtless problem arises when you are actually being told to be shirtless by somebody, mostly by school gym PE teachers. If you're someone who doesn't really go shirtless in your life, whether shy, unconfident or whatever about it then finding yourself confornted by someone demanding you must remove your top and be shirtless brings out the problem quite dramatically.
As Jonathon said, it's hard when you're suddenly faced with that situation of being ordered to be shirtless for the first time and I didn't experience it until I was 13. Which really wasn't great timing, it's around that age I was becoming more self conscious about how my body looked. So my immediate reaction was panic that first time the PE teacher told me to take my top off in the gym. I'd imagine it's a lot easier for boys who are used to going at shirtless at an earlier age, whether from choice or from being influenced to do that at home?
DeleteNot sure where you guys went to school, seems like a mostly USA slant on here but the guy beneath from a couple of years back talks it like it was in my time in a British school in the same decade of the 1980s.The policy set out at my school when I hit 12 was to instill complete and total barechested PE for the lot of us throughout our early to mid teens. Our parents knew this. That was not unusual at the time though. This was basically the standard way of things all over the country at that age in secondaries, also known as high schools elsewhere, infact even younger in many instances too when taking PE inside on the gym/sports hall floor. A bare chest was required in summer term outside too for general athletics in my case and I'm sure in many other places too. Only out of summer months did we wear the vest outdoors.
DeleteParents, guardians or other family or friends who came to see us at summer PE events where we had to showcase ourselves would see us shirtless, the rule was not relaxed because we had an audience viewing us. I was at a mixed school and these events meant mixing with the opposite sex like that, whereas in usual PE we remained apart and separate. That was uncomfortable when it happened. I have four male cousins and we spoke about this once and they all did regular shirtless PE at least a couple of times a week and in all our cases it was a compulsory element of a PE class in our English 1980s schools.
I don't know what showering was like in the USA but in England most boys have an identical experience in my time which involved no ability to duck out of sharing the showers, compulsory most times, communal open plan in nature, total naked for all and watched over and told when we could come out by a teacher. Hair had to be wet through, soap used and towel brought to school to dry. Excuses for not showering like this were rarely tolerated at the close of PE. You were not allowed to be shy or reticent at school in PE that's for sure. This affected a lot of people who now speak out as adults years later.
My teacher hated boys who were reluctant to remove tops and go shirtless during my own school gym sessions and would make reluctant boys do it more. Skins and shirts was his favourite time to do this. Late 80's in my case. I don't think it made them any more confident, the reverse infact.
DeleteI've got a piece of paper in my hand from 1992 telling our class what was expected of us in the school gym, what we had to wear and how we had to behave, as well as what activities we were allowed to do, when and with who.
DeleteAt one point there is a line on clothing specific to boys which reads - Shirts WILL NOT be worn in P.E, with the emphasis in bold of the 'will not' part of it. In that year I was 12 and asked my P.E teacher why we could not wear tops in P.E for the gym and I remember him struggling for a good answer before becoming quite short tempered that I'd dared to ask the question in the first place. Class sizes of up to 40 would always be in the gym for P.E and everyone was stripped bare up top. I was always surprised we didn't get the option of even a thin vest at least part of the time, similar to what the teacher wore.
Average looking and sized boys looked OK I guess but there were some real tall gawky thin types in my class and they looked real awkward shirtless and it didn't suit them and I think they knew it. Shirtless bare chested bodies work for some and not others. The blanket rule at school for all to be shirtless in gym was a bit harsh.
Not harsh at all. Perfectly fine. My dad swam at school with nothing on. Get your head around that! A barechested body would have been nothing compared to that for him. I took a few barechested PE classes and took them on the chin when told to.
DeleteI don't know who the slim shirtless kid in black shorts is on here in the photo on this page but he sure reminds me of myself at that age out on the school field. Boys had to go shirtless at middle school in 1984 when I was about 10 or 11. It was kinda fine but moving up to high school things started feeling awkward and I always wished I'd bulked up and filled out a bit sooner. I felt so weedy at 15 and really wanted my shirt on but teachers had the final say and often said no shirts, skins you are.
DeleteHello Ryan, seems like we went to quite similar schools. Mine too had a very strict shirtless PE policy for boys. No shirts allowed, just white shorts and bare feet, without any exceptions. Our teachers were always very keen on making sure there were no digressions, constantly reminding us if anyone tried to push the boundaries. They had a way of enforcing the rules that made it clear there was no room for debate—whether it was the hottest day or the coldest, we were expected to follow the PE kit rules to the letter.
DeleteFunnily enough, in my first year, I also asked one of my PE teachers why we were never allowed tops. He replied without any hesitation: "What do you need a top for, boy?"
At first, it felt strange and a bit intimidating, especially during those colder months, but after a while, we all just got used to it. There was a kind of unspoken understanding among us boys, almost like a badge of toughness. We didn’t really talk about it, but we all knew the drill and complied without much fuss. Looking back, it’s funny how what seemed so strict and unusual back then just became a normal part of our school life
John, I like you and Ryan went to both middle and upper schools that both expected of their boys PE classes that we must present ourselves in our bare chest only with no option of any type of clothing, vests or t-shirts above the waist at all. I found this quite draconian to put it mildly, but it was what it was back in the 70's & partly 80's and was very widespread in so many English schools of the time.
DeleteIt was often done as a leveller so better off kids didn't show up with nicer looking stuff on than others. A poorer shirtless kid in class looked the same as a well off one generally speaking. Our shorts had to be plain black. Very often there was nothing on our feet either, but even if there was it was just unfashionable generic gym shoes of the plimsoll type. This kit also had the benefit of being easy to manage and if someone turned up without PE kit a pair of black shorts was always readily available from a spares store, meaning participation was always 100% in these compulsory shirtless PE classes.
At my own upper school gym it had a big double easy access emergency fire door on the side of our gym and we were told if the bell sounded either for drill or real then we had to immediately open this door and walk very fast to our assembly point with the rest of the school. School roll being about a thousand pupils at that time. I was always fearful the fire bell might sound when in one of these gym lessons which would mean having to run oit and assemble shirtless and in shorts among the rest of school and face whatever weather outside it might be. Well the first time we had an afternoon drill in a normal class situation and I assembled and saw what I had been dreading for myself, a PE class of shirtless boys assembled in shorts only alongside everyone else dressed in full uniforms. I remember it was drizzling and cloudy and they looked very cold. A couple of years later the same thing happened to me and my fears came true when fire practice happened just when I was in PE shirtless and had to go out the fire door of the gym and line up with the rest of the school along with my own class of shirtless boys. Now I could deal with shirtless among the other boys but the thought of being shirtless among so many girls out there was the stuff of nightmares. The day this happened to me was dry and quite warm so they didn't get us back inside very fast either. But despite this it was not considered that we had any valid reason to complain about it.
Boys were treated at school as if being shirtless was not an issue for any of them in any situation or in front of anybody of any kind, a very false assumption.
It sounds like most of you were at schools with a blanket shirtless rule for PE but my school was a bit different. Basically there were different rules with different teachers and up to my first year of GCSE (this was 1990, at an all boys school) my class always did PE with everyone wearing a vest and shorts.
DeleteThen we had a change of teacher and at our first lesson with him we quickly discovered he was far more strict, not just in terms of discipline but also when it came to our kit. Most of us couldn't believe it when he announced 'all you boys,, vests off. You're not allowed those in my class.' One lad piped up 'but sir, it's cold in the gym' and soon regretted his protest as he was told to do 20 press ups to help him warm up! For the next two years we had to do all PE in bare chests and shorts, which was a real shock at first but after a while most of us got used to it.
Our North American friends on here probably don't realise just how deep the compulsory shirtless culture across British schools used to be if you went to one anytime from the 50's to the 90's, and still persists in quite a few even today. The standard school uniform for PE was in most cases at secondary school, high school to Americans, to be shirtless and you were expected to be comfortable doing so with a bare chest and make no fuss about it when told you must do so. It could actually apply right the way down to starting school. In my case I regularly did shirtless PE lessons from the age of just 5 until I was 15, and it was actually my middle school where PE was permanently shirtless, and that was under both male and female tuition. Those ten years for me were 1970 until 1980.
DeleteAdam you have mentioned a teacher making a boy do a warm up when complaining of the cold. This reminds me of cross country at my secondary in 1977-80 under a teacher who made boys run the cross country shirtless in some shockingly cold conditions. He received complaints some days about the cold and his response was just that we'd better run faster to warm up. That particular teacher ran alongside us all in a track suit jacket, but insisted that running shirtless even in the cold was beneficial (except for him it seemed) and made us work better at achieving decent times and learning about discipline and all that nonsense that so many PE teachers often cite with not wearing tops and body exposure. One of my friends went down with a very significant and debilitating dose of flu for a fortnight after running one of these teachers shirtless cross country's, but as soon as he was back in school he was back doing another shirtless PE lesson outside running again with us all.
I suppose it was the compulsion to be shirtless that we all faced that made it seem the big deal for quite a few.
I never saw any evidence around me in my time at school, especially when I was a bit older, that the shy ones with low self esteem and lacking confidence about themselves, were brought out of their shells and made less so by being made to be shirtless when in the school PE class.
For myself, I was broadly neutral on the issue, neither horrified by being shirtless but also not greatly enthused either by it. If anything it could often make me feel slightly vulnerable and critical of my own body when judging it against the others.
My eldest son came home from his first day at his new school two days ago and I asked him how it went and it was like the end of the world when he told me the teacher of P.E had told his group and him that they would sometimes have to do the lesson shirtless and would be asked to take a quick shower. I reassured him he wouldn't think anything of it within a month and would get used to it quicker than he thinks. I did. Thinking about going shirtless or naked in school was far worse than finally just doing it the first few times and getting over it into the new normal.
DeleteI was once a youth leader and remember times when we did physical games with the lads in warm weather and I used to say if they wanted to cool off and get the top off they could, up to them, which meant a few would do that instantly and often the rest followed up slowly but surely, leaving everyone shirtless. That happened so many times. Actually some would remove tops without even being given the question.
DeleteHere in the UK I was at a school in the 80's that always made boys like me do our PE inside without any kind of top on, barechests for all of us and also bare feet only. This never changed throughout school from the day I started to the day I left twice per week for 90 minutes each time. There were no allowances for such things as being incredibly shy or body imperfections, being too thin or too fat, not that there were any fat boys about, we were all quite trim. Outside we were nearly always barechested during summer and spring terms and we also ran during autumn and winter with no shirts on rather a lot and on very fresh days. Occasional lessons would be mixed gender adding an extra element of anxiety about the way we were told to present ourselves for PE. The fact it was never a choice we chose to make about ourselves seemed a big deal to me and others. Did they have the right to force this upon us? The teachers who demanded we must go barefoot and bare chested in their classes never did this themselves. Indeed girls often wore trainers outside when boys were not allowed to and had to go barefoot on the grass within the same class set up. How are you supposed to deal with boys who are crushingly shy about their bodies and don't want to bare their chests or their feet? Likewise full scale communal class nudity was compulsory regards the showering requirement at each of these lessons with absolutely no consideration of shyness or privacy. All our parents thought it was perfectly fine even the ones who knew their sons such as myself didn't parade about at home shirt off or bare foot, never mind naked. But in school tough luck, you did it on pain of serious sanctions and punishment if you resisted.
ReplyDeleteIt's still like that in my school today, we have a teacher who makes it either shirts and skins teams or everyone in skins. I don't mind it, I feel like I've got more confident about being shirtless plus in summer it's actually more comfortable to wear just shorts. Some boys in my class still hate being skins but they can't do anything about it really.
Deletehi
ReplyDeletehi
ReplyDeleteCan a nine year old sleep shirtless?
ReplyDeleteYep
DeleteMy sons were full time shirt less since they are 5
DeleteMy son hasn't put a top on since 19th July when he kicked off his summer break from school. That was a month ago. It's now August 20th. He's not gone too far, just hanging around the home, hanging out in the locality near home and popped in a couple of local stores. He's thirteen. I'm glad he's so comfy in his own skin and I don't see why he shouldn't do so in the circumstances I've outlined. His mates don't even comment on it even though most wear their tops when with him, although one does sometimes get his off as well in our yard with him.
DeleteI played soccer in just a pair of boxers or at least some outworn briefs. So some of my friends did. Of course some of my mates liked to play games like strip soccer were you have to go home in what you could stay in. I often saw them in just their underwear and slowly they got used to it.
ReplyDeleteI don't have any children but I still want to comment on shirtless sports. I take Thai boxing lessons and live in a warm climate. I'm always shirtless because the gym isn't air conditioned and I sweat buckets. Most of the guys are shirtless and so are the coaches. Great way for us to bond. I also exercise shirtless outdoors. Shirts just aren't necessary in these situations.
ReplyDeleteEven today many British schools go for the mandatory barechested way of doing physical education and enforce communal fully stripped off showers after P.E. Going back just a few years and nearly all schools did some form of barechested PE from an early age and it was almost universal everywhere at one point that school gym physical education must be taken in bare chests for boys after age eleven and up to sixteen. In my own case my school enforced it without exceptions so we all had to face up to it, like it or not, and take everything off afterwards in large group open showers.
ReplyDeleteThis is true. My eldest went up to secondary school, Queenbury School, two years ago and the youngest begins there in a couple of months time. The eldest has done a lot of shirtless P.E at this school over the last two years and my youngest fears this as he's not like his elder brother very much. The school details I have ready for his entry in September specify that shirtless P.E is considered a compulsory part of the remit there for boys taking P.E lessons. From my eldest I know this is not just for gym but taken outside in good weather too quite a bit. He's fine with it, and so am I.
DeleteThe latest school details for the new September intake like my youngest son also specify the need to bring a towel on P.E days because proper showering is expected with everybody on return to the change room at the end of P.E, to be taken in the communal shower room without any clothing or jewellery of any type on. Just like in my day actually.
So I can concur with the above comment on UK schools in the past nearly all acting like described and very many still do so as I can testify with my own two, aged 12 and 14.
Hi Chris. It's less common than it was say up to twenty years ago but far from uncommon even nowadays. When I was in school long ago all the boys had to remove school uniform for PE and remain bare chests and go off to PE like that. I think the teacher might have used some forceful encouragement to get a few to do so when we first had to, just like he did have a constant battle making sure everyone was showered properly as it was forbidden to leave PE lessons without a full shower and soap down with your classmates together in the raw.
DeleteHi.
DeleteI've just been emailed my twelve year old's new school year instructions when he returns for autumn term, new school on 4th September, and the school gym kit states 'shorts and a bare chest' for boys for that part of P.E taken inside. There is also a towel requirement for P.E because it says 'showers are provided for everyone and must be taken as a part of all P.E'.
I'm in the United Kingdom, in Manchester.
Hey Paul, let us know how your young one gets on with having to go shirtless in the gym.
DeleteI'm 15 and at school in the UK, what they call a secondary school academy. For the past two years our PE teachers have been making all the boys in my gym class leave the changing room for the sports hall in our bare feet and nobody gets allowed to stick a shirt on, we all have to go bare chests as well. One boy complained about it once but got shut down over it and told to get on with it. Not sure much PE is done like this anymore like it used to be. My dad thinks it's unusual but says he did it in his day and never had much choice either. We have to go into a large open room to take showers after PE too. They're mandatory. Nobody argues about that bit.
ReplyDeleteSam, thanks for posting. How do you feel about the PE kit at your school? I think your dad's right, it's probably unusual nowadays in the UK but not totally unheard of. My nephew, who's 14 has to do PE barechested although not barefoot, his class got a new teacher this year who either divides the boys into shirts and skins or makes them all take their shirts off. I know my nephew doesn't like having to do PE barechested because he told me the teacher makes him a skin for almost every class and asked whether it was the same in my day. When I said yes, he asked did you get used to it?
DeleteThe truth was I did eventually and hopefully he will as well. I think it gets easier as your body develops and you gain more confidence, maybe you've found that too?
Richard, I'm not sure what I think. I was very nervous at first and couldn't believe it when our teacher first thing in the morning took the PE register in the changing room and then told everyone it was shorts only for sports hall PE. Suddenly it dawned on me what he meant, no tops or shoes and socks. Someone asked if he meant we had to be barechested and feet and he said that's what shorts only means, yes. I remember looking around and quietly comparing myself in PE to the others, it forced us to see our friends barechested and many were not keen like it. I think we should be able to decide for ourselves. Even barefoot PE doesn't go down well with some of us. But we started doing PE this way in our sports hall and never stopped. It took a long time to finally get over being weird about it, shy I suppose. The teachers had to keep telling us at the beginning but nowadays we just do it without being told. Nobody in PE sports hall class is allowed to be different from anyone else, we must all take part doing sports hall PE barechested and in our bare feet, it's more or less compulsory just like going into the showers is after our PE lessons into one big communal area where nobody is allowed to shower with their shorts on and everything has to come off totally leaving us naked. They even make us use soap in the showers and that's compulsory too. My dad says I'm not doing anything he didn't do at school and it was always expected everywhere at that time. It seems weird to me that my teachers can force me to take a shower and get naked, is it right that they cxan do this and make a boy show his willy at school like that, whether he's shy or not. Nobody says a thing about it though but I know what some are thinking. Even saying we must all be barechested for PE is a bit weird to me or telling me I should be barefoot when trainers will do.
DeleteI was in school many years ago Sam, you describe things as I recall them. On the whole showers thing I recall a teacher telling us to use them once and saying he did not expect to have to tell us to do so again and that using them should become second nature and automatic. The same applied to going shirtless for PE which was mandatory in school gym class. Again, we got told to do so once and were not expected to argue over it. I don't know how it was in the United States but here in the United Kingdom it's well known that boys who went to school in the 70's or 80's nearly always had to do gym PE without shirts on, in bare chests, it was policy nearly everywhere, not just after age 11 in secondary school but also quite common from age 8 in primary too. At my school there were no exceptions to the rule made. It could be a tough ask on boys who were either very thin or a bit podgy, but you had to deal with it.
DeleteAnother UK schoolboy here, secondary educated at age 11 to 16. During those years, 1977 - 82, going into the school gym for weekly PE and having to be barechested was non negotiable, the whole class had to do so, no messing about over it or whining you didn't like it. The only person in the gym who wasn't shirtless was the actual teacher. Going barechested at that age in that time frame was a feature of British schools that most boys just had to accept and we did so even if we didn't like it.
ReplyDeleteBut as we all had to jump in the communal shower after PE anyway, which was naked, and very much compulsory to do so, being barechested was the least of it. Every school in the UK had showers on the go after PE lessons in those days and nobody was let off doing them. British schools were incredibly firm on both the shirtless gym for secondary age boys and the follow up showers we had to take. We all got to know each other very well indeed!
You had a dreadful time if you were very shy or self conscious, overweight or terribly weedy I suppose but you just had to put up with it. Nobody was let off any of it and it was best to keep up a brave face and not show any insecurity if you knew what was good for you.
I did all the things at school the others mention here, the shirtless gym, the nude showering with others, little choice about it. That was life in school around PE lessons. Most teachers carried these policies out with us. It was rare to get a teacher who would excuse you from showers for instance and the school gym for boys meant an expectation to be shirtless on demand when asked, which was often. If told to your shirt came off instantly or else.
ReplyDeleteBut at home I faced something similar. When my parents took us on holidays, they liked the coast and frequent beach holidays in my younger days. Even when I was 13 or 14 on these holidays my dad would insist I dressed sensibly on the beach with them and made me wear just swim shorts and go shirtless while there. He did this with my other brother too. When there were hot weekends over summer or a heatwave he would insist I behave sensibly and say something like - "come on Stu, get your top off in this nice weather, it's too hot for wearing too much" and I'd be guilt tripped to be shirtless for the weekend. He'd often make me or my brother leave the house with him without a shirt on, even if he had one on. He thought it was normal for young boys to be this way.
I had a parent just like yours Stuart. When I think back to it, between about the age of 8 and 15 I must have spent most days of my life at some point during the day in the company of others while shirtless, either by choice or mandate, such as in school, where from age 11 to 15 doing PE in the gymnasium meant bare chests all round for everyone male. When I was able to start making decisions for myself I tended to remain covered up far more later on.
DeleteI did used to hang out with friends, both male and female, at home and at their homes quite often over summer holidays while shirtless from the age of 8 to 11. I remember turning up to the home of a girl in my class at the age of about 9 while shirtless and her mum making a comment about me like that, I think she was surprised or something. Later on I became more self conscious though.
Interesting post, Stuart. Very much reminded me of a boy in my class at primary school whose parents made him take his top off at home. They were very big on observing a healthy diet, as I found out when I was round at their house a few times, and I think that was part of it, they also believed it was healthier for boys to go barechested. Presumably they must have spoken to the school about his PE lessons because he never brought a t-shirt to the gym, the teachers let him do it in just shorts.
ReplyDeleteAfter we moved up to secondary school it didn't make much difference as the boys' PE kit was now shorts and plimsolls with no top permitted under any circumstances. Most boys, including me, were quite nervous at first about doing PE barechested but we didn't have any choice in the matter.
I grew up going to a secondary school in East London in the 1970s which had a rigorous physical education department within which every teacher strongly favoured and implemented a compulsory regime of boys at my school not being allowed tops for any form of physical education inside the school gymnasium. The bare chest look was the order of the day, every day we did PE there. We used to be quite fearful of a couple of our teachers at this school and the gym felt quite an intimidating experience for a sizable portion of the class I was in during that time. The teachers always kept an authority distance and always wore some kind of top, whether a vest, t-shirt of tracksuit top and I never actually saw one of my own PE teachers shirtless at the school or in any lesson even though they often took part directly in activities we did. The literature that came with the school uniform for parents eyes told its own story and I remember my parents commenting how easy the PE kit was, because there was not much of it on gym days. Not even trainers. The importance of doing PE bare chested was impressed on class quite early on. These lessons involved some girl involvement too, but not always. My memory was that we preferred or boys only PE lessons without girls around. I think this requirement at school in gym was quite a big deal for a few boys actually.
ReplyDeleteI remember a lot of physical touching being encouraged in these lessons amongst us where we had to hold onto and grab onto bodies.
Unless your body was the standard norm, whatever that is, the teachers could make personal comments at how you looked. We had a couple fo chubbier lads in class who got this, and a number of puny boys too, on either end of the scale.
I think a decent amount of boys will have resented being made to do gym in their bare chests in those days and secretly wanted a t-shirt on.
All classes ended with us being squeezed into a communal shower with each other by the teacher of that day, herded naked with not much room between us as we tried to properly soap and rinse while the given teacher watched ever move we made before deciding who could be let out when he considered us done.
When you think about it, it's quite unbelievable now, forcing 30 boys at a go to strip naked and cram together like that or to insist that we could never be allowed to ever put shirts on in gym even though the teacher always wore one.
I don't think it made anyone any more confident about being shirtless among others who were not already okay with it anyway. Forced school nudity was not only expected but demanded rigorously too. If anything it may have affected confidence negatively.
I don't know how our Brit schools of the time compare to those in the USA and North America generally, but my own school was considered quite normal and regular in everything it did with us.
My junior middle school (UK) in 1971/2 had mixed showers in the very first year for us at the ages of 8/9 years old. After that first year we were separate. Remarkably there was no known issue made about it that I remember while we shared communally whilst fully naked, boys and girls aged 8. This was my first experience of a compulsory school shower, something that continued in the following years and at another school for a further 7 years with boys only. I last took a school shower when I was 15 and a half.
DeleteI spent most of my time at junior and secondary school doing PE lessons with a bare chest, because I had to, although I first did this at infants school. Shirtless PE became more a self conscious thing the older I got.
Teachers were always very insistant that we showered at school, only let offs were medical related such as if you had a plaster cast on a limb!
Nobody, but nobody was expected to complain either about compulsory shirtless PE lessons or being told they must get naked and get showered in the whole class group.
In my middle school in the 1975-1976 period we never shared the showers with the girls like you Vincent, when I was eight year old, but the boys and girls did have to share the changing room with each other, boys on one side, girls on the other. It was the only place to change available, there were no separate rooms to take. When we went swimming the boys and girls would change and be naked in the same room and be able to look across at each other, and we did. The changing room had a shower and we did have to use it many times in middle school but boys and girls had to use it separately and not together. That kind of nakedness among that age group at that time was not frowned upon at all that I can think back on and was normalised. But like you Vincent, it didn't last and later on in middle school boys and girls tended to do physical games and PE stuff apart from each other much more so we no longer shared our changing room.
DeleteMy middle school PE kit, what there was of it, was to turn out shirtless in the school hall where we did the gym work. We wore tops for outside PE, most of the time unless hot, but never inside at all, right through to age twelve. Later on at my comprehensive it was a bit more hit and miss, some days were shirtless, others not, it was entirely within the gift of the teacher whether he let the class of boys keep the PE top on or told us to remove them and be shirtless. Some teachers had a preference for doing PE shirtless more than others. One day when I was 15 we had 20 girls in our gym class and the teacher who preferred shirtless even made us all take our tops off with girls in the class and I was so shocked and uncomfortable at that because by that age we were really growing up rather fast.
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ReplyDeleteMy boarding school had mandatory daily morning runs with all boys stripped to the waist regardless of the weather. For boys aged 9-10 it was a quick 10 min run. Boys aged 11-12 olds were expected to run for 30mins. From 13 -18 you stepped up to a 5 mile run around the school grounds. Our PE teachers also had us barechested outdoors for one double lesson a week up to 13 then it increased to two again irrespective of the weather. We also did cross-country runs without vests too, fun on freezing cold dayi! Indoors PE was the same barechests until you left. That gym was freezing in the winter, no heating on and the windows wide open every day but still it wasn't unusual for us to leave the gym showing sweat.
ReplyDeleteI think this short film shows our UK schools PE classes for boys quite well and this would be how it was for many in school from the 1930's to 1990's. Being a Brit boy meant a bare chest for gym in 90% of schools then.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/video/children-playing-and-exercising-in-ranks-at-school-stock-video-footage/mr_00056213?adppopup=true
Gym teachers were still forcing us to remove tops and go shirtless in my PE classes as recently as between 2013 and 2016. Sometimes part of the class, other times the whole class went bare chests with no say in the matter. Once the teacher decided we were gonna be shirtless we had to be shirtless and that was that. I had never been shirtless in a PE lesson until I was 11 so it was a bit of a surprise when it first happened, everyone was told to keep tops off when changing. There was definitely an awkward atmosphere going on at first. The last time I was told to be shirtless was age 14, and that was in 2016. I'm 22 now.
DeleteSome of the guys in school did talk about why we were doing PE shirtless with each other instead of keeping to our regular tops. Being shirtless even when everyone else was the same around me didn't make me feel at all confident about myself and I dreaded someone making a personal comment about some part of my shirtless body. Perhaps the biggest thing was being told to be a bare chest in the gym rather than just choosing it. I disliked someone telling me I had to be shirtless.
Our old PE teachers used to take our school lads out on the cross country in early summer even on some wet and windy days and we still all ran without anything on top, total shirtless and full on bare chests everywhere you looked. It was classed as character building apparently and made us better and stronger people. Well that was the theory. My own recollection of those days is those in charge of us on PE staff really loving making whole classes remove tops and being shirtless and using it to demonstate their power over us.
DeleteShirtless and barefoot physical education was mandatory for me at both my middle and secondary schools. I didn't mind it so much at my middle school because I was so young but I began to mind it quite a lot later on even though it was something I'd been doing a lot for a long time. It had no effect on my confidence one way or another but I do think going shirtless should be treated as a personal choice for the individual and them alone and not something someone else should insist upon, with an exemption to that for swimming. Most of the times I was shirtless in my school gym classes in middle and secondary I really didn't need to be.
DeleteWe had a new boy join our class one day when I was about 12 and he came from another school but had never done any shirtless PE before in his life and he began getting real upset and crying when he noticed that was how we did it and he would have to do. He seemed really quite scared about having to go shirtless at school with the rest of us but adapted eventually.
One of my gym teachers in secondary would often take the lesson with us shirtless too, but just the one, none of the others did. He also used to shower alongside us too while keeping his eye on us all and chatting. It was really weird talking to your gym teacher while absolutely naked like that. That was a UK secondary school gym in 1978 for you and that kind of thing and very frequent or permanent mandatory shirtless lessons were incredibly common then, and so was a stripped off shower, sometimes with teacher.
Aaron, I'm curious to know why did shirtless PE end for you at 14? Wondered if maybe you got a different teacher then? For me it's the other way round, until I was 14 I always did PE wearing a shirt and then my class got a different teacher who was like you described. He either made us all go to the gym in bare chests or sometimes picked half of the boys to take their shirts off. I found it really weird having to do PE with a bare chest and it continued for the next two years. Like you I think we should have been given the choice.
DeleteI don't know your age Jake, but I'll say this to you and young Aaron here. I think the teacher of a PE/gym class has every right to decide what he wants his class to wear at school age. If he regards the shirtless option as appropriate then I fail to see the point of an objection when boys are all together and doing the same, or even in a split half class skins and shirts scenario.
DeleteI'm 47 and was always having to take my shirt off in PE classes on teacher instruction. Infact I had to do this at 3 different schools, including my middle school for not just PE but Music & Movement, which was a weekly lesson when I was 9 and 10 where all boys had to have bare chest and feet alongside girls in our class. Our middle school even showered just like the comp did too, so a shirtless body was the least of it because we were told to be naked in the shower room together after these types of PE class and privacy was non existent.
But I understand the points being made. There were other boys I shared PE with and gym in all my schools who huffed and puffed about being shirtless for PE or being naked for PE showers, but they all still did it is what I remember.
In fairness and knowing the teachers I had, they wouldn't have allowed them, me or anyone else to opt out of any of it no matter what we thought or felt.
Going in the showers was always non negotiable for the lot of us as teenage boys in school at the end of PE and being shy about your body or genitalia and others seeing you naked simply didn't cut it with the teachers for a moment. They made sure we showered and got everything off time after time. Our whole class had to shower together at the same time in one open plan communal tiled area. We'd stand there ready and waiting for a teacher to turn on the jets of hot water coming direct from the ceiling like sprinklers.
DeleteWhen it came to shirtless PE, that was also non negotiable as a teenager. It wasn't every lesson, but very many, mostly indoors. We seemed to do just as much shirtless PE over winter months as in summer months. Again, being shy or embarrassed about showing your bare chest held no sway at all at school or what body type you were. You simply had to do it when told. Sometimes the whole class was shirtless, sometimes half the class or even sometimes just a few for some reason.
The teachers themselves never went shirtless with us in the class.
I'm lucky as I wasn't shy and accepted it but could see the way all this demand for going shirtless or fully stripped everything off got to some people who were unable to wriggle out of doing so but wanted to.
I think this is the school regime anyone over 40 will relate too because it was so common.
Interesting to read you were doing shirtless PE and being made to bare your chest within the last decade there Jake.
Darren, I'm early 20s now so I'm talking about less than 10 years ago. Totally get the logic of what you said about a PE teacher having the right to decide about uniform for the class when it's the same for everyone, but that's not the case in a skins and shirts scenario. To me it didn't seem fair if he decided half of the boys had to do the class in bare chests while the rest wore a shirt. With my teacher it wasn't as though he'd just flip that around the next time, he would pick totally new groups. I remember having to do several weeks of PE without a shirt while others hardly took theirs off at all.
ReplyDeleteHi Jake, I'm in my late 20s and went to school in Dundee, Scotland. I finished school ten years ago, but finished doing PE lessons in school twelve years ago, in 2011/12 academic year before joining sixth form. In the five years up to 2012 I had a regular gym lesson taken by three regular male teachers which involved the class being shirtless. It just seemed to be the way they did it there for gym. We had another lesson outside but were never told to be shirtless for that one.
DeleteI remember speaking to my dad about it when I was eleven or twelve but he wondered why I was even mentioning it as he had been a pupil at the same school as me back in the late 1970's and 80's and told me they always did school gym shirtless and went outside like it too on many occasions.
I had mixed feelings about it. Some days I felt better about it than others. It was very much compulsory which I think it didn't need to be. I think boys should have been able to wear some kind of gym top if they wanted to. Actually very few boys in school are that confident and comfortable about their bodies enough to choose to bare their chest by free will alone. But you got used to it within weeks mostly by seeing the same people and the same bodies time and again each week. Gym was always referred to as our skins lesson by one of the teachers.
Our school had showers. We used them from 2007-09 only and then after that you could use them if you wanted to and few did so after the age of thirteen or fourteen.
With a choice I would have put a top on for gym and declined shirtless and swerved the showers, but I was by no means that bothered by it compared to one or two others including a lad we had who literally hyperventilated when he realised he had to do the gym shirtless and shower. Again, such things as showers in school should be offered as a choice to take if necessary, not a direct demand from a teacher.
What I did like about doing shirtless PE, and two years showering, was that it gave us all body acceptance about what we all looked like and whether anyone was fat, thin or just average in development was just the wide range of normal to me.
I found teachers generally encouraging and although they could be quite critical about our level of fitness and activity I rarely saw anything directed about what any of us physically looked like in front of them even when they could see the state of us, which wasn't too bad for 80 percent of us anyway.