Nude swimming

In Western societies into the 20th century, nude swimming was common for men and boys, particularly in male-only contexts and to a lesser extent in the presence of clothed women and girls.

The widespread acceptance of naturism in many European countries has led to legal recognition of clothing-optional swimming in locations open to the public.

In Lancashire, working women and men bathed naked in the sea together in 1795: "Lower classes of people of both sexes made an annual pilgrimage to Liverpool where they dabbled in the salt water for hours at each tide in promiscuous numbers and not much embarrassing themselves about appearance.

"[13]: 11 At the beginning of the Victorian period in England, men and boys typically swam naked in the sea near bathing machines that were used by women.

[14] An 1842 review of seaside resorts noted that naked men in the sea were a primary attraction for visitors to Ramsgate, including women.

Francis Kilvert, an English clergyman and nude swimmer, described men's bathing suits coming into use in the 1870s as "a pair of very short red and white striped drawers".

An article published on August 23, 1891, in the Syracuse Sunday Herald suggests naked boys of up to 15 years in age were problematic for American parents with daughters, and read: A 'Bewildered American' writes to the London Standard that he can't take his little girl to play in the sand at a British seaside resort without her being surrounded by crowds of naked boys.

An English friend told him that they let their daughters play with naked boys of ten years of age, but draw the line at fifteen.

The dispute was finally settled in 1906 when mixed bathing was permitted with the proviso that both men and women should wear suitable swimming costumes.

[25] Since the early 20th century, the naturist movement has developed in western countries, seeking a return to non-sexual nudity when swimming and during other appropriate activities.

[26] In the late 19th to early 20th century, using tax revenue to provide public bathing facilities for working-class men was not politically popular in London, Ontario, while private establishments served the middle and upper classes.

Efforts to regulate nude swimming with laws against doing so during daylight hours did not prevent increases in incidents in the 1860s through the 1880s by laborers and boys.

The development of beaches in the Sunnyside district on the Lake Ontario waterfront marked the end of nude outdoor swimming.

No official reason for the practice was given, but some mention the problem in the early years of fibres from wool swimsuits clogged pool filters.

[34] Mixed gender nude swimming in lakes, rivers and beaches following WWI was part of the social liberalization in the Weimar Republic.

As towns such as Logan, Utah,[37] Humboldt, Iowa,[38] and Dixon, Illinois,[39] grew in the 1890s, the traditional locations became more visible to the public, and local ordinances were implemented prohibiting nude swimming, but were difficult to enforce, or involved very young children who were not punished.

[40] In 1907 Nashville, Tennessee, deputy sheriffs took no action to stop nude swimming by men and boys in the Cumberland River if they were outside populated areas.

It does state "Both boys and girls enjoy the thrill of swimming in the nude, so on occasion, suits may be discarded for the night plunge."

[47] Among the features of rural Vermont being overtaken by development in the 1970s, an editorial mentions the removal of forests that sheltered ponds where boys had been swimming naked for 200 years.

[48] Older residents of Duncanville, Texas, remembered the "Blue Hole" on Ten Mile Creek a few hundred feet west of Main Street as the place to skinny-dip for decades.

[49] Initially, men and boys swam in the nude in indoor swimming pools, as had previously been customary in lakes and rivers.

While following the wishes of parents who believed older girls should behave modestly, all the board members disagreed, stating that there was "no moral issue involved".

[56][57] New developments in pool chlorination, filtration, and nylon swimsuits led the APHA to abandon its recommendation of nude swimming for males in 1962.

[58][59] However, Jungian psychoanalyst Barry Miller views the sexualization of nudity in male only situations such as locker rooms and swimming pools as a loss.

Some jurisdictions which maintain laws against public nudity may turn a blind eye to incidents of skinny dipping depending on the circumstances, as police officers on the spot decline to make arrests.

[61] A 2006 Roper poll showed that 25% of all American adults had been skinny dipping at least once, and that 74% believed nude swimming should be tolerated at accepted locations.

Many swimmers in the United States confine nude swimming to private locations due to concerns about attitudes to public nudity.

[66][67] Nude swimming was a common subject of Old Masters – painters from before the 19th century – and Romantic oil paintings, usually bucolic or in a mythological or historical settings.

Henry Scott Tuke painted naked bathers in a soft, idealized style, deliberately avoiding overt sexuality.

This was described by his friend Emile Zola as a time when "they were possessed with the joys of plunging (naked) into the deeper pools where the waters flowed, or spending the days stark naked in the sun, drying them selves on the burning sand, diving in once more to live in the river..."[70][69] In later periods, depictions of nude swimming scenes became rarer, but more likely to depict straightforward contemporary scenes.