Coaches

Bingo. Adults have to watch very carefully being in a one on one situation with a person that is a minor.

I commented though earlier about the situation where all the coaches and football players were soaking wet and it was below 50. Very few of the guys normally showered at school waiting to get home. Not this night though. No one wanted to ride the trip back home soaking wet and very cold.

But ALL the coaches wanted a shower, not just one. That changes everything. With SEVERAL adults taking showers due to weather circumstances, that made it a safe situation for all.

Landon, we have discussed this issue before. When checking the threads this morningthat I have commented on, this one came up as there were new posts. Then, the above sentence caught my eye. It is THIS sentence that caught my eye. (I use the topic notification system and check my e-mail for new responses to things I have posted on in the past.)

It is not unusual that you don't wish to be in the nude with your dad, Lots of dads and sons are that way.

It is not unusual for some teen guys to want to bond with coaches including taking showers together.

I finally found the disconnect that was troubling me just this morning. I haven't known any other poster here who as a teen wanted and needed to shower with coaches and other older mentor father type guys and yet had no desire to have that same kind of bonding with their dad.

Bottom line is that most guys seem to be the same for both dads and coaches etc. Either they want and or need that bonding with both coaches and dads or they don't want that kind of bonding with either. That makes you different from most young posters here.

Though you are 18, you haven't gone through graduation exercises yet. Your coaches are still older adult mentors "father type figures, not casual friends of yours. I am much older than you, but I have never been in the context of being your teacher or coach. We are equals here. That makes a major difference in how you and I view things. It is a matter of relationships.

Your situation is not wrong. It is unusual for most guys your age at least here at the LPSG. That is all I have to go on - what guys your age have said here in the past. This is not a subject that I have discussed with the guys in my church youth group. That would be awkward for me for sure and probably them as well.

It is easy to see as you write about your parents that you love them dearly and you have that unconditional love from them that many teens don't have. You are blessed in that regard. In the end, that is what is most important.

I have been in sports throughout most of my teens and adult life either as a player or coach. I am 35 and was in high school some 20 years ago. I never saw a coach naked or changing. I don't think I would have thought it odd if I did. It just never happened. As our moderator pointed out very clearly, teachers/coaches must follow a very strict code in order to protect themselves. I think the adult is far more vulnerable to accusations of abuse than the minor is vulnerable to some type of abuse. Being naked together doesn't connote bonding. I have plenty people in my life that I am very connected and bonded to that I have never seen naked or have been naked.

I was a swimmer during High School and spent hours in a speedo and in the showers with other guys and coaches. Although I don't remember any coaches showering with us, I wouldn't have found it odd.

Personally if my football coach came into the shower with us we'd all probably stare. Because he's so straight laced and down to business.

This thread got me thinking: at our gym there are students and there are teachers; it is possible one or more from either group from the same school could find themselves in the showers at the same time. That would be interesting. Has anyone ever heard of such a thing?

One year in high school, my gym coach used to shower with us because he taught health class next and didn't want to smell. I didn't think anything weird about it but I did see it as great jackoff fantasies because he was just out of college all american baseball player with a nice cock.

And to answer cocktail weenie regarding seeing student or coach in a non-scholastic school setting. I haven't seen a coach but I did see my doctor in the shower a few times while at the gym. That was weird the first time, he came around the corner, I was already showering, we both looked shocked, glanced at each others junk (he's seen mine plenty so it was good to see his), then chuckled nervously a bit, shook hands and small talked while showering.

The sad thing is back then before I was born men did shower after gym class but they found it to be worng that kids would be picked on. Its a shame maybe if we did shower growing up we would not be so ashamed of our bodys growing up. I do know that in my high school the football and baseball players would shower it was a must.

When I was in school IF a coach had done this, not a word would have been said about it. I don't remember it ever happening, just saying if it did.

Today, since everything is sexualized, everyone is suing... well is it any wonder people communicate thru the internet (too much)?

I play football in college right now. And when I want to bond with my coach we do it on the field when he's yelling commands and instructions. We do it on game day when he's telling us what we need to hear to win. We do it at a team dinner. We do it in the lockerroom while he's giving a speech. We do it regularly. I can't for the life of me find out WHO would want to bond with their coach in the showers.

I wouldn't want to shower with my coach. And if I had to, I don't think there would be much bonding. We'd just wash, maybe talk some shit, crack a few jokes and go home. How can you bond in the shower.

"Bonding" with your coach in the shower is exactly what I'm sure turns into improper situations or statutory rape. I'm quite comfortable bonding with my coach in regular coach-player situations. Showering with him would probably NOT include bonding. I don't bond with teammates in the shower either. Maybe in the locker room, but in the shower...meh.

This is going to be a long reply.
A few provisos--I've been a teacher and coach for almost 30 years. I agree with an earlier post that the teacher/student relationship often mirrors a child/parent relationship. I also happen to be gay, and have never in any way had an inappropriate relationship (or even fantasy of such) with a student, any more than most parents would consider such a relationship with their own child.

This is both a sociological and generational issue. Prior to the 1960's, when we lived in very sexually repressive society, things that involved hygiene, like showering after gym class or practice or using a public restroom, were not seen as being sexually charged by most people. As we have become a much more sexualized society (and the advertising media is most to blame for this, using sex to sell everything from beer to cars to deoderant) we have come to see almost any situation as a sexually charged one. Thus the replacement of the "troughs" that many of us older guys will remember being typical in men's rooms years ago with the "vanity boards" present in almost all public restrooms now.

As for the generational issues, most of the WWII generation lost any shred of modesty when they were serving in the military. Since this was such a common experience, this carried over when so many of those veterans returned home, many of them becoming teachers and coaches, who carried over the hygiene training they were exposed to in the military into their roles as teacher/coaches. Thus, most kids growing up in the 50's, 60's, 70's, and even early 80's, were expected to shower after gym or practice. Most of us overcame the first few embarrassing experiences of being smaller or less hairy than the upperclassmen, or even the deathly embarrassing untimely erection, without permanent psychological damage.

I had a PE teacher in junior high in the early 70's who always showered in his own shower while we showered in the communal shower, but if we happened to walk into his office to ask a question, was very comfortable with his own or our nudity. This actually helped many of us to become very comfortable with our own bodies. This was furthered by the frequent faculty/student pick up basketball games that would take place after school, after which everyone would shower together. This all seemed very normal to us, and was helpful to many of us to see the diversity of body shapes and sizes, and body parts shapes and sizes, without seeming self-consciousness.

When I began teaching in the early 80's, there actually was a well-respected college coach who publicly endorsed the coach/student common shower concept, because he felt it did help with team bonding. I coached at several different schools, and my decision over whether or not to shower in the coaches room or the team shower was always based on one simple issue--which had the best shower with the most power and hot water. At one school, kids used to actually beg to shower with the coaches in the coaches room because the shower was so much better.

In the mid-80's (as the increasing "sexulization" of everything was in full swing) there were also a series of lawsuits by parents who felt that their children were being permanently psychologically scarred by these mandatory showers (the roots of the "wimp generation" to some of us old timers), mostly based on the parent's own painful memories or discomfort with body issues. At about the same time, there seemed to be an increase in claims of sexual assaults by adults in many professions against kids. This led most schools to drop mandatory showers, and teachers and coaches to go to great lengths to prevent even the appearance of impropriety. This was also when many schools adopted policies that went to ridiculous extremes - no teacher could meet alone with any student; no teacher should make physical contact with any student in any way. When I think back on my own experience of countless hours alone with a math teacher who patiently answered the questions I was too embarrassed to ask in front of my friends during class, or the supportive pats on the back I got from many other teachers, I think we have definitely lost a lot from the student/teacher relationship under these rules.

I would not even consider showering in the same room with any student nowadays, and that may be a loss in the bonding area. But the real loss has been that kids don't shower with their peers, and have developed even more unhealthy attitudes and self-consciousness about their bodies as a result. Instead of having the opportunity to see the usual range of human development and endowment, the images that kids now use to compare themselves to is primarily from porn, which is more likely to only show very-well endowed men. This only serves to make most kids have even greater self-esteem and body images.

Sites like this can be a great support for well-endowed guys. I'm only average myself, so always wondered if I was "adequate" (average is never good enough) and have a bit of envy of most of you guys. But, I also have many well-hung friends who talk about being embarrassed when they were in school because they were too big. I do wish we could return to to a time when kids could just experience the similarities and differences that are part of human development as a normal part of growing up.

Sorry to be so long-winded.

That didn't stop them watching, at least at my school. They used to eagle eye us in the shower "to make sure we got properly clean". I have to assume that they wouldn't dream of doing so these days, which I think is sad, not so much because I think adults should be watching kids showering, but for what it says about our society.

I did very occasionally get to shower in the teachers' shower, with a teacher present, but that wasn't the norm.

The school I went to had private showers for the coaches in a separate area away from the students.
The coaches often were in the locker room area when we would be showering but not necessarily.

Like the post above, coaches' showers were always separate from the students. My ole high school has a wrestling program ranked in the top ten of the State of California and the coaches never showered with the guys.

I guess a few reasons might be:

1) They don't get as dirty as the boys
2) The lockeroom and showers carry such a puerile and immature aspect to them that an older adult would feel out of touch
3) School rules perhaps legislate that adults shall not shower with the students as a way as prevent charges