Second hand embarrassment

[Susanbostock]

I’m so glad I found a site like this where I can share this experience.
This is my story that I have thought about for the last 40 years. I think my memory serves me well enough to share this incident but I have changed some of the place names, just for privacy.

It happened 40 years ago in Australia. I was just a naive 15 year old girl and I had a little sister called Maggie who was 13 years old.

We lived in Sydney with our mum and dad, but this summer holiday, we drove about 3 hours south to our aunt and uncle’s house at Carlburg Beach, they had a son called Bruce. He would have been 16 or 17, a little older than myself.

We often had wonderful carefree days down there with cousin, Bruce. The three of us would spend all day swimming in the surf and playing on the sand.
On about the third day at the beach, we met a boy and his sister, so we introduced ourselves. They were Pierre, 15 and Louise, 17. They both had lovely French accents as they said they had just immigrated from a remote part of New Caledonia. Louise had a great figure and nice long dark hair, Pierre was short and very slim, he looked (and acted) much younger than 15 but he was very talkative and a little bit hyperactive. As I recall, their mother was French and their dad was English.

Anyway, after we had all had a swim, we lay on our towels for a while. Pierre and Maggie dug a big ditch so Pierre could lay down in it. We covered him in sand so only his head was visible. We had a fun time building sandcastles and other shapes like a mermaid and fish on top of him. Then Louise and Bruce walked to the shops to get us some hot chips and drinks for lunch, they would be back in about half an hour.

While they were away, the 3 of us played on the beach for a while. We noticed how Pierre was quite skinny and he wore small orange Speedos. He was very sandy when he got out of his ditch so he had to wash it off, the sand was everywhere.

The 3 of us walked up the short track from the beach to the car park where there was an outdoor shower on a post. It was not a shower block, just a single shower head on a post in the middle of the small park. It was just what we needed to wash the sand off. I went first , but I only had to wash my legs and hands. Maggie was a little sandier, so she just stood under the shower head for a minute or so. Pierre was next to use the shower. The three of us were just casually talking about school and probably joking about Louise and Bruce who seemed to be getting very friendly with each other. We joked about them while they were away.

I vividly remember what Pierre did next. It was the oddest thing…. He just turned on the shower and peeled down his speedos as if we weren’t even there! I was standing in front of him just talking to him when he did it. Maggie ran around to be by my side to get a better look.
We were speechless!
I had never been so embarrassed!
Maggie just stared open mouthed.
Pierre kept talking as if nothing happened. He had the shower spraying down on his head and used both hands to wash out the sand. He slowly turned 360 degrees, so we saw him from all sides. The water trickled over his head and shoulders, down over his little nipples, over his tummy, down his skinny little bottom and down his smooth legs. His hips and ribs were very prominent, he had hardly any body fat anywhere.

Other people were walking past because we were just beside the main track down to the beach. I guess they must’ve thought he was much younger because nobody said anything. I wasn’t really paying any attention to other people anyway, my eyes were totally on something else! It surprised me that was he was totally hairless below his head and his penis was so tiny. I didn’t know anything about cold water shrinkage but I had seen much younger boys bits before and his was much smaller than any of the little boys I had seen before. It just poked out from his groin under an inch long and his little wrinkly scrotum was up tight to his body. I knew boys generally started puberty a little later than girls, but even Maggie at 13 was well ahead of poor little Pierre.
The next thing he did just blew my mind. He casually pushed back his foreskin and flicked little bits of sand out of that area. His little pink knob barely poked out from between his fingers as he pushed back the skin against his body. He even pushed his hips forward to help wash the sand off. Then he spent some time meticulously picking off a few more bits of sand from his little pink knob.
We were in shock!
He was just carrying on talking as normal.
The sight of this naked boy with the little willie was etched into my mind forever.
After two or three minutes he washed out his speedos. Just then, Louise and Bruce came back around the corner from the shop with the lunch.

Louise angrily yelled something to him in French, he answered in French. I didn’t know what she said but I knew she was very angry with him. He immediately wrapped his towel around his waist and went quiet.
As we sat down on the grass with our chips and drinks, Louise yelled at him “You are 15”…. “and a half” he added cheekily.
“OK, 15 and a half, whatever! You can’t go around naked any more. You’re way too old for that, and they don’t do that in Australia”. He apologised to us girls about what he did, I really don’t think he was some type of exhibitionist or weirdo. He just didn’t think public nudity rules applied to him.
Pierre seemed to get embarrassed now, and tried to explain “I thought it was only, umm, when I’m older, or bigger boys that must cover up”. He thought it was only when puberty starts that he must cover. He was very unhappy and had a red face now. He knew he was a late bloomer but didn’t really seem embarrassed about it. Later, Bruce quietly took him aside and said “Mate, just don’t go flashing that little thing anywhere. It’s just not allowed here”. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t know”. he replied.

The five of us met many more times at the beach that summer and Pierre always stayed covered. He always wore very small speedos so Maggie and I were always reminded what was inside.

Later, after the holidays, and we were back home in Sydney, we stayed friends with Louise and Pierre. They lived only a few suburbs away, so we saw them quite often. Over the next year or two, Pierre changed his name to Peter and put on some weight. He turned into quite a nice young man.

[Mattheus]

Beautiful story, I believe it 100% - it was very European of him it’s a pity the other parts of the world are so prudish, he was not ashamed until you guys told him to be - that’s the reason why teens and grown-ups lack body self-consciousness

[Underdoggy]

Good story. I'm not sure about feeling embarrassment being in that situation, I thought you might have felt something more of disgust or shock from seeing him do that in public rather than embarrassment.
And it seems your sister Maggie didn't feel embarrassed at all if she ran up to be beside you to get a better look.

Beautiful story, I believe it 100% - it was very European of him it’s a pity the other parts of the world are so prudish, he was not ashamed until you guys told him to be - that’s the reason why teens and grown-ups lack body self-consciousness

It seems many English speaking countries of the British commonwealth (Australia is among them) and also America tend to be more conservative towards nudity compared with their continental European counterparts. Reminds me of the fim 'Euro trip' which makes a great deal about this point, how America was founded by prudes from the British isles. I do wonder why that is.

Also, the way you insinuate European cultural norms towards nudity makes me wonder about:

The next thing he did just blew my mind. He casually pushed back his foreskin and flicked little bits of sand out of that area. His little pink knob barely poked out from between his fingers as he pushed back the skin against his body. He even pushed his hips forward to help wash the sand off. Then he spent some time meticulously picking off a few more bits of sand from his little pink knob.
We were in shock!
He was just carrying on talking as normal.
The sight of this naked boy with the little willie was etched into my mind forever.

The situation for the opposite gender. Attitudes may have changed nowadays, so it may be different now, but did European girls in the past also do the same or similar things in pubic to what Pierre did while showering? As in, would they publicly shower nude and would they be open minded or unashamed enough to pick sand out from or clean out their vag on a public beach shower with complete strangers walking past? I'm not sure that for bystanders, a girl doing something like that publicly would feel much more disgusting and shocking than a boy publicly cleaning his willy in the manner that Pierre did, as he seemed to have absolutely no qualms about it. And it seems other people on that beach didn't seem to care, was anybody grossed out or did you see anyone else's reaction to him?

[NickTwisp]

At age 15 with a relatively small penis apparently Pierre just didn't care of various beach-going onlookers saw him naked. And it is possible that Pierre actually liked having strangers realize that he was 15 & still had a small and almost hairless penis.

[Mattheus]

Also, the way you insinuate European cultural norms towards nudity makes me wonder about:

The next thing he did just blew my mind. He casually pushed back his foreskin and flicked little bits of sand out of that area. His little pink knob barely poked out from between his fingers as he pushed back the skin against his body. He even pushed his hips forward to help wash the sand off. Then he spent some time meticulously picking off a few more bits of sand from his little pink knob.
We were in shock!
He was just carrying on talking as normal.
The sight of this naked boy with the little willie was etched into my mind forever.

The situation for the opposite gender. Attitudes may have changed nowadays, so it may be different now, but did European girls in the past also do the same or similar things in pubic to what Pierre did while showering? As in, would they publicly shower nude and would they be open minded or unashamed enough to pick sand out from or clean out their vag on a public beach shower with complete strangers walking past? I'm not sure that for bystanders, a girl doing something like that publicly would feel much more disgusting and shocking than a boy publicly cleaning his willy in the manner that Pierre did, as he seemed to have absolutely no qualms about it. And it seems other people on that beach didn't seem to care, was anybody grossed out or did you see anyone else's reaction to him?

Yes, but not at 15 – at most 9‑10, at least from what I have witnessed. I suppose it's because girls mature much earlier.

[Mattheus]

At age 15 with a relatively small penis apparently Pierre just didn't care of various beach-going onlookers saw him naked. And it is possible that Pierre actually liked having strangers realize that he was 15 & still had a small and almost hairless penis.

and a half

[Boris_P]

Oh, poor Pierre! I wonder if he’d ever seen his friends or classmates naked, and if he realised he was a late bloomer. I would think probably not - he must have thought everything was quite normal, and therefore no problem if people happen to see.
I’m thinking back to when I was that kind of age, and although some of my friends were quite late developers (details available if needed!) I think we were all quite some way ahead of Pierre.

[Dario_me]

The situation for the opposite gender. Attitudes may have changed nowadays, so it may be different now, but did European girls in the past also do the same or similar things in pubic to what Pierre did while showering? As in, would they publicly shower nude and would they be open minded or unashamed enough to pick sand out from or clean out their vag on a public beach shower with complete strangers walking past? I'm not sure that for bystanders, a girl doing something like that publicly would feel much more disgusting and shocking than a boy publicly cleaning his willy in the manner that Pierre did, as he seemed to have absolutely no qualms about it. And it seems other people on that beach didn't seem to care, was anybody grossed out or did you see anyone else's reaction to him?

I grew up in Italy in the 1990s. It was common for a child to change into a swimsuit in public or shower naked at the beach, but only until the age of 10 or 11. By 15, you were considered far too old to do that.
There wasn’t really a double standard in that context; I saw peers of both genders naked.
Some kids were just more or less embarrassed than others.