My experiences in the junior high locker room
Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2025 3:00 pm
I always dreaded the locker room when I was in middle school and junior high. The move up to 5th and 6th grade meant we now had to wear gym clothes. And that meant changing every day in the locker room. That wing of my school was built in the mid-1970s and the boys' locker room had a cement floor, yellow lockers and tile on the bottom halves of the walls, and cold silver aluminum benches.
It also meant stripping down to our underwear. As near as I can remember, all the boys in my class wore briefs at that point. Fruit of the Loom was the most popular with the blue and yellow stripes on the waistband. Hanes with the red-lined waistband was the second most common. And since this was the late 1980s, some boys wore Sears briefs with a double blue line.
I had gained a fair amount of weight while in 1st grade ("husky" was the term used then) and after that I tended to be the teacher's pet. Then I got glasses before starting 5th grade. This earned me all kinds of torment which was often doled out in the locker room. I was teased for my weight and my glasses and being nerdy and whatever else the other boys could come up with in the moment.
Then the wedgies started. They became so frequent that I eventually submitted willingly to receiving one at the end of gym class on a designated day each week because it meant I was "safe" the other four days. So I feel thke the other boys saw more of my underwear than I did of theirs.
Now, I'll admit I did my share of peeking at the other boys while we changed. And something I observed was the way most of them had a more pronounced bump in the front of their briefs than I did. Now, don't get me wrong -- nobody had anything monstrous or anything. It's just that at a glance it was pretty clear they had something on the other side of that white cotton.
I'm sure some of it had to do with the fat pad I'd developed on my groin as a kid but I'd look in the mirror and barely noticed a bump in the front of my briefs. I thought I looked like a Ken doll and sometimes wondered, with my very full eyelashes, whether I could be mistaken for a girl at a glance if I was wearing a pair of girls' panties.
I don't remember the showers ever being on in 5th grade but they were definitely optional by the end of 6th grade. Then during 7th grade I was out sick for a few days and when I came back showers were suddenly mandatory.
The locker room was laid out such that when you walked in, you turned right to the lockers which were along the walls with another set on an island in the middle; left to an open space with the gym teacher's office on one side and the showers on the other; or straight ahead through another door to the boys' bathroom. So if you had a locker on the far wall, you had to cross all the way to the far side of the room to reach the shower. It also meant that anyone opening either door had a great view of anyone passing between the lockers and showers.
The shower itself was an open room with nozzles placed every couple of feet on three sides with one drain at the center. The area between the shower and the office had a hamper with clean towels and a hamper for used towels. And those towels provided by the service the school used had an oily smell and were thin, rough, and small -- practically hand towels. That might make it around the waist of a skinny 5th grader, but for a chubby 7th grader it barely went 2/3 around me.
So there was always this angst about how to do things. Now, if you had a reasonable amount of self-confidence, you'd strip at your locker, walk naked to the shower, get clean, get a towel, dry off, then walk back to your locker with the towel.
But no, not me. Now that everyone wound up naked, the one thing I came to realize before long was there were only two boys with no pubic hair in my class, and I was one of them.
So for me with my body shame and low self-confidence, I could not bring myself to cross the locker room naked. No, I had to strip to my underwear, go get a towel, bring it back to my locker, take off my briefs, then walk to the shower with the towel covering my front, find a place to put the towel since there was really no place to put it, then shower, get out, dry off while facing the wall, return to my locker holding the towel as best I could to cover myself, and get back into my briefs as quickly as possible.
Now, using both hands to hold this skimpy towel around me was pretty awkward. After some experimentation, I found I could put the towel around me and with one hand on my hip I could pin the two top corners to my waist which felt a little more dignified.
Well, one day I was crossing back to the locker side using this technique after a shower and the front corner popped loose allowing the towel to unwind. In the surprise I let go of the other corner so the towel fell to the floor behind me. This of course brought me to a sudden stop to bend over and collect it.
When I stood up again, I was practically face to face with another classmate. I took a step backward as I gathered my towel. He glanced at me and suddenly asked a question:
"Is it always that small?"
I would eventually learn that I'm a "grow-er" and not a "show-er" and again, my fat pad plays a part in that. But on this particular occasion, my penis was particularly retracted. And despite being circumcised (like all of my cohort, as near as I could tell) in this situation my foreskin remnant could (would, and did) roll over and envelope my glans.
My blood instantly ran ice cold.
When the boy asked, he wasn't especially loud -- and in retrospect he wasn't particularly mean about it either. But it was loud enough to get the attention of the other boys nearby, who gathered around to see what was going on. They rather naturally formed a semi-circle around me and I took another half-step back. That's when I realized I was nearly up against the side of the locker island and basically trapped.
So there I was, completely naked with my towel in my left hand, absolutely frozen in place, surrounded by about five other boys who were in briefs if not partially dressed. I could feel their eyes on my damp body, looking curiously at my stub of a penis. Comments like "wow", "that's small", and "is it always like that?" followed.
I stood there in a near panic, blushing with shame and feeling very inadequate, unable to look any of them in the eye. But at the same time, I felt a fluttering in my stomach and a tingling in my groin from the surrender of meekly leaving myself exposed to them. And that sensation down below made me suddenly worried my body would react by popping a boner right in front of them. All I could do was stammer.
That's when another classmate walked past. He took one look at me and said, "I heard it can do that when it's cold." Then he walked away.
That statement broke the tension of the moment. Everyone mumbled agreement that it WAS rather cold in the locker room that day and the group melted away, letting me slink to my locker and get dressed. The whole event probably lasted under a minute but every second felt like forever and it punctured my self-esteem in an entirely new spot.
Later though, I found myself fantasizing about it in the same way I did about being pantsed. Especially remembering the intensity of the moment and that feeling in iny my stomach and crotch. I've often wondered what might have happened without that unexpected intervention from my classmate.
It also meant stripping down to our underwear. As near as I can remember, all the boys in my class wore briefs at that point. Fruit of the Loom was the most popular with the blue and yellow stripes on the waistband. Hanes with the red-lined waistband was the second most common. And since this was the late 1980s, some boys wore Sears briefs with a double blue line.
I had gained a fair amount of weight while in 1st grade ("husky" was the term used then) and after that I tended to be the teacher's pet. Then I got glasses before starting 5th grade. This earned me all kinds of torment which was often doled out in the locker room. I was teased for my weight and my glasses and being nerdy and whatever else the other boys could come up with in the moment.
Then the wedgies started. They became so frequent that I eventually submitted willingly to receiving one at the end of gym class on a designated day each week because it meant I was "safe" the other four days. So I feel thke the other boys saw more of my underwear than I did of theirs.
Now, I'll admit I did my share of peeking at the other boys while we changed. And something I observed was the way most of them had a more pronounced bump in the front of their briefs than I did. Now, don't get me wrong -- nobody had anything monstrous or anything. It's just that at a glance it was pretty clear they had something on the other side of that white cotton.
I'm sure some of it had to do with the fat pad I'd developed on my groin as a kid but I'd look in the mirror and barely noticed a bump in the front of my briefs. I thought I looked like a Ken doll and sometimes wondered, with my very full eyelashes, whether I could be mistaken for a girl at a glance if I was wearing a pair of girls' panties.
I don't remember the showers ever being on in 5th grade but they were definitely optional by the end of 6th grade. Then during 7th grade I was out sick for a few days and when I came back showers were suddenly mandatory.
The locker room was laid out such that when you walked in, you turned right to the lockers which were along the walls with another set on an island in the middle; left to an open space with the gym teacher's office on one side and the showers on the other; or straight ahead through another door to the boys' bathroom. So if you had a locker on the far wall, you had to cross all the way to the far side of the room to reach the shower. It also meant that anyone opening either door had a great view of anyone passing between the lockers and showers.
The shower itself was an open room with nozzles placed every couple of feet on three sides with one drain at the center. The area between the shower and the office had a hamper with clean towels and a hamper for used towels. And those towels provided by the service the school used had an oily smell and were thin, rough, and small -- practically hand towels. That might make it around the waist of a skinny 5th grader, but for a chubby 7th grader it barely went 2/3 around me.
So there was always this angst about how to do things. Now, if you had a reasonable amount of self-confidence, you'd strip at your locker, walk naked to the shower, get clean, get a towel, dry off, then walk back to your locker with the towel.
But no, not me. Now that everyone wound up naked, the one thing I came to realize before long was there were only two boys with no pubic hair in my class, and I was one of them.
So for me with my body shame and low self-confidence, I could not bring myself to cross the locker room naked. No, I had to strip to my underwear, go get a towel, bring it back to my locker, take off my briefs, then walk to the shower with the towel covering my front, find a place to put the towel since there was really no place to put it, then shower, get out, dry off while facing the wall, return to my locker holding the towel as best I could to cover myself, and get back into my briefs as quickly as possible.
Now, using both hands to hold this skimpy towel around me was pretty awkward. After some experimentation, I found I could put the towel around me and with one hand on my hip I could pin the two top corners to my waist which felt a little more dignified.
Well, one day I was crossing back to the locker side using this technique after a shower and the front corner popped loose allowing the towel to unwind. In the surprise I let go of the other corner so the towel fell to the floor behind me. This of course brought me to a sudden stop to bend over and collect it.
When I stood up again, I was practically face to face with another classmate. I took a step backward as I gathered my towel. He glanced at me and suddenly asked a question:
"Is it always that small?"
I would eventually learn that I'm a "grow-er" and not a "show-er" and again, my fat pad plays a part in that. But on this particular occasion, my penis was particularly retracted. And despite being circumcised (like all of my cohort, as near as I could tell) in this situation my foreskin remnant could (would, and did) roll over and envelope my glans.
My blood instantly ran ice cold.
When the boy asked, he wasn't especially loud -- and in retrospect he wasn't particularly mean about it either. But it was loud enough to get the attention of the other boys nearby, who gathered around to see what was going on. They rather naturally formed a semi-circle around me and I took another half-step back. That's when I realized I was nearly up against the side of the locker island and basically trapped.
So there I was, completely naked with my towel in my left hand, absolutely frozen in place, surrounded by about five other boys who were in briefs if not partially dressed. I could feel their eyes on my damp body, looking curiously at my stub of a penis. Comments like "wow", "that's small", and "is it always like that?" followed.
I stood there in a near panic, blushing with shame and feeling very inadequate, unable to look any of them in the eye. But at the same time, I felt a fluttering in my stomach and a tingling in my groin from the surrender of meekly leaving myself exposed to them. And that sensation down below made me suddenly worried my body would react by popping a boner right in front of them. All I could do was stammer.
That's when another classmate walked past. He took one look at me and said, "I heard it can do that when it's cold." Then he walked away.
That statement broke the tension of the moment. Everyone mumbled agreement that it WAS rather cold in the locker room that day and the group melted away, letting me slink to my locker and get dressed. The whole event probably lasted under a minute but every second felt like forever and it punctured my self-esteem in an entirely new spot.
Later though, I found myself fantasizing about it in the same way I did about being pantsed. Especially remembering the intensity of the moment and that feeling in iny my stomach and crotch. I've often wondered what might have happened without that unexpected intervention from my classmate.