Nude Swimming

[Archivist]

This Dear Abby advice column from 1970 was posted recently in another thread. It describes a situation where a mother forced her puberty-aged sons to swim nude in the presence of their sisters (and apparently in the presence of anyone else who was present) "to satisfy the girls' curiosity as to what boys look like." At the same time the mother forbid her teenage daughters from swimming nude in the presence of their brothers because "girls require more privacy than boys." Abby not only agreed with the mother doing this, but also encouraged the letter-writer to do the same with her son.

I know that boys in some high schools and YMCAs were at one time required to swim nude, but it is my understanding that did not occur in mixed company. However, I think that has largely become a thing of the past in most places, and that even open showers have been eliminated in most public places.

I would also note that this apparently occurred on private property so there was no concern of violating public nudity laws.

This advice was given almost 50 years ago. Was this good advice on the part of Dear Abby then? Would it be good advice today? Is it fair to require that a teenage boy swim nude in mixed company if he does not want to do so while forbidding teenage girls from doing the same if they would want to swim nude?

 

[faroukfarouk]

Abby (from 1970): "It certainly is a good way to satisfy the girls' curiosity as to what boys look like in appropriate surroundings ... . However, the boys should also enjoy the experience of playing and being in the presence of the girls completely naked, but given how boys usually will doff all clothes in haste and without care when at he town swimming hole, I'm guessing your son won't require too much pressure to comply with your sister's rule."

I'm not going to express an opinion here directly. I think the key word here is "appropriate". This is inherently subjective.

If you let moralizing bureaucrats eat tax dollars, they will eventually want to impose Commissars for Correct Bathing Suit Design and Birthday Suit Compliance, grimly abetted by CNN correspondents claiming a hotline to judges wanting to be popular with hysterical viewers.

 

[Almost there]

I'm 64. I started using the gym where I work recently and noticed something kind of odd regarding the new generation. Specifically, all my life I've wondered around men's shower rooms completely naked. This includes high school back around 1970 and on. But in this shower room I feel oddly "underdressed" when I do that.

I was telling my wife about it just last night and she asked me, "so, do you wrap yourself in a towel now?" I said, nope. I am a part of my generation. And my generation has reached that "cantankerous" age.

 

[Darkhorse]

Abby had good advice, as far as it went. She went wrong when she said the same standard didn't apply to the girls. The correct advice would be for all the kids to swim nude, and everyone's curiosity would be satisfied.

I don't like the idea of parents pressuring their kids to swim nude if the kids don't want to, but really, it's not that big a deal. Mutual respect is the key.

 

[Poppyseed78]

I'll just copy & paste my response from the topless thread - I don't like the idea of "requiring" anyone, boys or girls, to take their clothes off outdoors. That infringes on an individual's sense of privacy and agency over their own body. I'm also not really understanding how the girls seeing their naked (post-puberty) brothers' bodies is helpful to them. It's one thing if these are small children under age 6, it's quite different when these kids are over 12 years old. I just don't get it.

Another issue I have with this is no matter how "private" you think your property is, there can be someone watching. I would err on the side of caution and make sure my children are appropriately clothed when outdoors.

I don't see why one person's right to satisfy their curiosity trumps another person's right to privacy. No one should have to be made uncomfortable or humiliated just because someone else is "curious".

 

[Almost there]

Abby had good advice, as far as it went. She went wrong when she said the same standard didn't apply to the girls. The correct advice would be for all the kids to swim nude, and everyone's curiosity would be satisfied.

I also think it doesn't apply to the girls.

It reminds me of the old joke in the Reba Show. The point was that it is different when girls moon you than when boys do. And if I have to 'xplain it to you, you're too young to know the difference.

 

[com7fy8]

Possibly, there are perverted people who want to arrange for boys and men to be nude where they can eyeball them.

Also, areas of nudity can be used by aggressive perverted people to assault others; and if they do not get cooperation during their assaults in areas of nudity, they can later retaliate in different ways against those who do not cooperate and who defend themselves.

But, of course, this is not necessarily the fault of people being nude with each other; but wrong and evil and untrustworthy people can use the situation in their cruel and wrong ways.

 

[Dave-W]

I'll just copy & paste my response from the topless thread - I don't like the idea of "requiring" anyone, boys or girls, to take their clothes off outdoors.

Yes - the Dear Abby column was about swimming outdoors.

But apparently back in the 40s-60s in certain parts of the country, all public school swim meets (competition with other schools) the guys were nude but the girls were not.

I have seen news paperclips and even high school year book pages showing that.

I can just imagine a young high school girl going over to Grandpa's house and finding a year book showing a pic of him on the diving board in all of his glory.

 

[Darkhorse]

I showered nude at many colleges including San Francisco State University for several years and never had any actual or attempted assaults in the showers...

 

[Dave-W]

I showered nude at many colleges including San Francisco State University for several years and never had any actual or attempted assaults in the showers...

As did I at Michigan State. (or in high school for that matter)

 

[Poppyseed78]

I understand it was a cultural norm and no big deal for boys to swim nude. Nowadays I don't think that would go over very well. When I was in school, the locker rooms had individual showers. But that was only 15 years ago.

 

[Dave-W]

Possibly, there are perverted people who want to arrange for boys and men to be nude where they can eyeball them.

It is now known that women can be just as turned on by nudity as men. Since I think that is how God wired us, I do not think that fact is "perverted." It only becomes perverted when we let that develop into coveting/lust.

 

[faroukfarouk]

It goes to show that climates of opinion change.

Beware of people making vehement accusations who don't actually remember times when what they are accusing about was commonplace.

 

[faroukfarouk]

I showered nude at many colleges including San Francisco State University for several years and never had any actual or attempted assaults in the showers...

Imagine how the military in barracks and locker rooms now has to cope with the "in case someone is offended" mindset.

 

[Dave-W]

Beware of people making vehement accusations who don't actually remember times when what they are accusing about was commonplace.

Indeed.

 

[faroukfarouk]

Indeed.

...but politicians dredging for votes and insincerely moralizing bureaucrats building their fiefdoms are often based on exactly this.

 

[Greg Merrill]

I am amazed at how far the thinking of some Christians has strayed from the standards of godliness. To think public nudity (whether on private property or not) is alright for anyone over the "age of accountability". The first mention of "nakedness" after the "fall"/first sin of Adam & Eve...still involved Adam and Eve, and it is seen as a shameful thing that God had to kill innocent animals to provide coats of skin to cover them with, for their own self efforts of covering with leaves was not acceptable to God. Of course much more is involved in this than just nakedness, but sin and blood atonement. Leviticus 18 dedicates no less than thirteen verses (vs 6-18) to telling Israel (and us Romans 15:4; 2 Timothy 3:16) whom we are not to look at when they are naked. (If you want to debate whether the lessons in Leviticus apply to Christians under grace or not, then you obviously are open and very susceptible to straying from true godliness and falling into "license" to sin with a false understanding and false assurance that you are free to do so under "grace".) We live in a sex-crazed world, that has lowered its standard of morality to what used to be even scandalous to it. Women that show their cleavage of their breasts in church has even become acceptable to some church because it is acceptable to the world. The Israelites "rose up to play" (have an orgy) when their godly leadership (Moses) was away with God for forty days. Their conscience didn't seem to be bothered, but God was; Moses was; for he threw down and broke the freshly made 10 commandments, written on clay tablets, demonstrating that they had broken them, sinned, in their ungodly, sexual behavior.
Dear Abby and Ann Landers (her sister), had a lot of good life, but occasionally they really missed the mark, and at times would themselves shine the light on how they had missed the mark at times for whatever reason. In this case, nude swimming/playing on the shore naked in front of teen girls, they really missed the mark. Philippians 4:5 "Let your moderation (modesty) be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand (watching, soon to appear in judgment).
A word to the wise. Do not be one that fulfills Romans 1:22.

 

[Dave-W]

It goes to show that climates of opinion change.

Not just public opinion.

One thing that has changed a LOT over the past century (by incremental steps) is the understanding of female sexuality.

Before 1900, it was commonly understood in western culture that women/girls had no sex drive, no sexual feelings whatsoever; based on the writings of Hippocrates, the father of Greek/western medicine, circa 400 bc. That changed just after the turn of the century, but it took decades for the understanding to start reaching the general populace. It took until the mid 1950s for "hysteria" (aggravation of the uterus) to be dropped as a viable medical diagnosis.

In some ways that understanding and what it means is still developing. I am sure that no one in the 1930s, 40s, 50s or 60s realized seeing naked guys could make girls lust.

"Men are visual, women are emotional."

 

[Dave-W]

...but politicians dredging for votes and insincerely moralizing bureaucrats building their fiefdoms are often based on exactly this.

Yeah - and any other trumped-up issue or dialog that they can control.

 

[Dave-W]

I am amazed at how far the thinking of some Christians has strayed from the standards of godliness.

Are you sure the "standard of godliness" you cling to would have been understood by the first century readers of the gospels and Paul's letters?

Or has it been steeped in 1900 years of legalism?

for anyone over the "age of accountability".

Can you give me a chapter and verse where it says such an age actually exists?