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.
Canada 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. These included swimming at the
YMCA, which required membership or payment of fees. However, the problem of men being publicly naked while swimming and bathing in open water was recognized. 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. In the 19th century, boys and working-class men in
Toronto swimming nude in the Humber and Don Rivers was allowed in secluded swimming holes, while officially prohibited elsewhere. "
Skinny dipping" (a colloquial term for nude swimming) As in the United States, men swam nude at YMCAs until they became coed.
China In 2004 after some local university students went skinny dipping there, signs were placed at a riverside beach in a public park in
Zhejiang province declaring a section to be a nudist beach. Following complaints from other park visitors, the signs were removed, although officially China has no law forbidding swimming nude. In a July 2005 heat wave, a number of incidents of men skinny dipping were noted.
England - "Boys" - Cornwall, 1910. Naked boys casually lounging and playing in sea with dressed girls. In English boys' schools (
Manchester Grammar School, for example), students recall nude swimming being required at least from the 1930s until the 1970s. 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. However, nude swimming continued when modern swimsuit materials were available. In a less formal setting, young boys might be nude in mixed company, as shown in a home movie of an outing featuring young Brownies, Girl Guides and Scouts playing in the grounds of a stately home in 1940s Britain. While the girls and older boys wore suits, the boys of about 10 years of age played in the river naked. {{Gallery
Germany ,
East Germany, 1983 Mixed gender nude swimming in lakes, rivers and beaches following
WWI was part of the
social liberalization in the
Weimar Republic. Some swimmers were part of the organized
naturist movement, others sought only an escape from economic and political turmoil. Economic problems had eliminated support for swimming pools and other recreational facilities, these needs being replaced by "wild swimming" in natural bodies of water. In planning for the
1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, the West German swim coach suggested that men's events be nude, which cut seconds from their times. The suggestion was not taken seriously by Olympic officials.
Greece In the 1870s, sea bathing at the Athenian seafront was an activity dominated by working class men who swam naked. With the beginning of the 20th century, resorts for the middle class were established, a transition which was at odds with male nudity. This was dealt with by having separate male and female bathing areas, but these became difficult to enforce. In the 1910s, mixed gender bathing began, and became actual swimming away from shore rather that wading. Female beach attire became "semi-nude" by the standard of prior years, exposing women's arms and legs.
United States The 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries saw the rise of a
subculture of boys and young men who swam nude in any available
body of water. This extended to well-known historical figures;
Benjamin Franklin and
John Quincy Adams were known to skinny dip.
U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt described nude swims in the
Potomac with his "tennis cabinet" in his
Autobiography: "If we swam the Potomac, we usually took off our clothes". As towns such as
Logan, Utah,
Humboldt, Iowa, and
Dixon, Illinois, 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 did not receive punishment. Local ordinances often prohibited nude swimming, but they frequently went unenforced or involved very young children who did not receive punishment. In 1850,
Grand Rapids, Michigan addressed the issue of both men and women swimming nude in the
Grand River by passing an ordinance allowing the activity only at night, between 8pm and 5am. In 1907,
Nashville, Tennessee deputy sheriffs took no action to stop men and boys from swimming nude in the
Cumberland River outside of populated areas. The 1927 California Channel Swim between
Catalina Island and the mainland was declared clothing optional by the sponsor,
William Wrigley. Two Black American swimmers stated their intention to swim nude, as did several other women, saying the suits available were a handicap. In the 1927 Lake George 24 mile marathon, suits were optional if swimmers chose to cover their bodies with grease. Outdoor nude swimming in isolated American
summer camps also existed as a socially accepted practice usually, but not always, segregated by gender.
Ernest Thompson Seton describes skinny dipping as one of the first activities of his
Woodcraft Indians, a forerunner of the
Scout movement, in 1902. A 1937 article on swimming at
Boy Scout summer camps in
Washington makes no mention of the boys being naked in almost all the photographs. Descriptions of special "carnival" days that were coed did not mention whether swimsuits were available. 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." Night swimming was allowed only in camps where this was safe. In 1937, boys swimming nude in creeks of Atlanta, Georgia received only warnings. An editorial mentions the removal of forests in rural
Vermont being that sheltered ponds where boys had been swimming naked for 200 years during the 1970s. 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. In 1967, misbehavior including drinking, fighting, and accidents led to complaints and calls to make the place off-limits. {{Gallery
Swimming in indoor pools As urbanization in the
Northern United States brought outdoor nude swimming into public view, cities and towns responded by constructing swimming pools that continued the practice indoors. The unavailability of chlorination encouraged nude swimming in indoor swimming pools to maintain hygiene. In 1933, all bathers needed to urinate and shower before entering the pool nude. In 1940, health experts continued to favor boys wearing bathing suits only in pools visible to both sexes. Girls wore cotton suits that could be boiled to disinfect them between uses; wool suits that had previously been used in salt water could not be washed effectively because salt prevents soap from lathering. In 1926, the
American Public Health Association (APHA) standards handbook recommended that indoor swimming pools used by men adopt nude bathing policies and that indoor swimming pools used by women require swimsuits "of the simplest type". Swimming pool owners discouraged boys from bringing their own swimming suits because the institutions could not control decontamination. In 1947, girls at the Liberty School in
Highland Park, Michigan, also swam nude in their classes. As boys had not worn suits for years, girls requested to do the same to give them more time in the pool by eliminating changing. After six weeks, officials ordered the girls in the middle school to wear suits, but the elementary school girls continued to swim nude. 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". White residents often excluded African Americans from these nude swimming locations through a
pseudoscientific claim stating that African Americans served as
disease vectors and could easily transmit
infectious diseases to white Americans.
A strict social taboo against interracial relationships also prohibited African American men and boys, even if not nude, from swimming in front of white women and girls. Several instances of violence erupted when African Americans entered formerly segregated facilities during the
civil rights movement. New developments in pool chlorination, filtration, and nylon swimsuits led the APHA to abandon its recommendation of nude swimming for males in 1962. However, the custom did not immediately cease. During the 1970s, the adoption of mixed-gender swimming led to the gradual abandonment of nude male swimming in schools. Federal
Title IX rules mandating equality in physical education led most schools to switch to co-educational gym classes by 1980, ending nude swimming in public schools. In the 21st century, the practice has been forgotten, denied having existed, or viewed as an example of questionable behaviors in the past that are no longer acceptable. However, Jungian psychoanalyst Barry Miller views the sexualization of nudity in male-only situations such as locker rooms and swimming pools as a loss of a healthy practice. {{Gallery == 21st century practices ==