Swim class changing rooms growing up - a different double standard?

[purgethestop]

This is not a work of fantasy - this is actually how I grew up. Did you have any similar experiences?

Where you were expected to be naked without being embarrassed in some situations? While at the same time live covered up without ever showing a bit of skin, not even in your own home? And were made fun of or scolded if you even dared venturing to the bathroom in just your underwear?

Background: my family was very catholic, as was almost everyone around me. Nudity was extremely frowned upon.
This was so ingrained in my brain that I'd put up a fight to keep my pants or shirt on even on a mediterrenean beach on a hot summer day.
Any form of skin exposure - from playing outdoors shirtless to taking pants off to change for PE - made me extremely embarrassed and uncomfortable.

Despite this, there seemed to be a double standard for kids, especially before puberty, especially for boys.

Here's the first example. Let's talk about K-5: once a week a school bus would pick our class up and drop us off to the town pool, for swimming lessons.
It was a school activity, so our teacher was with us. And our teacher was responsible for us the whole time we were not in the water.

And no, this is not another story about boys swimming naked, there was none of that where I am from.
What we did have, however, was a very old pool with 4 changing rooms: 2 for boys, and 2 for girls. Why 2?
One was normally reserved for schools or large groups, but otherwise closed.
The other one was what all the other patrons would use.

This last changing room used by all patrons looked like a long corridor, a long bench on one side, 2 or 3 private changing cubicles, together with a set of hair driers that required quarters to be used, with the door leading to the pool at the end.

But with the school, we used the first one. A pretty small room, probably 12' by 12' with no lockers, and just a bench going around the perimeter.
We'd leave our bags there at the start of the lesson, change into swimming trunks, and then back there and change at the end of the lesson.
Boys would go in one room, girls in the other.

And this turned out to be the problem: how could a single teacher watch and help kids when using two separate changing rooms? The school simply set up rotations for parent volunteers to help.

Every week we'd have 2-3 moms in our changing room to help us dry and get dressed.
The teacher - a female a bit older than my mom - would also spend most of her time in the boys' changing room, helping as well, as... you can imagine, when left without the teacher, we'd often end up horsing around and making a mess, despite the moms there. The girls were much better behaved, so the moms' supervision was enough. But not for us boys.

In K, this was not much of a problem: when arriving, the moms and the teacher would help us get naked, and get our trunks on one kid at a time. When leaving, they'd get us naked once again, dry us off, and then help us get dressed. A nice, well oiled pipeline.
And they weren't shy to touch our genitals through a towel, or leaving us standing naked while they took care of one boy or another, helped us find our clothes in our bag, or holding our underwear while we put our legs in. And bear with me: some of those moms didn't even have boys. Some where the mothers of our girl schoolmates who just happened to volunteer. As dads almost never helped, and as some volunteers participated more than others, parents were assigned to one changing room or the other as needed.

With my upbringing I was of course red as a beet for the whole time, not knowing what to do or how to react, struggling to say a yes or a thank you when some of those moms tried to start a conversation or even asked some basic questions, always wondering if I should try to cover up or hide myself as taught at home, and if I was being rude when my body was showing.

What still startles me is that this arrangement did not change at all as we grew up: in 5th grade, it was still the same thing. Standing there naked with a bunch of women chatting, drying us down there, or helping us in and out our underwear. At times even commenting on our growth or asking questions about our family "how is your mom doing", "I haven't seen your sister in a while", "look at you how you've grown up".

What baffles me even more is that this was considered totally ok by everyone involved. It was something the school district was ok with. The teacher was ok with. All parents were ok with. Even my family was absolutely fine with it, despite the strict rules at home. It's just how it had always been done in our tow. I tried to complain with my parents through the years, but they didn't even engage in those conversations, they pretty much just dismissed me.

Even when I got older it was perfectly fine to them for an 11 year old to spend time naked in front of his teacher, or being manhandled by some other random mom while getting dressed.

So... I ended up accepting it, despite never getting over my embarrassment. And I did like going to the pool, to the point that once in middle school I signed up for some afternoon classes, always at the same pool, where it turned out the arrangement was slightly worse.

I also remember a crush I had on this girl in my class, and visiting her place thinking of how often her mom had seen me and touched me while naked.
But both are stories for a different post.

[Cfh]

Thanks for telling your story, it is very interesting to me. Would like to hear more.

[CuletCat]

Thanks for sharing the experience. I remember being "supervised" like that and it stopped when I was 5 or 6... but being seen naked by your teacher or random mothers still at 11 is wild. I totally relate to your embarrassment, I would've been blushing the whole time.

When and where did this happen, if you don't mind telling?

[Jonjon2]

I had a similar experience when I was a little older as I wrote about in an earlier post:

viewtopic.php?p=44412#p44412

[NickTwisp]

I can understand the need for such assistance up to about age 7 perhaps. Beyond that, a 9–11-year-old boy should be able to undress & put on his swimsuit unassisted. Having an age 10-11 guy required to appear naked in front of various Moms or his teacher is wrong. At that point the monitors could have just stood outside the door, ready to intervene if a disturbance broke out.

Thanks for a very interesting account. It truly is an example of the double standard. Also, a reflection of the attitude that a pre-pubescent 11-year-old would not be embarrassed to have various women see him naked.