Posted on 08/21/2024 8:10:54 AM PDT by Red Badger
I was catching up with my uncle recently, and he dropped a story that had me questioning everything. It was so wild, I thought he was pulling my leg. When he kept insisting it was true, I even wondered if Uncle Toby had a touch of dementia. But nope, Uncle Toby’s sharp as ever, and his story was 100 percent real.
So, what had me so floored? We were talking about schools and sports, and Uncle Toby casually mentioned that when he was in high school back in the 1950s, all the boys had to swim nude.
Uh, excuse me, what?
Yup, you heard that right. Uncle Toby said during gym class, the boys and girls were separated. The girls swam in bathing suits, but the boys? They swam totally naked. I was like, “Uncle Toby, what kind of crazy school did you go to?” And he swore it was a regular public school, adding that most schools in the US did the same thing until the 1970s.
I mean, come on, right? You can see why I thought old Uncle Toby was off his rocker. This sounded completely insane. So, naturally, I had to do some digging. And guess what? Uncle Toby was spot on. Up until the 1970s, American schoolboys were swimming in the buff at public schools across the nation.
Now, the burning question is, “Why?” Let’s dive in, shall we?
I stumbled upon this fascinating article titled “When boys swam nude in gym class” from the Democrat and Chronicle:
“When you got into high school, and you used the pool for gym, they had these rules and everybody had to follow them,” Reeves recalled of his days at Charlotte High School.
No running on the deck. No horseplay. No diving in the shallow end. Take a shower before swimming. Swim naked. No chewing gum…
It may be inconceivable to anyone under 50, but nude swimming was standard for high school boys in Rochester and in many American cities and states until at least 1970.
Yes, to a Millennial like me, this concept sounds completely whacko.
But that still didn’t answer the burning question: Why were young boys forced to swim in the buff around each other and, more importantly, around their adult male teachers? I had to get some insight from Uncle Toby. So, I asked him, “Why were schools enforcing naked swimming?” He dug into his dusty memory archives and tentatively suggested it might have been about maintaining cleanliness.
“Cleanliness?” I shot back. “Then why were the girls wearing swimsuits? If it was about hygiene, shouldn’t everyone have been suitless?” I felt like Jessica B. Fletcher, ready to crack open a “Murder She Wrote” mystery. But I could sense Uncle Toby’s growing frustration. He flatly said, “Bella, don’t ask me to make sense of this nonsense. When the government tells me to wear a seatbelt, I just do it without questioning.”
“Fair enough, Uncle Toby,” I replied, “but if they ever ask you to wear a seatbelt without your clothes on, I hope you ask why.” With that, I ended the call and dived into my investigation, determined to uncover the “why” behind this peculiar practice.
It turns out I wasn’t the only one baffled by the naked swimming. Just like Uncle Toby, the boys forced to swim naked were also totally confused. The Democrat and Chronicle piece took a deeper dive into this bizarre chapter of school history.
“It was the weirdest thing in the world,” recalled Chuck Napieralski, 67, who graduated with Reeves from Charlotte in 1968. “You can just imagine standing there in a line with your hands across the front hiding yourself. Once you got to the pool you just jumped in.”
Well, upon closer inspection, I was starting to realize that once again, old Uncle Toby might have been onto something.
It turns out that this rather bizarre tradition of boys doing the breast stroke in their birthday suits can be traced all the way back to 1885, when it began at an all-male indoor pool in Brooklyn’s YMCA. The kicker is that this decision to introduce nude swimming was driven by concerns surrounding the wool swimsuits and how the fibers collected dirt and bacteria, posing a potential threat to health and the pool’s filtration system. After that, the rest is basically “history,” as the Democrat and Chronicle piece explains:
In 1926, the American Public Health Association published the first guide for swimming pool management. It recommended men swim nude and women wear suits “of the simplest type.” Those guidelines remained until 1962.After that, it was a matter of custom. Andrew Saul, a nutritionist and author from Rochester, wrote of swimming nude at Charlotte High School as late as 1970.“Back dives were especially revealing,” Saul wrote in his 2003 book, Doctor Yourself.Perhaps school administrators thought nude swimming built cohesion between young men. Maybe it did. Few activities foster solidarity like man-to-man defense in a naked water polo game.
And if young boys were looking for some comfort and support from advice gurus like Ann Landers, they were outta luck. Back in 1974, a 15-year-old boy wrote to Ann about how uncomfortable he was taking showers in front of others, and her advice was not exactly “comforting.”
“You need to talk to a school counselor and learn why you are so uptight about being seen naked. If you look around you’ll find the vast majority of the guys who are showering are not in the least bit self-conscious.”
Apparently, Ann was into tough love and some other weird stuff. However, based on his age and the time frame, this kid probably didn’t have to swim in his birthday suit, but if Ann’s response was at all symbolic of the time, clearly, there was not a lot of sympathy or concern about these kids being forced to swim around like “Free Willy.” It might make for some rather strange dinner conversation, but if the topic comes up, find out if anybody in your family had to swim around like a frat boy after a wild kegger.
Needless to say, this was a very strange time in US public schools.
Till next time, be wickedly wonderful.
“Pedophilia and homosexuality barely existed as a public threat to nude boys.”
That’s because perverts valued their life and limb in those days! Rougher times shall we say.😎
Grad in 1969. No suits were optional. My dad was involved in public school phys Ed(but not aquatics). He stated that because some kids might not have resources. This was the days I think before the welfare inundated free this free that free lunch. Maybe so. I thought it odd but very rare that I saw a kid swim without trunks—maybe one or two. Not common.
According to the many posts here it was a ‘thing’, just not in your area...............
I’m glad my school didn’t have a pool.
My Jr. High had an indoor swimming pool and high dive platform.
Never bothered me. Nothing to be ashamed of.
Didn’t bother me in Boot Camp either...
I may not be aesthetically pleasing in the classical sense, but it turns out I have very little body modesty too...
The Greeks used to work out “gymnos”... or naked. Boys and girls... It isn’t like it is without precedent in certain Civilizations.
Remember watching Heaven Help Us, growing up in NYC, parochial school.
He also said if "Mr. Happy" started to perk up, as is apt to do for teenage boys, there were required to get out of the water and hang a towel on it. And when the towel dropped they could get back in the water.
I didn't believe it, but he swore it was true. And much like the post, apparently it was a thing in some places.
My high school didn’t have a pool, but girls could get out of gym class during their periods. I had an aunt who hated gym class so much, she pretended to be on her period every week and never got caught. I’m guessing girls probably got out of swim class during “that time of the month.”
I think in England it may be normal to swim in the nude. I was at a hotel pool (in the US) recently, and some young kids were swimming in the nude. A hotel employee went up to their mother and told her that kids were required to wear bathing suits in the pool.
Probably. I started swimming when Eisenhower was president and never heard of anyone being required to swim nude, at least in California. Maybe this was a custom in other regions.
I graduated from a major midwestern university in 1965 and took a PE class there called “Intermediate Swimming” that was taught inn a pool that was 7.5 ft deep at the deep end and the same a the shallow end. It was an all male class and we did it in the buff.
My high school didn’t have a pool, but girls could get out of gym class during their periods
If only Carrie went to your high school.
Buffalo WMCA. Late 50’s. Totally nekkid...
Used to skinny dip back in the day.
I have a 40’ pool in my back yard that’s obscured from the neighbors by trees. Never have to worry about drying out a wet swim suit.
Our high school didn’t have a swimming pool but when I took swim lessons at the YMCA in the fifties, we were all nude. Including the instructor,
Sweet!!!!!
This must be an old story:
“It was the weirdest thing in the world,” recalled Chuck Napieralski, 67, who graduated with Reeves from Charlotte in 1968.”
I am 75 and I graduated in 1967 at the age of 18...If this story is recent, this guy graduated at the age of 11....
It was how I swam at Highland Park High School just north of Chicago 69-70.
We all waited until summer when "the pools" were open and even then, the closest one to Roslindale was Brighton.
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