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.
Dearborn Public Schools. 1966-1971. Boys swam nude.
I was around in the 60s and no one I knew swam nude in public pools. I had swimming lessons in the mid-60s, used pubic pools and lakes and seaside. If it was 2-3 guys at a remote lake, we’d swim without clothes. Always used a swimsuit - as did everyone else - in all other locations and certainly in pubic pools.
No, was true.
When I was in high school we had to shower after gym, naked of course. This was during the 60’s and had been the schools practice for a long time. The only drawback I saw was if you were a late bloomer, you were probably picked on. I saw a few boys in tears. For the girls it was optional, whether to shower or not.
Explains most perplexing things.
I went to public high school in the early 60s and yeah, we all wore just a smile.
Wait, you're supposed to wear clothing under a seatbelt? Hmm...that explains that last traffic stop...
Born in '52. Learned to swim in '56 at the Y. Suits for everyone.
When I was in skool, they had a deal with the local WMCA to use their pool. There was no nude swimming allowed there.
My parents sent me off to a summer camp for a month, and they required bathing suits at all times except one day a week. The once-a-week “skinny dipping” was only in the evening.
I often wonder if there were people hiding in the woods with cameras waiting for the little boys to show up.
Ooops, that is YMCA.
Why? Because too many gym teachers were homos and pedos. Too many scoutmasters and church youth group leaders were, too. The only reason the boys swam naked while the girls didn’t was because the lesbians who taught girl’s gym and swim weren’t out of the closet yet.
How did they miss using that chant in their protest marches? “OUT OF THE CLOSET AND INTO THE LOCKER ROOM!”
I enjoyed the freedom of swimming naked. The neighbors didn’t seem to like it as they chased me out of their pool.
Lived in Southern NJ, very few schools had pools. If I recall AC High School and Holy Spirit HS. had swim teams.
Most people look terrible in the nude!
Imagine if every time you went out, like just to the grocery store or wherever, and most everyone was sans clothing :-/
I would just stay home and have walmart deliver all my stuff... I do that now... because I’m lazy.. lol
normalizing public nudity would be unpleasant...
I figured that was it....Thanks...
Back in Arizona, gym class did not include swimming.
Everyone was taught to swim in their neighborhood pool. No naked swimming.
I learned to swim so well that I passed the required MIT swim test freshman year—the first and only time I took it!
Wait until she finds out that both girls and boys shot guns and bows’n’arrows for target practice in pubic high schools up until the 70s.
Well, yeah. I was just pointing out that it wasn't universal.
And yet at Cornell University in Ithaca, just down the road from Binghamton, passing the 1970 Freshman physical fitness requirement included swimming two laps (out and back) in the university pool ... naked.
Central High School is now Cardozo Education Campus in Washington, DC. The world turns.
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