Nude Boys Swim

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Nude Boys Swim
Hannah Dellinger April 28, 2019 GMT
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GREENWICH — A lawsuit filed against the Boys & Girls Club of Greenwich claims a sexual abuser used the clubs’ mandatory naked swimming rule in the 1970s and ’80s as an opportunity to victimize boys.
The then-Greenwich Boys’ Club wasn’t the only youth organization that once required boys to swim naked. While the practice may sound shocking or counterintuitive to children’s safety today, nude swimming at public indoor pools was once a federal recommendation.
“At indoor pools used exclusively by men nude bathing should be required,” says a document published by the American Public Health Association in 1926. “At indoor pools used exclusively by women bathing suits should be of the simplest type.”
The origins of nude swimming can be found well before the guideline was published. When the first indoor pool opened at the Brooklyn YMCA in 1885, the organization required men and boys to swim naked. The club said it banned swimsuits because the common wool suits of the time carried disease and bacteria, and fibers clogged the pool’s simple filtration system, according to multiple publications.
Other reasons given by administrators during the era included concerns about the expense of bathing suits, newspaper articles of the time indicate.
“Money-wise the wearing of suits is out of the question,” John Pawlowski Jr., president of the Board of Education in Appleton, Wis., said at a public meeting in 1961, according to an article published by the Appleton Press at the time. “It would mean an investment of $2,000 to $3,000.”
Others in favor of naked swimming said the practice prepared boys for adulthood.
“Physical education considers that this experience is a good one for later life, for example, the armed services, where the disregard for privacy is real and serious,” another man said in the story.
After the American Public Health Association published its recommended swimming regulations in 1926, nearly all Boys’ Clubs of America, YMCAs and public schools in the nation followed or encouraged them, a practice that lasted for many years, historical documents and newspaper archives indicate.
“At no time will suits be worn in the pool and boys will not need them any time during the entire program,” says a brief published about a YMCA swimming class in Bridgeport’s Port News in March 1959.
Many places adopted the practice before the 1926 decree. The April 1922 issue of the Boys’ Workers Round Table, published by the organization that ran all Boys’ Clubs in the nation at the time, ran multiple photographs of naked boys swimming at the Worcester, Mass., Boys’ Club. The same publication in 1923 featured a photograph of nude boys swimming at a pond at the Springfield, Mass., Boys’ Club farm camp.
Images of naked adolescent boys swimming appeared in national publications, including Life Magazine. Newspapers such as the New York Times detailed swim meets in sports stories, specifically mentioning the swimmers’ nudity.
Boys who refused to swim naked were ostracized by other boys and sometimes coaches or instructors, documents and videos show. Syndicated columnist Ann Landers chided a boy who wrote to ask her advice about his reluctance to swim naked in front of his peers.
“You need to talk to a school counselor and learn why you are so uptight about being seen naked,” she wrote in a 1974 column. “If you look around you’ll find the vast majority of the guys who are showering are not in the least bit self-conscious.”
The practice became a kind of rite-of-passage for young men, Richard Senelick wrote in The Atlantic in 2014.
“Many men don’t speak up about their desire for privacy in fear that they will be mocked for not being ‘man enough,’” he wrote. “There is the assumption that men bond by swimming or showering together in the nude, but I can assure you that, given a choice, we would have rather worn a bathing suit and showered in a stall.”
Naked swimming rules weren’t met with much dissent, newspaper archives show. But eventually attitudes began to change.
The 1961 article in the Appleton Post noted more than 370 people signed a petition demanding the school board change its nude swimming mandate.
One woman was quoted as saying boys were “affected morally, physically and psychologically by forcing them to swim nude.”
Even though most youth organizations parted with the rule around the 1960s, according to numerous media reports, the Greenwich Boys’ Club continued to implement naked swimming until at least the early 1980s, a lawsuit filed against the Boys & Girls Club of Greenwich says.
“At that time, it was custom that younger Boys’ Club members swam naked while in the pool, on Tuesdays and Thursdays during the summertime after outings to Island Beach or Tod’s Point Beach,” the lawsuit complaint says.
It was also common for older boys to swim clothed with the naked younger boys, per the lawsuit, and they regularly “horse-played” during these swims.
The five plaintiffs in the case say counselor Andrew Atkinson sexually abused them at the Greenwich club in the 1970s and ’80s, including at least one in the swimming pool.
“During these summertime naked swimming experiences ... (a 6-year-old victim) regularly came into contact with (his alleged abuser), who, as an older boy, was wearing a bathing suit,” the complaint says. “(The young boy), while naked and in the pool, was molested, fondled and groped by Atkinson. These incidents of sexual assault were masked by the horseplay.”
In an interview last month, Atkinson, now 54, denied abusing anybody.
Attorneys for the Boys & Girls Club of Greenwich declined to comment about the allegations of nude swimming at the facility in the past. Administrators told Greenwich Time previously the safety of the children they serve is the main priority of the organization.
Representatives from the Boys & Girls Clubs of America declined to comment on pending litigation, but said the organization recognizes the pain victims of child sexual abuse have suffered.
“We understand time does not take away any pain inflicted on victims and their families,” the statement says. “We respect those who have brought forward these extremely serious concerns. It is our aim to have the lawsuit resolved in a manner that provides support and comfort to the victims and their families.”


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It’s gym class and you’re completely naked. You could be having a bad dream — or you could have just been a male student in a Chicago Public School swim class.
For more than 50 years, high school gym classes in CPS required boys to bare it all during swim instructions — a policy commonly used across the country. Curious City reporter Monica Eng recently dove into the history of this policy after numerous Curious City fans asked about it. (You can hear the audio of this feature on Thursday during All Things Considered . )
Eng shared her findings with Morning Shift host Tony Sarabia, and we heard from callers who recounted their experiences in swim class. Here are some highlights.
Monica Eng: The policy was the boys swam nude and the girls had stretched-out tank suits.
When it started? It’s harder to date because Chicago Public Schools — I started asking them in April, then May, June and August. They will not talk about it. So I don’t have official dates. I did interviews with coaches and crowdsourcing, and it appears it started around the 1920s when they were starting to build a lot of pools in big cities across the country, including in high schools.
A caller named Gale shared this story about going to swim class at a high school in suburban Deerfield during the 1970s.
Gale: We had the intimate Ms. Olston, who I’m still haunted by, who was the girls’ locker-room inspector and bathing-suit hander-outer. And inevitably you’d walk through the showers, take your shower, and then you had to stand in front of her, show her your frontside and then your backside, and she was making sure you were clean.
Then she’d size you up for one of those tank suits, and I remember they were, like, light orange and light green, so I still hate those colors. And she’d inevitably give you a suit that was too small for you, so you’d be spilling out of it.
A caller named Stan, who said he graduated from Lake View High School in 1971, said the experience of swimming naked was traumatic.
Stan: Not only did you have to swim with nothing on, but when you were going out to the pool from the shower, the coach would be standing by the door and …
Stan: Yeah, and can I tell you what he used to call it? It’s just really embarrassing. He would call it “checking the lint trap.”
Tony Sarabia: Was this a traumatic experience for you?
Stan: You know, it was. After that — that was my freshmen year of high school — I would do anything to get out of having to take swim class.
John, who said he graduated from Lane Tech High School in 1979, said he is surprised by the reaction the policy receives now.
John: It was the policy throughout my tenure in high school. At the time, it was a little strange, but I think the way people look back on it now seems almost bizarre. There’s this sense of horrorification about the whole thing, and it just seems like we’re in a kind of new era of puritanism, where this whole episode is looked back on as something that just can’t be believed.
It was kind of a comical thing among most of the students I knew at the time. And I think the rationale for keeping dirty suits out of the pool was given. We always thought there was an ulterior motive that some of the coaches were on the pervy side, maybe, but that was just a joke among us.
But the whole thing, I don’t recall being traumatized by it all.
Elle said she went to suburban Highland Park High School and remembers how she learned of the nude-swimming policy.
Elle: My girl friend and I, we were freshmen, and so we were new to this school. And during one of our free periods, we decided to roam around and explore the school. So we came upon the boys’ pool and the doors were locked, but we could hear voices. So we were peaking through the slits in the door. I looked first and I was like, “Oh my God. Patsy, they’re naked.” So Patsy, she pushes me aside, and we were mortified and ran away giggling.
Eng: This was the fear of every 14-year-old boy, that this was actually happening.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. Click the “play” button to listen to the entire conversation.
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Andreatta: Drowning in notes from nude swimmers
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David Andreatta
 
| Democrat and Chronicle

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My recent column about the mercifully discontinued requirement that boys swim nude in high school gym classes across Rochester and many American cities generated a flood of responses from older men who shared the experience generations ago.
The piece was intended to contrast the stark practice of yesteryear with the coddling of high school students today in Greece, where school administrators made changing clothes for gym class optional to reduce teenage angst about body image .
But the column also jogged latent memories — some painful, some amusing — of men who were forced to swim in a state of nature in their public schools, some as recently as the 1970s.
Dozens of men wrote me to share their recollections, and posted here are excerpts of some of their emails.
For some, the column validated their stories that younger generations refused to believe. Others took comfort in learning the practice was universal and not just a bizarre tradition at their school that for years was spoken of in hushed tones. 
I typically don't share my mail, and I always honor all requests from readers who write and ask that our correspondence remain confidential. That rule still applies here. To protect the privacy of readers, though, the writers' last names and the full names of anyone else they may have mentioned in their note have been omitted.    
“For years, I have wondered why the boys swam nude in gym class when I attended Jefferson High School in Rochester.…This has bothered me and whoever I asked, no one seemed to have an answer.…I just had to write you because now we all know the reason. The reason being stupidity and ignorance on the part of the American Public Health Association.” — John
“At Greece Olympia from 1965-1970 not only were we forced to swim nude but whenever (John Doe) gym teacher was in charge we had to bend over and he’d do what he called a ‘dingleberry check.’ Incredible, huh?…I have friends who can corroborate this insanity.” — Mark
“Your article brought memories I have suppressed from my Monroe High School gym/swimming classes. Class of 1962. As I wear glasses, which I had to remove, I was never able to find my required buddy amidst the blurry vision of naked flesh. The teachers were unsympathetic and total boors.” — Elliot
“Imagine being 12 years old and having to jump in the deep end for the first time without a bathing suit. This was actually scary. I think that we should start a class action lawsuit against the Rochester City School District. I now have PTSD because the gym teachers made me swim nude and you triggered that living nightmare.” — Dan
“I graduated from Franklin High School in 1961. That was standard procedure in our swimming gym classes also, as well as jumping off of the 10-foot diving platform. We still joke about it at reunions and get-togethers.” — Don
“In your piece, you omitted the worst part. We had to practice ‘life-saving jumps’ that was to jump into the water, body upright and legs spread in order to keep your head from going under and losing sight of the victim. OUCH!” — Tom
“Your article brought back an embarrassing memory from back in 1968, Eastridge High School. I wore glasses which I left in my locker for swim class. I thought one day was swim day, I stripped, showered, entered the pool and dove in. When I surfaced, I was surrounded by a bevy of giggling girls. Luckily, I was not recognized (without my glasses), but I always knew who the legendary ‘mystery pool streaker’ was!” — Ken
"I graduated from Charlotte High School in 1959 and can attest to the facts of your story. What I'm sure you know, but couldn't print is that when you came into the pool area from the shower room everyone was wet and cold, which has a great shrinking effect on certain parts of the anatomy!" — Richard
“The USA was not the only place where boys swam nude in high school pool classes. We here in Canada did also.…It was no big deal.…It was what you did. I miss the opportunity to be able to swim in the all together and often think that today’s youth are missing out on a unique experience.” — Mike, Medicine Hat, Alberta.
“Interesting article that brought up horrible memories. I went to Edison Tech. When I went in 1975 boys still had to swim nude. Half the time they just made us stand there for 10 minutes talking to us.” — Jim
“I graduated from Webster High School in 1964. I remember more than a couple times we got to the pool and there weren’t any swimsuits. So we went in without. It was no big deal. No one pointed or laughed. The world didn’t stop turning. It was pretty ‘matter of fact.’” — Doug
“At John Marshall HS back in the early ‘60s, (the coach) kept a rubber shower shoe in his hand during P.E. swim class and if you did not jump in he would whack your bare (bottom). We called it a ‘sunshine mark.’” — Gary 
David Andreatta is a Democrat and Chronicle columnist. He can be reached at dandreatta@gannett.com .

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