The naked truth

This story wants to be another chronicle of how our culture has changed. Kids today are “more sensitive” about body image, apparently because of “the media’s” obsession with “perfection,” so a great American tradition falls by the wayside:

As 500 or so teens gyrated at the Lake Oswego High School homecoming dance, administrators noticed what one described as a change in “the atmosphere.”

The football players had won the game, changed back into their street clothes and gone straight to the dance. No showers.

But they aren’t the only ones to blame for the malodorous environment in schools. It’s a rare student who showers after sports or gym classes these days. A quick dab of deodorant and a dousing of cologne or perfume, and it’s on to the next class.

Communal showers — the awkward rite of passage into puberty — are a thing of the past. In fact, Oregon schools haven’t required showers for at least a decade. The same is true nationally.

Students say they don’t have time to shower. Psychologists and educators say kids also are more sensitive about body image partly because they live in a world saturated by the media’s idea of perfection.

Nonsense. Let the kids deodorize and skip the shower, even if it gets a littley gamy in last-period history class.

I grew up in a culture in which privacy was highly prized. One of the most traumatic episodes of my life was my first shower after gym class at Central High School in Fort Wayne, where I was expected to get naked with about 30 other kids my own age, complete strangers. I don’t even know your names, and you’re about to see what I stopped letting my mother see 10 years ago?

By the time I entered the Army, I was over that and could get naked with the best of them. Then they sent me overseas, where the lack of privacy hit a whole new level. Think “outhouse.” Think “multi-user” outhouse. Think “no partitions.” Think “Hi, can you hand me that magazine if you’re done?”