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.
Gym teachers make the rules. Which explains a lot.
Urban legend?
I have to wonder what % of schools had swimming pools then and now.
FReegards
This is why you home school.
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.
Y - M - C - A - ! .........................
This was even before the hippies entirely took over the state.
Some legislator introduced a bill in Montpelier to outlaw skinny dipping.
Mostly conservative Republican Senator Aiken returned from Washington just to testify regarding this bill.
He stood before the legislature and asked any who had never skinny dipped to please raise their hand.
No hands were raised.
The bill failed.
Except for on public beaches, it is still legal to skinny dip in Vermont.
I learned to swim summer after 1st grade in a public school indoor gym, in the 1950s. There were two classes operating at the pool at the same time, separated by a rope across the pool. All the “little boys”, like me at one end of the pool, and older boys, 6th, 7th and 8th graders at the other end. All of us were naked, no swin suits allowed. Funny, at the time I thought nothing of it and none of it bothered me.
Then they went to the speedo suit.... it was for a brief time..
The word gymnasium comes from the Greek root Γυμνός (gumnos), which means “nude”.
from the article, it seems the main point of concern by those in charge was the material of bathing suits getting into the pool filtration system, killing the motors.
around the 60s, materials changed and the requirements seem to have as well.
of course, this doesn’t mean the public school pedos weren’t enjoying the show along the way.
Middle school...Binghamton NY 74-75...we swam in bathing suits. High school 76-80...same!
Here in Florida Panhandle we get at least one or two Euro-tourists every year who are unaware that there is no nude sunbathing on the beaches.
The Sheriff’s Deputies politely tell them to put their bathing suits back on............
I can confirm that this was the rule at least through the sixties.
my older sisters convinced our mother to send me to our local parish Catholic school (without a pool) to avoid this.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but I suppose that was a blessing.
Funny, I had forgotten.
I did in high school in the 70s.
It seemed to be particularly in force in NY State. Maybe its an old progressive thing, maybe its because NY was a maritime state - but they really pushed public swimming, and swimming tests on all students.
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