Was CH Horsham Designed to Be Gay?

[ben ashton]

I repeat: tw@t

[Chrissie Boy]

I very much fear that our friend Mr Ashton may just possibly be a humourless imbecile with a small and entirely literal mind.

Which is just the right sort of mind for an American, but not quite the thing for a Brit.

Did Mr Ashton really learn nothing whatever in all his years at CH about relating to his fellow human beings?

Just because he doesn't grasp where Spoonbill is coming from, it doesn't follow that Spoonbill is a tw@t.

And I can't imagine Spoonbill calling anyone a tw@t on this board. even if they are one.

Which is to say, I can't imagine him calling Ben Ashton one.

[englishangel]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/itn/20080521/v ... af341.html
For some reason this seemed appropriate to the thread.

Not quite sure why you think it appropriate but funny all the same.

[Spoonbill]

So is Mr Ben Ashton saying that he can see an entirely sensible and non-gay explanation for doorless toilets, curtainless changing cubicles, partitionless showers and bathtubs-in-full-sight? After all, such phenomena don't occur under their own steam, so somebody took a definite decision to inflict them on young, malleable boys.

In old-style US military barracks, the latrine-blocks featured rows of toilets without partitions between them, but the idea with that was to get the squaddies accustomed to dumping next to each other so that they'd be okay about doing the same thing whilst out on exercises or in a theatre of war. But I can't see there'd be a similar motive at CH.

If you're gay, Ben, rest assured my thread was never intended to be offensive to gay men. It's just that I was mightily perplexed the first time I espied those quaint old exhibitionistic facilities....and all these years later, I'm still perplexed. Maybe the school archivist knows what the thought was behind the horror.

[englishangel]

I think you will find that history was behind all this. I think most if not all boys schools were like this.

[jhopgood]

It may well be a function of when the buildings were constructed.
My primary/junior school was built in the 1890's and the toilets in the playground, were open to the weather, apart from the seated facilities, and they had no doors. There was a wall in front, so there was a bit of privacy, but not much.
Bit like the old toilets in the Art School Car park.
The girls had a different playground, so I have no idea what their toilets were like. Too busy playing football, I'm afraid.
I'm pretty certain the school was not designed to be gay, if it was, it failed miserably.
As probably has CH, if the statistics were done.

[michael scuffil]

I said it further up this thread, and I'll say it again: put adolescent boys together and exclude them from contact with girls, and they'll have sex with each other (or many of them will). This is not "gay" sex, which implies preferring boys to girls. I know plenty of OBs of my generation who took time to get used to girls, but only one who is gay (he's a Catholic priest). One might also consider Bryan McGee's memoirs. He admits to numerous sexual escapades with boys, but finished his CH career having a full-blown affair with a nurse (good pull there, Bryan).

The design of the facilities is totally irrelevant. What is more interesting as a social phenomenon is the curious bashfulness of the young these days. This has been remarked upon not infrequently in various places. One of the memories of my first day at CH is walking into a changing room and finding myself surrounded by stark naked adolescents. I gather this would not be so these days -- or am I wrong?

[englishangel]

I believe you are right, and you would probably be arrested.

[jhopgood]

The design of the facilities is totally irrelevant.

Entirely agree.

Maybe the thread should be renamed "Red Herring", although I am sure there are many other competing threads.

[blondie95]

The design of the facilities is totally irrelevant.

Entirely agree.

Maybe the thread should be renamed "Red Herring", although I am sure there are many other competing threads.

I too agree, i have read this thread and have tried not to comment. I think we need to remember the difference is the social aspects of each era who were at the school. When these open showers etc were there the society were not so privacy/ own space / protection of the young etc aware as we are now!

And for those that have commented about the fact of having boys alone together with no females will naturally experiment-has anyone thought this this maybe was the same with the girls? And is it not important that young people are aware of others, their bodies etc?

This is just my opinion

[jhopgood]

Isn't it wonderful how Common Sense, which was reputed to be dead, was merely lying dormant.

[michael scuffil]

The design of the facilities is totally irrelevant.

Entirely agree.

Maybe the thread should be renamed "Red Herring", although I am sure there are many other competing threads.

I too agree, i have read this thread and have tried not to comment. I think we need to remember the difference is the social aspects of each era who were at the school. When these open showers etc were there the society were not so privacy/ own space / protection of the young etc aware as we are now!

And for those that have commented about the fact of having boys alone together with no females will naturally experiment-has anyone thought this this maybe was the same with the girls? And is it not important that young people are aware of others, their bodies etc?

This is just my opinion

The thought had of course crossed my mind. But there are two points here (not unrelated):
Bryan Magee in his memoir puts it down (in the boys' case) to basic gender-specific physiology (to put it bluntly: build-up of semen). And the interesting Hertford memoir (Away from the Bombs and the Boys) suggests that a certain sort of lesbian attachment was so normal and accepted as to be in practice institutionalized/ritualized. Such attachments were common enough at Horsham, but could get you into serious trouble. If talked about at all, then either very quietly, or in a ribald fashion.

[J.R.]

I was very recently talking to a very attractive lady who has spent time in H.M.P Holloway.

Some of the 'stories' she told me lead me to believe that if you deny opposite sex companionship the obvious will occur.

[jhopgood]

I was very recently talking to a very attractive lady who has spent time in H.M.P Holloway.

Some of the 'stories' she told me lead me to believe that if you deny opposite sex companionship the obvious will occur.

Are we to conclude that all HMP's were designed to create homosexuals?

[J.R.]

Apparently not.

She readily admitted that 'close-relationships' made the time pass faster.

She IS a happily married woman !