I don’t understand why you seem to think that swimming attire and other attire should necessarily be equated. Moreover, I doubt that if like the Greek of yore, our gymnasiums (get it?) were redoubts of nudity, that would relieve your qualms. (Well, actually, if this were the conventional practice, I think you wouldn’t have qualms, just Amazonian tribesmen can look at a bare-breasted matron without batting an eye. However, were we to switch to this now and overnight, I don’t think you would say, “At last, consistency!”)
Considering that nudity is the default attire of human beings, does there really need to be elaborate justifications? I think a lot of this comes down to “I don’t want people to see me naked” which I think originates in prudishness. But I’m told that it doesn’t, so do enlighten me.
I went to a rather large public high school in Illinois in the late 60’s and guys swam nude for their swimming classes, but the girls got a generic swim suit that they more or less “shared” (each class had the girls just grab one out of the pile).
The rationale back then was they didn’t want stinking swim suits hanging in the few lockers they had, and what was the big deal about it?
Yes, it was odd…and people still don’t believe me when I tell them all of our swim classes were in the nude. And in Illinois, let me tell ya you NEVER wanted to be stuck in the first 8:30 AM swimming class…that water was freezing and everybody’s pee pee was about the size of a pea.
I also remember the infamous day when the school bells weren’t working and the girls swim class came marching in as the boys were still in the pool.
One other memorable moment was when one of the, uh, rather well endowed guys in my swim class got an erection. Coach made him stand on the diving board until it went down…but this guy seemed to like the attention and when coach wasn’t looking, was actually giving himself a few strokes…the rest of us were laughing hysterically…ah, good times, good times.
I heard they only changed this policy in the 80’s when they build additional lockers near the pool area. Plus they put in dryers to throw your swimsuits and towels in when you are done.
Nudity is not the default attire of human beings, it’s the initial attire of human beings. It’s a slight, but very important, difference.
As for I think this is weird, it would be because it was never done when I was in high school (in the late 90s). They didn’t even require us to shower after gym (and no one wanted to anyway because no one worked up that much of a sweat in gym class).
Beyond that, gym class has always been co-ed. From when I was a wee lad all the way up to my graduating year. Having segregated gym class seems almost quaint to me, and more than a little old fashioned.
You had co-ed gym classes in high school? We had boys gym classes from 7th through 12th grade. Did your high school have co-ed basketball and soccer teams? No? Well, that sounds more than little old fashioned to me…
Well, for starters, swimming costumes get sopping wet whereas other activities don’t saturate them as much. I suppose chemicals and fibers might be imported into the pool in an undesirable way; again, this isn’t a concern in other contexts.
Why go butt booty nekkid in the shower? Why not wear shower shorts, a la JD from Scrubs? I’ve read posts asserting that it’s “weird” for people to be unclothed in a locker room. Do you think so?
I guess I just don’t subscribe to this body ressentiment and corresponding slave morality, to get Nietzschean about it.
From the OP, what we’re talking about is nude adult males teaching swimming to nude juvenile males. If I understand correctly, you said (post #38) you can’t understand why anyone would find that strange. For my part, I can’t imagine anywhere in the US, at any rate, where that prospect wouldn’t foam the brains of some parents these days.
I don’t doubt that some people would react that way. It is a pretty big leap from knowing that to understanding why they freak out about it. Look, I knew that Janet Jackson’s boob debacle in the Superbowl would cause a shitshow, but I sure don’t understand why it did.
What was freaking me out was the possibility of pedophilia, which has nothing to do with someone being gay. If there are some who don’t see a concern with that, then chalk it up to a simply a difference in opinion. I am allowed to think that it is odd, and leave it at that.
FTR, I’m going on 57, so have been around the block for a while, but had never heard of nude swimming lessons/nude swims at the Y, nor nude gym classes. I do not recall anything like that happening with girls classes/lessons.
Well, my Dad went to college in the early 1960’s in Ohio, and for one of his compulsory PE classes he took swimming, for which they (all men, I’m pretty sure) did not wear suits.
Heck, I’ll give you an even older example. My dad was in the Navy in the late 1960’s. On one of his assignments, his ship hosted a contingent of Pakistani sailors. Dad was surprised to discover that they did not shower nude, but instead, being Muslim, wore shorts to cover themselves even in the shower.
I went to Cornell from 1969-1973. You had to pass the swim test in order to graduate, so since I didn’t know how to swim very well I had to take the class my freshman year for PE. The classes were held in the nude, although the instructor wore a swimsuit. I think you were allowed to wear a suit if you wanted to, but nobody in my class did. Suits were also optional during the men’s swimming hours at the Men’s Gym. (There were times for mixed swimming when everyone of course wore a suit.)
In the women’s swim classes, they had to wear one-piece tank suits issued by the school, which all the women hated. This being the beginning of Women’s Lib, about 1972 some of the more radical feminists, my girl friend among them, decided to “liberate” the pool in the Women’s Gym by storming the pool naked.
My girl friend tipped me off when it was going to be, so I stationed myself by one of the big windows on the second floor of the Women’s Gym to watch the revolution unfold. (I had some PE classes there, since the Women’s Gym had facilities that the Men’s Gym didn’t.)
At the appointed time, I heard a huge hubbub in the direction of the locker room, and all the women in the pool jumped out and looked toward the doors. A couple of the life guards had seen the troop of naked women coming down the corridor and blocked them before they made it to the pool. What a disappointment!
I don’t think that the women ever did get the right to swim naked in their pool, most likely because of those big windows on the second floor.
