Culture Shock in the Shower

When I was in college, I took a junior year semester inGermany, staying in a dorm at a university in the area that had been, untilrecently, the country of East Germany. I had learned some German from mygrandparents, so I could communicate fairly well. There was more than oneculture shock. The first was that there was a beer vending machine in thelobby. The others were, shall we say, more consequential.

When I arrived, I was assigned a room and a roommate, andgiven a tour of the floor, including the location of the bathroom. I knew thefloor was coed, with both male and female students, but I didn’t draw theobvious conclusion. I didn’t think about it—I just assumed there was also awomen’s bathroom somewhere. Silly me.

The bathroom was not surprising. Much like my American dorm,there were two toilet stalls, a urinal, two sinks, and an open shower withthree shower heads, like in a locker room. The first few times I went in there,I was alone, except for one time there was another guy at the sink brushing histeeth. No crowds.

Then came the first day of classes. I had an early class, sowent in to get ready. I walked in the door and heard the shower running, and Ipeed at the urinal. Then I brushed my teeth, and as I was rinsing, I heard theshower stop, and somebody come out. I looked over, and, holy shit, it was agirl. Stark naked, reaching for a towel, which was hanging from a hook on thewall. I don’t mean she was doing the fake drop-the-towel thing. I mean she wasmaking absolutely no attempt to cover herself. She smiled and introducedherself. I responded as best I could, then tried to look away without beingrude. Did I mention she was stark naked? She chatted politely for a minute or two,then finished toweling off, put her robe on, and left the bathroom.

I decided that maybe I didn’t need a shower that day. I leftthe bathroom.

Later, I told my roommate what had happened. He wascompletely nonchalant. He shrugged. “There’s only one bathroom,” he said. Whatdid I expect? Stupid American with your stupid hangups.

The next morning, I decided that I really needed to take ashower. So I swallowed hard and decided to man up, act German, and not worryabout who else might be in the bathroom. I went in and was, mercifully, alone.I hung up my towel, turned on the shower, and tried to take the quickest showerin history.

That didn’t work. As soon as I turned on the water, I heardthe bathroom door open, and a few seconds later, a girl appeared at the showerentrance. I am, of course, naked, and I quickly faced away, but she spoke. Shesaid something like “Is it ok if I shower with you? I know Americans getembarrassed, so if you want, I’ll wait.”

I didn’t want to be rude. I didn’t want to be a stupidAmerican with stupid hangups, so I told her it was ok, even though it reallywasn’t. Quick as a flash, her robe was off and she was in the shower, walkingby me to the shower head next to mine. I faced the water, but she could seeeverything. She wanted to talk. Her name was Tanya. She was from a small townoutside Leipzig. I was from Cincinnati, which is in Ohio, which is in themiddle of America. She was a political science major. Etc., etc. I wanted toget out of there, but it would have been rude to ignore her. I couldn’t evenface away from her while she was chatting-- that would have been rude too. So Igave in. When in Germany, do as the Germans do, so I faced her and we talkedfor two or three minutes and I made a great effort to look at her face.

It turned out that Tanya and I were in the same early classon Tuesday and Thursday, so a couple of days later, the same scene played outagain. I had just gotten into the shower when she joined me, and we chatted. Italmost seemed normal.

Then came the first big surprise. She was very obviouslylooking at my dick. “Your penis is circumcised,” she said. She had never seen acircumcised penis before, and wanted to know if it was ok if she looked. Shewas very polite and waited for me to grant permission, then she looked. Boy,did she look. She was asking me questions about when the circumcision was done,whether it hurt, and what it felt like, what happened to the foreskin duringsex, and all sorts of matter-of-fact questions. I waited for her to ask if shecould touch it, but she didn’t.

I bet you can guess what happened. I grew a raging boner,and there was nothing I could do about it and no way to hide it. There it was,right in front of her, with her looking right at it. She didn’t comment. Not abig deal. She finished her examination, looked away, and resumed her shower.Then she turned to me with the second big surprise. “Aren’t you going tomasturbate?” she asked.

What did she just say? I was stunned. I don’t remember whatI said. My brain had pretty much turned off by that point. Then she told methat the men usually masturbate when they have erections in the shower. Didn’tI need to?

I don’t remember what happened next, except that I didn’tmasturbate, at least not then.

As I thought about it later, I wondered if she had beenpunking me. Maybe she was setting me up to do something stupid so thateverybody could make fun of the stupid American wanker. I didn’t know what wasgoing on, so I consulted my roommate. He didn’t understand what I was worriedabout. Everybody masturbates in the shower. Don’t Americans do that? I assuredhim that Americans do, indeed, masturbate in the shower, but only if they areabsolutely positive they are alone. He shook his head. Stupid Americans withstupid hangups.

I still wasn’t convinced until a couple of days later. Iwent to take a shower and there was another person already there. It was,mercifully, a guy. So I nodded hello, went in, and began to wash. He finishedwashing, soaped up his hand, got himself hard, and began to wank, as if it werejust part of his normal shower routine. It only took a minute or two before hegave a little grunt and shot his load. He used his foot to push the jizz downthe drain, rinsed the soap off his dick, turned off the water, and left. Holyshit.

I’d always been less shy about wanking than most other guys.I’d done it with friends when I was younger. So after he left and I was alone,I decided to join German culture. I took matters into my own hands and did whatneeded to be done, right there, where anybody, male or female, could havewalked in. Nobody did.

I was still shy about doing it when somebody was there withme, but I was willing to do it when I was alone, even though I might get walkedin on. One day, I was in the shower with a girl and another guy, and, sureenough, the guy jacked off right there in front of the both of us. That sealedthe deal – I was sure that it was socially acceptable. Next day, Tanya and I werein the shower together and I worked up my nerve and did it while she was there.She just kept chatting, like nothing unusual was happening.

It wasn’t long before I gave up all shyness and lookedforward to a public wanking. It can be a lot of fun doing it with others around.I think that Tanya had told people about my circumcised dick, because therewere a couple of times when I thought that a guy or gal had joined me in theshower just to look at it. Truth be told, I took more showers that reallynecessary, a couple of times choosing my opportunities when I knew that a girlwould be with me. By the end of the semester, I’d showered with every girl onthe floor, and all of them had seen me jacking. What fun!