Just a comment: I just registered my kids for swimming lessons in the YMCA. When I look at all the little kids being corralled by the instructors (mostly female, it seemed), it was hard to imagine what the Y must have been like back when you and other older men (no ageism intended) were taking lessons nude. That was well before my time.

Frank Answers: This “comment,” perhaps intended for the article on “Swimming Nude,” came in the question box. Sometimes these mix ups occur. Because “questions” come to me anonymously, I don’t know who offered the comment. But I’m going to treat it as a question

To clear the record, I never took swimming lessons at the YMCA. I had swimming lessons in an outdoor city pool when I was a young boy and then in the obligatory freshman high school swimming class, which was definitely nude in the mid-1950s. However, I remember a Boy Scout swim night at a YMCA when I was about twelve in which nude showers and nude swimming were required. Also, in high school I was a member of the Bennett Boys Hi-Y club between 1958 and 1960. We did a variety of things at our weekly meetings, but on occasion we did have recreational use of the gym or the pool. As per YMCA requirements, we showered and swam nude. This was not an issue because all the Bennett boys had experienced nude swimming in the high school PE classes.

So I experienced swimming nude in the YMCA, but did not experience taking lessons there back in the days when swimming nude was required. I thought what I would do is retrieve comments on my articles “Frank Answers About Swimming Naked” and “Frank Answers About Swimming Naked in the YMCA” from men who did experience swimming lessons in the YMCA. It’s good testimony to the truthfulness of what happened before the 1970s when naked swimming ceased at the YMCA, largely, I believe, because of the admission of women and girls into YMCA membership. But this was in tandem with (and perhaps even part of the strategy of) ending homosexual cruising in urban YMCA hotels and locker rooms. In fact, ending the long tradition of nude swimming at the Ys led to accusations of homophobia by gay activists. See John Donald Gustav-Wrathall, Take the Young Stranger by the Hand: Same-Sex Relations and the YMCA (Chicago; University of Chicago Press, 1998), p. 182.

Going back in time, however, swimming was nude from the time of the building of the very first YMCA pools (Boston 1885) because that was simply the practice. It would have been promoted also by the 19th century European physical culture movement that the YMCA embraced and adapted with its mission of forming in young men healthy minds, bodies, and spirits. This was the origin also of gymnastics and bodybuilding in the YMCA.

Also, the American Public Health Association issued guidelines about pool hygiene that recommended nude showering and swimming between 1926 and 1962 that affected swimming in all indoor pools. Outdoor pools, of course, would not usually have naked swimming unless they were at summer camps. But I remember that patrons of the Buffalo city pools were supposed to shower nude before swimming. In my recollection, this was not strictly monitored in the city pools, in which the boys showered in their bathing suits instead of nude. Soaping the whole body was strictly monitored in the the schools and the YMCAs.

Now I’ll let the men speak for themselves. These comments are in order of the dates submitted. Where a comment was a response to another, the dates might be non-chronological.

I want to begin with the report provided by Mark that sheds light on the confusion created by photos of suited boys in the Y at the same time as men testified that they swam nude at the Y. There have been accusations that the old photos were photoshopped (in both directions, either to make the boys naked or to cover their naked genitals with a bathing suit). Actually, photos of boys in swim suits are false to the actual situation when cameras weren’t around. Nevertheless, some photos were taken of nude men and boys.

Mark

I want to give a different perspective on the “photoshopped” pictures. It is not only photoshopped pictures that can lie.

I went swimming naked several times age 12 and 13 with my Boy Scout group on campouts, but I do not remember pictures ever being taken. But at the Y there were pictures taken. i learned to swim at the Y at age 7 or so and swam naked there a lot until I was well into my teens. This would have been around 1955 to 1963 or so. Mostly the boys swam naked but occasionally they would have an open house, or visiting VIPs or whatever, and the guy who ran this Y, Old Sam would pull out of his storage closet 10 or 15 pairs of swim trunks and hand them out. So parents would come for open house and take pictures of their son swimming in his borrowed swimsuit. And one day a reporter from the local newspaper came and Old Sam gave suits to four or five boys and they got photographed for the paper swimming and wearing swim suits. Of course when the reporter left, the swim suits were collected, washed, and went back into the closet until they were needed again.

The same thing happened at my summer camp. It was an all boys camp and I went there ages 10, 11 and 12. It was optional to wear a swim suit but the boys basically never did. About half way through the 2 week session, they had parents day and all the parents and brothers and sisters came. For parents day, all the boys wore swim suits. Parents would take lots of photos. About ten years ago I talked to the guy who now ran the summer camp and told him I used to go skinny dipping there. He said nobody ever went skinny dipping at that camp and he had the pictures from the old days to prove it. I said let’s see the pictures and he showed me some old photos from the 1950s of boys swimming at the camp and wearing swimsuits. You could see the big WELCOME PARENTS banner in the background of one or two of the pictures, proving they were made on parents day.

I think everyone who read the newspaper articles in the 1950s and all the parents who went to parents day knew that the boys usually swam naked. But 60 years later the pictures can mislead you. Boys would dress-up for the camera but they usually swam naked.

May 8, 2018

In 1960 the Walla Walla, WA YMCA pool was renovated with a modern filtering system and these boys were photographed on the deck wearing swim suits. But they might have put on suits just for the photo which advertised the renovated pool.

Here’s a photo of an actual swimming class in the same pool, n.d. Both boys and instructors are clearly naked.

The other controversial issue is whether boys swam naked in front of women. At the YMCA they definitely did, as we see in Jeff’s story about his experience at the Y at age 12 in 1952. His story also testifies that all many boys were not initially comfortable baring all in front of spectators. The issue then as now? Penis size.

Jeff

At the Y 1952

During the middle years of the last century in the American Midwest pornography was all but unknown (to us boys anyway) and even innocent nudity was taboo. Taboo that is unless it happen to appear in the pages of National Geographic. Without fail even infants were dressed in public. However, under certain very limited conditions, boys fourteen and under were exempt from the nudity prohibition. At that young age we were thought to be sexually innocent and chaste. Grownups felt that young male children didn’t require privacy. Girls were another matter entirely. More on that later.

April 25th 1952 was a Friday and I was twelve years old. Along with my friends I stripped down naked placing all my clothing as well as my cherished St. Christopher’s medal into a locker at the Y. We had no swimsuits, no sports jerseys and no shorts to cover ourselves with. We didn’t even have athletic supporters. It wasn’t as if we were forgetful and had left those things at home, it was that any sort of clothing was strictly forbidden. My fellow swimmers and I marched from the locker room to the indoor pool completely stark boy naked, our little white bare bottoms swaying from side to side with each step. No towels, no flip-flops, no swim googles, nothing at all. It was embarrassing, I’ll admit that, but I told myself that people wouldn’t see me as an individual naked boy, but rather as just one naked boy in a group of many naked boys. There’s strength in numbers. My nudity would blend in with all the others, or so I hoped. For a devout Catholic boy, such as myself, it was actually sort of thrilling in a weird and twisted way. It was like getting to stay up well past bedtime or going out on Halloween night to toilet paper the house of a mean neighbor. The normal rules of decorum had been temporarily set aside and that was a novelty for a scrupulously well behaved boy like me. It was like an extreme case of “opposite day.” We were engaging in an activity that would otherwise have been considered wicked, even shocking, but it was all done with complete parental and church approval.

I was a handsome child, slender and athletic, but small for my age and late to develop. I was afraid that my genitals where better suited for a nine year old than for a boy who would soon be turning thirteen. No one had ever given me a hard time on this issue. I’d never been teased. But in my current state I felt that my diminutive boyhood was the first thing anyone would notice about me. I stayed close to my friend Sammy Jones because he wasn’t all that big either.

The ancient gymnasium was beyond big. It was cavernous, or so it seemed, and I felt almost lost in it. Rather than feeling like a gladiator about to do battle I felt more like an early Christian entering the colosseum to be fed to the lions. On the pool deck stood the coaches, timekeepers and race officials. About 120 other boys ages seven to fourteen were seated naked on wooded benches along either side of the pool. No kidding, you never saw so much pink flesh all at once. As a person of deep and abiding faith I believe that there’s nothing inherently obscene or wicked about the human body. I believe that God created us all and that, man or woman, boy or girl, we are all beautiful each in his or her own special way. But even so it was a pretty strange sight.

It was a family night so grandparents, mothers and father, brothers and sisters had come to cheer their progeny on to victory. However the spectators had been relegated to the balcony, the lowest level of which was a good 15 feet above the pool deck. I kept my eyes focused away from the on lookers and on the other boys. We didn’t look up at all and our family members seemed to understand why. They didn’t call out any names or try to distract us. You could almost forget that they were there and that’s what I wanted. I wanted to feel that this was just another swim practice. I felt exhilarated as I smelled the chlorine and heard the P.A. system echoing off the walls in the vast space. I was ready to go.

The younger boys raced first. Raced? Actually most of them just sort of thrashed about and avoided drowning as they laboriously made their way from one side of the pool to the other but that was good enough. They all emerged at the other end glistening and triumphant. Then I heard my group called and took my position on the assigned starting block alongside the other twelve year olds. Standing there with our dicks hanging out I felt completely exposed, but the feeling didn’t last long. With the “BANG!” from a snub-nosed blue steel Smith and Wesson 38 police special loaded with blanks we were off the blocks in a flash. The moment I entered the water everything changed. I was transformed from a little naked boy into a demon possessed. I was fast, oh so very fast, and swimming flat out felt fantastic! I forgot all about being naked. I forgot all about the females who were watching. I forgot about everything but the cool water and the race and it was simply grand. I gave it everything I had, every atom of strength, and I finish well ahead of my nearest competitor. The crowd went wild as they say and as the other swimmers came in they all congratulated me. I was spent but exhilarated. The large clock on the wall recorded my time for all to see and it was impressive,

Then it was time for me to climb out of the pool and step up to my rightful position on the winner’s dais to receive my trophy. The second and third placed boys were to my right and left and although they might have been larger I was made taller by my place on the center and highest step of the three stepped podium. Standing there as my name was read over the loudspeakers I happened to glance down momentarily at my nakedness. It’s true what mountain climbers say. Don’t look down!

I realized in horror that the cold water combined with the physical exertion of the race had caused my already diminutive boyhood to shrink even smaller. Like the barrel on the starting gun my circumcised penis was a snub-nosed affair but now it seemed to have no shaft at all. It was just a little rounded pink button with a frilly collar. As for my balls they had pulled up so close to my body that you could hardly see them. I looked like a castrati. There were seven year olds present in that old gymnasium who were better endowed than I. I comforted myself with the thought that from the balcony the audience probably couldn’t make out too much detail. From that distance we all must have looked like eunuchs. I wondered who was watching. My mom and two sisters for sure and the sisters of some of my friends and schoolmates. Probably even some of the girls from my class were there as well. That possibility gave me a strange feeling like giant butterflies fluttering about in my tummy. The next thing I knew I was being reverently crowned with a green plastic laurel wreath and handed a trophy. I’d have been more appreciative of a towel.

We then returned to our bench to watch the thirteen and fourteen year-olds compete. That’s how it was, the younger boys swam first and then the older boys, but we were all required to sit and watch every race. No sneaking off to the locker room early.

From a longer comment dated February 19, 2018

BB

I found your website today and have been reading it with considerable interest.

I never went skinny dipping in school (as far as I know, not a single school in my state has a swimming pool on campus) but I did regularly take showers in junior high PE.

Your blog reminded me of something that I read about when I was in high school, probably mid to late 1970’s. There was a fuss in the local press (this was in Little Rock, AR) about the downtown YMCA. Apparently, it closed its swimming pool to females several hours a day so that males who wished to do so could swim naked. Several feminist activists started making a fuss, which led to press coverage.

I can remember that I, as a teenage boy, was shocked to learn that nude swimming still existed. I had assumed that it was an “Adventures of Tom Sawyer” thing that no longer happened in the modern era. Instead, I read newspaper accounts and saw local TV news coverage that there were men who preferred to swim nude at the YMCA. I was even more astonished when the local TV filmed at the YMCA swimming pool. All footage was waist-up, of course. But there were several boys there swimming, and some of the men stated that they liked to take their sons swimming with them. Mind totally blown.

Anyway, after six months or a year, and under threat of litigation, the YMCA abandoned the policy that prohibited women from swimming during certain hours of the day, which also ended nude swimming at the Y.

I pretty much forgot about all of this for 10 or 15 years. Then, the downtown Y was closing, and one of the tv stations did a retrospective on its history, including mention of the fracas between the feminist activists and the nude swimmers back in the 70’s. The tv station interviewed a man who had apparently been one of the nude swimmers from 10-15 years before. I still remember his comment. This is close to what he said: “We had a group of upstanding business and gentlemen who enjoyed a lunch hour swim at the Y. They came regularly, and there was always a good crowd of good folks. A group of activists set out to destroy that. They succeeded. After they won, they came to the Y to swim exactly ONCE then never again.”

Reading your blog, and the various comments, brought this back to me after all these years.

July 2, 2018

Bill

I grew up in southern Ohio and entered high school in 1960. My high school did not have a pool, but as a member of High-Y, we were bussed to the YMCA in Hamilton Ohio where we swam without swim suits. Since we were bussed, there were no parents in the gallery. However, periodically a young child would enter the gallery from the lobby and announce that we were all naked. A mother would follow, get a good look, and escort them out. There was a sign in the lobby that said “Men Only” but the doors were never locked. In1964 I went to Miami University where we were issued those suits that Fr Frank described as ”pre speedo.” They were color coded by size and left absolutely nothing to the imagination. Fortunately, we were in the water most of the time and didn’t have to look at each other. The trick was you had to reach down and let some air into the suit so it would not cling so much. I don’t recall ever seeing anyone in the gallery although it was open.

At the time, I didn’t realize there was a double standard. We were so naive. I thought the girls had the same rules, that they had to swim naked at the YWCA. Thinking back, boys could be forced to swim as there was no problem drying a butch or a flat top hair cut. Girls could not be forced to get their hair wet. There were no hair dryers in the locker rooms…there weren’t even any plugs. There are still a number of double standards in our society; female reporters in men’s locker rooms, genital mutilation of boys and not girls, selective service registration for boys and not for girls, and there is that equal pay issue. Equality has been elusive in the land of the free. It is important to document the way it was as we work toward that more perfect union where all are equally free.

February 11, 2020

Sensa Nome

A great number of people still doubt that nude swimming took place at the YMCA or school pools. I can tell you that it is true. I learned to swim at our local Y and continued to swim there until I graduated high school. The boys of today do not know what they are missing. They are so afraid to expose their bodies to anyone.

February 13, 2020

Laurence

In the Judeo-Christian culture we equate nudity with sex, and sex with “sin” – hence the uptight attitude about nudity in general.
I learned to swim at the YMCA in Ohio in the 1950s and it was all nude – suits were banned, and the place was sparkling clean. No one thought anything about the nudity, since it was all-male. It is sad that modern young men, many of them from female-dominated households, have such unhealthy attitudes.

May 16, 2020

Old Swimmer

Lawrence, Thanks for the comment. As I have mentioned before in Pastor Senn’s articles, I also swam nude at the Y. No one was allowed to have a swimsuit or even a towel in the pool area. But I am not sure that the Judeo-Christian culture in itself is the complete explanation simply because the Y is a Christian organization and I know of a Jewish club where males swam nude. Some Catholic and Lutheran high schools required boys to swim nude in the past. I think some of the Judeo-Christian culture is influenced by the larger culture and vice-versa. Some people do equate nudity with sex and sex with sin but that is an aberration in my opinion. The early Christians had naked baptisms, I believe. Even in Victorian times males often swam nude at public beaches.

In one of Pastor Senn’s blogs, “Nakedness and Modesty,” he gives a good synopsis of the notion of modesty and how it changes through the years. In the uptight 50’s when I was growing up swimming in the nude at pools etc. with all males was not immodest. Today many people would think so. It is the social context more than anything that determines what is modest. Today the beachwear of many women would be considered immodest in the 1950’s.I think men’s present sense of modesty in locker rooms etc. is the result of today’s culture and, as you say, the equating of nudity among men as somehow sexual. Some of the reasons may be prevalence of mini-cams, phone camera’s etc. However I am continually amazed that the young will text nude pictures (as Frank mentions) but be embarrassed to change in a locker room or shower in common. Culture is hard to explain.

May 19, 2020

Clay

In the late 1950s and 1960s, I would always swim naked. I learned to swim at our local YMCA and our group of boys were required to swim nude. I was later on the swim team in junior high and high school, and we were required to go naked. Because I was so into swimming, we got a pool at home and it was just natural to be naked in and around our pool. The reasons for requiring nudity were not discussed, but we guys thought it make us faster. We were not allowed to even take towels to the pool. Nudity in and around the pool seemed natural, normal, and accepted for guys, even on the occasions when girls or moms were around. I would have died of embarrassment to be seen naked in a different setting, but it was so universal for guys at the pool, it was not an issue.

July 25, 2021

Old Swimmer

Clay,
Thanks for your comment. I have a question. When girls or moms were around when you were swimming nude was that at your backyard pool or at the Y or h.s. swim meets? I ask because my experience was like yours in the 50’s and 60’s, nude swimming at the Y and swim practice or swimming in P.E. in high school, but we never had girls or women spectators. However, in private situations that did happen. I never had a backyard pool but some have written in this forum that they swam nude in backyard pools with women around. At a friend’s cottage the boys all swam nude but the girls didn’t. We just never had female spectators at nude swimming in institutional settings. Some have reported it and I am curious about it.
One thing as you say, nude swimming was normal for guys then.

July 30, 2021

Clay

At the Y, moms and other females did watch all the time. It may have been because we were so young when we started that it was not seen as an issue. As we got older at the Y, everyone was so used to it that it stayed not an issue. Boys being naked while swimming was just accepted even into my late teens and even at meets. At junior high, women teachers did watch. At high school we still swam naked (I did not even own swimming trucks). After we had developed into young men, women watching was less frequent but happened on occasion. At home, it was always accepted for me to be naked at the pool around female family members. No one thought anything of it even when I was in my late teens and 20s. I was an only child, and as “the baby” I just did whatever I wanted. My family was very traditional and conservative, but my nakedness (only mine) was ok. It was just accepted as part of a boy swimmer’s life. I needed to practice and did so naked like at the Y and school.

July 31, 2021

Old Swimmer

Thanks for the response to my question. My experience was different as I mentioned. Originally, I tended to discount mixed gender spectators at nude male swimming, but from recent posts, it seems to have been the case in several places.. Our Y swim instructor was nude as was our high school swim coach. Some others did not have this experience. So the experiences were different. As you say, nude male swimming was generally accepted as in the case of my friends’ lake cottage where their mom and sister were present. Only we boys had to swim nude.
A Dear Abby column from the 70’s told a similar story. I also read an article years ago (a newspaper but I don’t have source) where a couple visiting a family in Germany or Scandinavia went to the son’s swim meet. All the male swimmers were nude and no one was fazed by it, except the visiting Americans.

August 1, 2021

fredric merithew

In 1960 when I joined the YMCA at age 14, swimming naked was accepted and even had parental approval for the most part. Surprisingly there was no mention of being gay or homoeroticsm. Young boys were learning about their sexuality at point and exploring being gay was not even a thought. We were growing into young men and developing physically.

July 29, 2021

John J. Hvozda

Frank Senn’s story and photos about male YMCA nude-practice history is an amazing peek through the window of past non-homophobic male historical non-homosexual -inferred-“issue” true “manly” balanced “normalcy”. It’s both bewilderingly astonishing and reassuringly heart-warming to see a Clergyman balanced enough and brave enough to understand and unashamedly show that males can be “homosocial” without being “homosexual”, and it once was natural in men, with natural homoeroticism a non-homosexual “tag-along” to natural male comparative competitive primal self and family protective instinctive interest, and same gender expressed sharing and touch a needed healthy thing, not the opposite. I’m writing a book about it historically-understandably, and when and how it got messed up and messed men up, with their own gender-identity, and their same-gender relations and relationships.

August 11, 2021

George

I belonged to the YMCA for 4 years, ages 10 to 14. On test day moms and dads would come to watch us. If you passed you would advance to a higher class. Some young girls would smile as we walked by them.

August 19, 2021

JT

I came at the end of this era. Swimming at camp we wore suits but at swimming holes we passed during hikes we skinnydipped. YMCA’s in NYC still had men swimming in the nude and so did all male colleges I visited.

August 28, 2021

David Rhodes

My dad would swim naked at the Y when he was a boy. Nobody questioned it at the time and he was disappointed when they started to require swimsuits. The Y I joined did not allow nude swimming but had communal showers, and had a separate communal shower for fathers and sons if the boy was under 12.

September 19, 2021

Wayne Harria

For several years when I was in my 20’s and 30’s (I’am now 84) I swam naked in YMCA pools. I stayed in great shape. I didn’t think anything about swimming nude. It is a very uplifting and rewarding experience. When the Y discontinued the nude swimming practice I felt my rights were violated.

October 6, 2021

Eddie

I grew up swimming naked at the YMCA, Y camp, and at our family cabin on a lake. I did not own a swimsuit until I was in college as a member of the swim team, although our practices were naked as well as some meets against other men’s colleges. I also worked at all these places in various positions and also always worked naked. And in my experience, all other staff invariably did as well. Communal male nudity made me the man I am today.

October 12, 2021

Robert

My experience at the YMCA pool in Jackson, MI had an Olympics size swimming pool in the basement of the building with about 10 ft wide with walkways at the ends, and one side of the pool. On the other side there was a cafeteria that served sandwiches, snacks, and soft drinks or coffee. We swam nude on boy’s night and the parents/family could be in the cafeteria. The local YWCA did not have a pool, so on girl’s night they also swam nude, but only female relatives could be in the cafeteria. I questioned why no males could be present on girl’s night and never got a logical answer – “that is the way it is”. I am now a nudist where males and females of all ages are together without any problems, and I still have not received a logical answer to my question.

October 4, 2021

Frank concludes:

Thanks to all the men who posted comments on “Frank Answers About Swimming Naked” and “Frank Answers About Swimming Naked in the YMCA.” These comments helped to fill in the social as well as the institutional history of the YMCA. Considering how widespread the practice was in the local associations, it receives scant mention in histories of the YMCA. It’s as if the authors are embarrassed about it. There was nothing to be embarrassed about. It promoted a positive view of the male body and no one was forced to do it since the YMCA was a private membership association. I gave a brief history of the YMCA in my essay on “The Body in Protestant Spirituality” in Protestant Spiritual Traditions, Vol 2, edited by Frank C. Senn (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2020), pp. 226–29, 235–37. I did not neglect to mention the tradition of swimming nude.

Pastor Frank