Norwegian students have stopped showering after school gym class. Is this a problem in Finland as well? I’m curious about Finnish culture surrounding nudity as I suspect this is a problem in Norway based not primarily in social media, but our culture surrounding nudity.
38 comments
Get a job.
I remember some students not showering after gym class in the late 90s – early 00s, a smelly minority back them but it happened. Not sure how are things now in schools, but I think our sauna culture (always naked unless in a public sauna that has house rules saying otherwise) does make us more ok with nudity than most other cultures.
I don’t think anyone ever even brought a towel with them. For some reason showering was never an option. This was like 10-20 years ago.
“Onks pakko mennä suihkuu jos ei tullu hiki”
In 90ies nobody used the shower on boys side. This was mitigated by the school by putting all gym classes to the end of the day.
I didn’t shower after PE because I’d always get bullied for my size. I feel like many non-showerers are like me. Nudity might be more accepted in Finland, but grade schoolers will always find a way to be mean to others.
My experiences are from a long time ago, of course, but I recall the only time I skipped showering after gym class was if I was heading home afterwards – taking a shower at home after my brief commute on foot was preferable to the rather dismal communal showers we had at school.
Most of us usually didnt since we didnt have towels or anything and there wasnt much time anyway. So just use some deodorsnt and take a shower when you get home or later in the evening.
My dad said that in the 80s most people did shower after gym class.
I don’t think it’s about nudity. It’s also about the fear that people will judge and take pictures/videos of you. There has been several cases of people taking pictures of others in dressing rooms and making fun of them. Not to forget there has also been lots of cases of people secretly recording especially young girls in dressing rooms.
This is one of the main reasons I don’t publicly take baths.
I am an American living in Finland, in my high school years I never once showered after Gym glass.
To each his or her own. No need to make it an issue.
Your body your choice.
I never showered after gym class. Yes I had poor hygiene but I was also bullied a lot so getting naked in front of the whole class was like asking for insults.
Some people sweat more than others and odor comes differently from person to person.
Me I don’t sweat much and all my life others have remarked on that fact. I also had a coach that would sit with a desk and pad to check and write down who showers and who did not in the boys locker room. That alone was the simplest reason not to shower, I was super shy in my high school days so there you go.
A quick wash in the sink and off to class.
One more note: my last 3 years of high school i had a second period gym class. A few hours from showering at one class then back again. It was a waste of time and a saving grace not to be looked at by some middle aged guy with a pen and paper.
At 13 14 15 16 years old the mind is still forming so there is that.
I think this is not a true problem, but normal teenage issue. Specially young girls are very sensitive about their bodies. But nudity in Finland is a lot open than in most countries. Sauna is one place where everyone goes together without issues, but showers can be bit different.
90s and early 2000s PE was always last thing of the day in my schools so people just showered at home
First grade to Third people showered then after it seemed weird
Seems like everyones experience is very similar to Norways then. I would have assumed your sauna culture would have made a little difference. Is anyone aware of similar research done in Finland as whats presented in the article?
My experience from the 90s to early 2000s is that many started showering while wearing underwear in their early teens and then when we moved onto high school nobody cared and we were back to showering in the nude.
In middle school, none of the girls showered after PE (at least in our class and I heard that lot of others didn’t shower as well). It was probably mostly because of body insecurity and I didn’t shower because no one else did. Nobody wanted to be the first to strip down among other judgy teenagers.
This was around 2000-2010.
In my experience its been 50/50 whether people shower or not. Usually its not a problem because the ones who don’t want to shower aren’t doing much in class so not really sweating either
We did French showers, meaning quickly rinsing underarms in the sink. It was more wanting to get out quickly than not wanting to be naked. It was either lunch or end of school day after PE, I wasn’t going to waste my precious free time in the school premises any longer than necessary.
bruh they don’t even have showers in my school
Just started “lukio” so pretty fresh info.
All my teachers said that we needed to shower, but 99% of people just put some deodorant on and went to the next lesson
I think most adults and children couldn’t care less but for teenagers it’s sensitive. Other teens can be pretty mean to them and say awful things about their bodies, and then there’s the fear of being filmed. When I went to school the popular girls with the “right” kind of bodies (skinny and curvy) showered but the rest of us didn’t.
On boys side most went to shower 20 years ago on my group – except me.
I never went into shower early 2000s with others due to shyness and early puberty 4th-9th grade. It usually meant I had to wait for everybody else to shower before me, but I didn’t want to completely skip shower as I sweat so much. I did sometimes regardless.
I started being naked around others again after primary school when I had grown up enough.
Norwegians not showering? Not a finnish problem. Sweeds not showering? Not a finnish problem. Russian not showering? Not a news.
We definitely showered. If gym class was the last class of the day it wasn’t obligated as you could shower once you got home.
I remember the teacher forcing us to ask a friend to borrow their towel had we forgotten our own.
Skipping out could get you a mark.
First week two guys tried getting out of it by telling the teacher that they “didn’t even sweat”. So he told them to go for a run until they broke sweat as they “clearly hadn’t given enough during class in that case”
Don’t remember it ever being really awkward or a problem but there was definitely this unspoken rule of who goes first (cool kids) etc
In Hong Kong we didn’t take any showers after PE class, even with the hot and humid climate over here.
Well it’s more because of the lack of downtime between classes rather than a hygiene issue.
The smell was tolerable, I don’t remember it being THAT bad.
In Finland we have this thing called
”Onko pakko mennä suihkuun jos ei tullu hiki?”
We didn’t even have showers when I was in elementary school
generally i wouldn’t shower after gym as it was usually the last class of the day
Yes, atleast 95% of my classmates always showered after class, me included. I’m stunned how common it is/was not to. Sure, people were insecure about their bodies even in my school days (born in 1992) but I think people who reeked of sweat would have gotten bullied a lot worse.
I rarely showered after gym, but that was because gym usually was last class in the school so I went home and showered there. Though I dont think it would have been that wierd to shower either because I had seen all of the boys and some of the girls naked in sauna anyways.
From 3rd to 6th grade it was mandatory to shower if the PE class was in the middle of the school day, that almost never happened because the classes were planned so PE is the last class of the day. Grades 6-9 no teacher cared.
Me and few boys wanted to shower 80-90 it made us feel more fresh and girls of course liked it too.
And my penis was small, not the smallest but small and i did not really care.
Wtf do people shower after the gym class?
My son, in 5th grade, says no one is his class showers after gym. But it is an international class, so I guess there are more cultures forming the classes social norms.
We showered in 90s and early 2000 if the school continued after the gym class. If it was the last class, I went to home for shower. I don’t remember anyone being bullied in shower or anything like that…
In my school, you didn’t have to go to shower if it was your last glass of the day, but otherwise you had to.
Some people skipped it (also me, because I was REALLY conscious about my body)
I remember the pe teacher was there in the changing room few times, to make sure everyone used shower. I think this was about 10 years ago
I think it’s not right to make kids or teens get naked in front of each other. School is for kids what workplace is for adults. No one could make adults take their clothes off in front of their coworkers.
I don’t understand why schools can’t have the same kind of shower cubicles that gyms have.