Is Communal Showering Really That Bad?

I had escaped communal showers. Growing up I had avoided them studiously. At campgrounds or swimming lesson or birthday parties at the pool I had always found ways to avoid using them, or at the very least avoid using them naked. In the lead up to middle school I had feared that I would finally be put into a situation where they could not be avoided. Every account and depiction I had seen of middle and high school gym class included explicit and implied communal nudity. It had terrified me, but like the rapture the day of doom never arrived. My gym teacher never so much as mentioned showering even as an option. At the time I was relieved and what had been the only real dark cloud on my horizon seemed to have evaporated for good.

And yet, the communal shower facilities still existed. Without a teacher to force me to use them they never seemed as threatening. I had however underestimated something even more powerful than the authority of a teacher, peer pressure. As the years wound on avoiding communal showers was usually not difficult. School never required them. Boy scout camps had them but the scout leaders never dared require us to use them (though on rare occasions it was suggested). Normally this was not a huge issue. Most camps were only a few days and a kid at camp doesn't exactly need to be at his Sunday best, so it was possible to just cake on the deodorant and hope nobody was direct enough to call you out for the reek. However as I got older this got harder for two reasons. One, as I grew, the hygienic consequences of not showering were growing. Summer camp was a week long and no amount of swimming in the lake undid what my body was creating. The second reason was that it was clear I was avoiding it, and to my friends this was a problem in itself.

The first clues of what was to come came in 7th grade. When I had joined Boy Scouts in 5th grade my friends were both less developed and no less shy than I was. However by the middle of middle school, they had started to grow up. Both in terms of their need to shower and their willingness to do so. As I was avoiding the showers I did not see exactly when or why their behavior changed, but at some point while I was still avoiding them, they started showering together. Maybe it was because they were playing sports, something I avoided. Maybe it was because they had older siblings who showed them the way, maybe there personalities made it easier for them. Whatever the reason, some of them started showering. At first this didn't really affect me. A novice showerer isn't going to pressure others to join them. No that takes the confidence of veteran. By the time I was in 8th grade they were veterans and they knew me well enough to know I was avoiding them. I noticed a shift in their attitudes. Whenever they first started showering it was just something they did. But after a year it became brazen and social. One of my best friends would never shower alone. He would always walk around the camp trying to recruit people, at least 2 others, to join him. I was asked many times, and while he could never force me to go, he noticed I always demurred.

The longer I refused the more the pressure mounted, and in classic invasion of the body snatcher style, my other friends started to one by one succumb. Summer camps, while still fun were also becoming a gauntlet. How was I going to get through without showering? How would I be able to concoct excuses my friends would find both novel and convincing? Since their were becoming more explicitly aware of what I was doing it wasn't going to be easy.

The first summer camp after my 8th grade year was a service camp on historic and scenic Mackinac Island in the Straights of Mackinac in northern Michigan. There is an 18th century British fort there and every summer about 90 Boy Scouts would serve as guides at the Fort. We lived in a large 2 story barracks. Bunk beds on the top floor and dinning room, kitchen and bathrooms on the ground level. The showers here were not communal, but stalls with double sets of curtains. Even this I found uncomfortable but as the peer pressure from my friends remained unrelenting I decided that finally giving in would be a tolerable half measure. I wouldn't actually be seen naked and my friends would no longer be able to claim I avoided showering with them.

Once I had been caroled into the shower group, the other guys and me headed into the 6 stalled shower area. Having planned ahead, I hung my towel and clean boxers on the hook directly next to my shower curtain. and turned on the water. It was a bit touch and go to adjust the water temp while standing in the spray rather than outside the curtain. My friends were already deep in banter and I joined in only when they asked, apparently checking in to make sure I had not slipped away at the last moment. However they were my friends after all and the banter was a nice distraction. I was feeling pretty good and pleased. I had taken a good, needed shower and probably placated my friends demands. Satisfied and ready to move on I turned off the water and reached for my towel and boxers, to find an empty hook.

At first I assumed it had merely fallen to the floor and without even look out from behind the curtain I traced my hand down to the floor to find it wet bare tile. Poking my head out to find out what had happened, I saw my friends all leaning out of their stalls, grins on their faces. "you stuff is over there" they said, motioning to my towel and cloths, in a pile 10 paces away in the laundry room. I went from feeling that I had thread the needle perfectly to all my worst fears cornering me in that stall. At first I beseeched them, but I knew this would be of no avail. Then I reached over the grabbed the towel of someone else, not one of my friends but a scout from a different troop I did not know well. A 12 year old little boy who left his stall to shout at me naked to return his towel. Knowing my friends prank gave me no claim to his property I tossed it to him, my last life line sundered. I decided to just close the curtain and wait. Like a siege, eventually they would have to relent and leave. They couldn't wait forever. Granted other scouts were likely to use the showers, there being a constant in and out. However the new scouts would not be my friends and not be intent on seeing me naked so at least I could retrieve my towel un scrutinized. I was started to resolve myself to this situation.

Then something happened I never would have expected. As a stood there dripping wet in an oversized tile coffin with a cheap plastic curtain lid, I asked myself "is it really that bad if my friends see me naked?" I never had had a specific fear about being seen, I was just terrified of it.....but why? They were my friends, and prank aside I knew they valued my company and friendship. Standing there cold and slowly dripping dry, I really couldn't think if any reason why it should matter. It could all be over with in a second and there wasn't actually any cost other than ignoring my fear. I took a deep breath and opened the curtain. Either my friends had great patients or my internal tumult made me think far more time had passed, because they were all still leaning out of their stalls awaiting my exit. They saw me naked, and nothing bad happened. They had a good laugh and I dried off. The rest of that week I showered with them every day (sometimes more than once). There was no more hiding and changing in the stalls and many times the conversations we had while in our stalls carried one as we dried off together around the bench that centered the room. Later that summer at a different camp with true communal showers, knowing the naked cat was out of the bag, I had no trouble showering with my friends. To my great and pleasant surprise, it was a tremendous bonding experience and ultimately touched me deeply enough.