Culture Shock in the Shower

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

When I arrived, I was assigned a room and a roommate, and
given a tour of the floor, including the location of the bathroom. I knew the
floor was coed, with both male and female students, but I didn’t draw the
obvious conclusion. I didn’t think about it—I just assumed there was also a
women’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 with
three 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 his
teeth. No crowds.

Then came the first day of classes. I had an early class, so
went in to get ready. I walked in the door and heard the shower running, and I
peed at the urinal. Then I brushed my teeth, and as I was rinsing, I heard the
shower stop, and somebody come out. I looked over, and, holy shit, it was a
girl. Stark naked, reaching for a towel, which was hanging from a hook on the
wall. I don’t mean she was doing the fake drop-the-towel thing. I mean she was
making absolutely no attempt to cover herself. She smiled and introduced
herself. I responded as best I could, then tried to look away without being
rude. 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 left
the bathroom.

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

The next morning, I decided that I really needed to take a
shower. So I swallowed hard and decided to man up, act German, and not worry
about 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 shower
in history.

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

I didn’t want to be rude. I didn’t want to be a stupid
American with stupid hangups, so I told her it was ok, even though it really
wasn’t. Quick as a flash, her robe was off and she was in the shower, walking
by me to the shower head next to mine. I faced the water, but she could see
everything. She wanted to talk. Her name was Tanya. She was from a small town
outside Leipzig. I was from Cincinnati, which is in Ohio, which is in the
middle of America. She was a political science major. Etc., etc. I wanted to
get out of there, but it would have been rude to ignore her. I couldn’t even
face away from her while she was chatting-- that would have been rude too. So I
gave in. When in Germany, do as the Germans do, so I faced her and we talked
for 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 class
on Tuesday and Thursday, so a couple of days later, the same scene played out
again. I had just gotten into the shower when she joined me, and we chatted. It
almost seemed normal.

Then came the first big surprise. She was very obviously
looking at my dick. “Your penis is circumcised,” she said. She had never seen a
circumcised penis before, and wanted to know if it was ok if she looked. She
was 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 during
sex, and all sorts of matter-of-fact questions. I waited for her to ask if she
could 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 a
big 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 to
masturbate?” she asked.

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

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

As I thought about it later, I wondered if she had been
punking me. Maybe she was setting me up to do something stupid so that
everybody could make fun of the stupid American wanker. I didn’t know what was
going on, so I consulted my roommate. He didn’t understand what I was worried
about. Everybody masturbates in the shower. Don’t Americans do that? I assured
him that Americans do, indeed, masturbate in the shower, but only if they are
absolutely positive they are alone. He shook his head. Stupid Americans with
stupid hangups.

I still wasn’t convinced until a couple of days later. I
went 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 finished
washing, soaped up his hand, got himself hard, and began to wank, as if it were
just part of his normal shower routine. It only took a minute or two before he
gave a little grunt and shot his load. He used his foot to push the jizz down
the drain, rinsed the soap off his dick, turned off the water, and left. Holy
shit.

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 what
needed to be done, right there, where anybody, male or female, could have
walked in. Nobody did.

I was still shy about doing it when somebody was there with
me, but I was willing to do it when I was alone, even though I might get walked
in on. One day, I was in the shower with a girl and another guy, and, sure
enough, the guy jacked off right there in front of the both of us. That sealed
the deal – I was sure that it was socially acceptable. Next day, Tanya and I were
in 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 looked
forward 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 there
were a couple of times when I thought that a guy or gal had joined me in the
shower just to look at it. Truth be told, I took more showers that really
necessary, a couple of times choosing my opportunities when I knew that a girl
would be with me. By the end of the semester, I’d showered with every girl on
the floor, and all of them had seen me jacking. What fun!