(This is a completely fictional story, of course.)
This may come as a surprise, but not too long ago communal showering was considered a long-dead tradition. It was not that long ago that the idea of a group of random people casually showering naked in front of each other would have been considered an insane idea.
There is actually quite a story behind the normalization of communal showering. It all began with summer camps. In fact, with one single camp. It was not a fancy or special camp; it was just an ordinary summer camp. But after getting a new head of staff, it began. (For clarity: they were pro-nudity advocates, but they did want to normalize nudity. Their main objective was making convenient nudity socially acceptable. Convenient nudity refers to situations where nudity is undoubtedly preferable, such as swimming or showering.) As this was “back in the days,” they of course couldn’t just instantly start full-on communal showering. So they started making slow progress towards the goal.
The first thing was the removal of most rules punishing nudity. Clothing would no longer be required in most places. This was needed to first allow nudity. But of course, most young campers will still regard public nudity (even if allowed) as a really embarrassing thing. With some rare exceptions, they wouldn’t even consider showering naked in front of other campers.
The staff needed a way to make communal showering mandatory, or at least to incentivize it. But there was no way they could do it with their time’s prudish narrative, at least without a pretty strong excuse. But then they realized something: the main reason communal showering was ever a thing in summer camps (other than public nudity not being considered shameful) was that there were simply not enough resources for private showering. They realized that they just needed to covertly destroy the possibility of affording private showering, and then they could just pretend that they “have no other option.”
The second, although smaller, but still important realization, was that to destroy the prudish narrative, they just needed to use the same tactics (implicitly) the prudish used (explicitly). That is: being (at least seemingly) fiercely confident in what they are saying, while pretending it’s common sense. When the prudists called it “traumatizing to children,” they said that it’s a completely healthy, ordinary thing. When prudists called it “leftist degeneracy,” they said that it’s actually traditional. When prudists called it “reactionary/far-right backwardism,” they said it’s scientific and compassionate. The best thing is that they never needed to lie.
This is the theory behind it, but how did it go down? Surprisingly (even for an avid advocate of nudity) well. They first obviously needed to create the excuse, so while summer was still months away, they started renovating the showers. But they “accidentally” broke a pipe. This could normally be fixed for a relatively small chunk of money, but this was not a normal pipe system. It was really old and not well-maintained, so instead of momentarily fixing the single pipe, they started renovating the entire pipe system. Now, that’s a pretty long project to start when summer is coming in some months.
It was a few weeks before summer, and almost all of it was completely done… except for the showers. The staff’s showers, the outdoor (post-swimming) shower, and a single “big” (usually used as the previous one) shower room were done, but the other showers weren’t. In fact, most of them had already been converted to storage rooms.
And then the campers started arriving. They didn’t dare to jump straight to their ideal end goal. Instead, they still just took one step, but one big step this time. They announced that due to the lack of showers, a new showering schedule will be introduced to the new showers. Girls had to shower between 7:00 to 7:30 and 20:30 to 21:00, while boys had to shower between 7:30 to 8:00 and 21:00 to 21:30. Or more accurately, the other gender was not allowed during that time in the shower room. Communal showering between the same sex was achieved, without any real backlash (most parents instantly accepted the staff’s reasoning, and campers really couldn’t do anything except whining).
Here comes a genius step: outside of those time frames (7:00 to 8:00 and 20:30 to 21:30), anyone (independent of sex) could shower in there. This may seem like just an unimportant fun fact, until you realize how easily most campers could miss these time frames, and thereby be indirectly forced into unisex communal showering. On the first few days, all campers made sure not to miss the schedule, but then it increasingly started happening.
But before we go further, how exactly did the campers react to sex-based communal showering? Well, some were okay with it from the start, but most just quickly got used to it. For those who continually complained, the staff in a kindhearted manner told them that they should be less “self-conscious.” Although sometimes accused of being manipulative, this did help give the complainers a new perspective, which quite effectively made them okay (often even strong supporters) of casual nudity.
As time passed a bit, people just got used to casual nudity inside the camp. The staff helped this by first making nude activities which could be voluntarily attended (e.g.: naked swimming), then increasingly incentivizing attendance, and after most people got used to it, making it mandatory or “semi-mandatory.” Semi-mandatory refers to something that is technically voluntary, but mandatory in practice. The staff had a lot of ways to achieve this. For a basic example: when they went nude swimming, they wouldn’t make nude swimming mandatory, but they would force the campers next to the water, where they could either continue quietly and motionlessly watching their peers have fun, or join them. And by quietly and motionlessly, I do literally mean not talking a single word and sitting in a single position.
And after nudity was basically completely normalized, they made their final move: the showers are now totally unisex, unisex nude swimming is mandatory, and other nudity is encouraged almost everywhere. They played their game so well that, besides a few disapproving comments, they got no real backlash. In fact, they started the trend, which is now introducing communal showering in schools and basically everywhere.
(This is a completely fictional story, of course.)
This may come as a surprise, but not too long ago communal showering was considered a long-dead tradition. It was not that long ago that the idea of a group of random people casually showering naked in front of each other would have been considered an insane idea.
There is actually quite a story behind the normalization of communal showering. It all began with summer camps. In fact, with one single camp. It was not a fancy or special camp; it was just an ordinary summer camp. But after getting a new head of staff, it began. (For clarity: they were pro-nudity advocates, but they did want to normalize nudity. Their main objective was making convenient nudity socially acceptable. Convenient nudity refers to situations where nudity is undoubtedly preferable, such as swimming or showering.) As this was “back in the days,” they of course couldn’t just instantly start full-on communal showering. So they started making slow progress towards the goal.
The first thing was the removal of most rules punishing nudity. Clothing would no longer be required in most places. This was needed to first allow nudity. But of course, most young campers will still regard public nudity (even if allowed) as a really embarrassing thing. With some rare exceptions, they wouldn’t even consider showering naked in front of other campers.
The staff needed a way to make communal showering mandatory, or at least to incentivize it. But there was no way they could do it with their time’s prudish narrative, at least without a pretty strong excuse. But then they realized something: the main reason communal showering was ever a thing in summer camps (other than public nudity not being considered shameful) was that there were simply not enough resources for private showering. They realized that they just needed to covertly destroy the possibility of affording private showering, and then they could just pretend that they “have no other option.”
The second, although smaller, but still important realization, was that to destroy the prudish narrative, they just needed to use the same tactics (implicitly) the prudish used (explicitly). That is: being (at least seemingly) fiercely confident in what they are saying, while pretending it’s common sense. When the prudists called it “traumatizing to children,” they said that it’s a completely healthy, ordinary thing. When prudists called it “leftist degeneracy,” they said that it’s actually traditional. When prudists called it “reactionary/far-right backwardism,” they said it’s scientific and compassionate. The best thing is that they never needed to lie.
This is the theory behind it, but how did it go down? Surprisingly (even for an avid advocate of nudity) well. They first obviously needed to create the excuse, so while summer was still months away, they started renovating the showers. But they “accidentally” broke a pipe. This could normally be fixed for a relatively small chunk of money, but this was not a normal pipe system. It was really old and not well-maintained, so instead of momentarily fixing the single pipe, they started renovating the entire pipe system. Now, that’s a pretty long project to start when summer is coming in some months.
It was a few weeks before summer, and almost all of it was completely done… except for the showers. The staff’s showers, the outdoor (post-swimming) shower, and a single “big” (usually used as the previous one) shower room were done, but the other showers weren’t. In fact, most of them had already been converted to storage rooms.
And then the campers started arriving. They didn’t dare to jump straight to their ideal end goal. Instead, they still just took one step, but one big step this time. They announced that due to the lack of showers, a new showering schedule will be introduced to the new showers. Girls had to shower between 7:00 to 7:30 and 20:30 to 21:00, while boys had to shower between 7:30 to 8:00 and 21:00 to 21:30. Or more accurately, the other gender was not allowed during that time in the shower room. Communal showering between the same sex was achieved, without any real backlash (most parents instantly accepted the staff’s reasoning, and campers really couldn’t do anything except whining).
Here comes a genius step: outside of those time frames (7:00 to 8:00 and 20:30 to 21:30), anyone (independent of sex) could shower in there. This may seem like just an unimportant fun fact, until you realize how easily most campers could miss these time frames, and thereby be indirectly forced into unisex communal showering. On the first few days, all campers made sure not to miss the schedule, but then it increasingly started happening.
But before we go further, how exactly did the campers react to sex-based communal showering? Well, some were okay with it from the start, but most just quickly got used to it. For those who continually complained, the staff in a kindhearted manner told them that they should be less “self-conscious.” Although sometimes accused of being manipulative, this did help give the complainers a new perspective, which quite effectively made them okay (often even strong supporters) of casual nudity.
As time passed a bit, people just got used to casual nudity inside the camp. The staff helped this by first making nude activities which could be voluntarily attended (e.g.: naked swimming), then increasingly incentivizing attendance, and after most people got used to it, making it mandatory or “semi-mandatory.” Semi-mandatory refers to something that is technically voluntary, but mandatory in practice. The staff had a lot of ways to achieve this. For a basic example: when they went nude swimming, they wouldn’t make nude swimming mandatory, but they would force the campers next to the water, where they could either continue quietly and motionlessly watching their peers have fun, or join them. And by quietly and motionlessly, I do literally mean not talking a single word and sitting in a single position.
And after nudity was basically completely normalized, they made their final move: the showers are now totally unisex, unisex nude swimming is mandatory, and other nudity is encouraged almost everywhere. They played their game so well that, besides a few disapproving comments, they got no real backlash. In fact, they started the trend, which is now introducing communal showering in schools and basically everywhere.
If she’s really PN she’ll get used to it, no worries. It’s just showering.