Elderly Midwestern men have been recalling their bizarre and confusing naked swimming lessons as children after a newspaper column went viral.
Throughout the 1960s and 70s public middle and high schools across states including Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Illinois and North Dakota made boys undertake swimming lessons fully nude.
A January column by Laura Yuen in The Minnesota Star Tribune entitled ‘Why were boys required to swim naked in Minnesota schools?‘ went viral and prompted a follow-up column this week where readers recalled their ‘humiliating’ and ‘humorous’ experiences from 50 years ago.
One man, who went to junior high in Ohio, wrote to the outlet: ‘I felt humiliated, if not traumatized, having to be naked in front of my contemporaries.
‘At the time, what was beyond strange for me was that the instructor made a point of undressing himself before the class.’
He added that after all this time, he still has not been given an explanation for his PE teacher’s actions.
In most cases, the rules were that boys had to go without swim trunks while girls were provided bathing suits by their schools. PE classes were separated by gender.
Schools argued buying them swimsuits was not their responsibility and that it simply was not a big deal.
In the 1960s and 1970s, public schools across the Midwest made boys swim naked (stock image)
Another concern was that the fibers from boys’ wool swim trunks would clog pool filters or carry bacteria.
In 1926, the American Public Health Association recommended that ‘nude bathing should be required’ in indoor pools exclusively for men, according to WBEZ Chicago.
Minnesota’s Duluth school district in particular defended naked swimming for as long as it could.
A poem written by Duluth board member Leonard Wheat in the Tribune in 1973 – the year the school district said goodbye to nude swimming – read: ‘Requiring boys to wear swim trunks will please some prudes and modest monks.
‘But spirits free prefer the nude; It seems to fit the boyish mood.’
Yet, as adults, many of the men do not have fun or free-spirited memories of swimming naked among their peers as their teacher oversaw them.
Also seemingly concentrated in the Midwest naked swimming in public spaces for boys and men has roots across the country (stock image)
‘Looking back on it, the vibe was kind of weird: A fully dressed male adult gym teacher making a bunch of naked adolescents lie on the pool deck and do porpoise slides into the water,’ Richard Chin, who attended school in Michigan, told the Tribune.
Many described instances of physical abuse if they did not want to swim without clothing.
‘After one class of uncomfortable contact with classmates, I chose to stay in the shower room rather than accompany my class. The physical education instructor noticed I was missing,’ Rick who went to Central Junior High in Minnesota in the 1960s told the Tribune.
‘Finding me in the shower room, I was instructed to wait and received “the paddle” on my bare bottom. I didn’t miss a class the rest of the quarter.’
Gary, who went to a different school – Maplewood Junior High in Minnesota – in the mid-1960s recalled a similar experience with the infamous paddle.
He described what he saw happen to the kids who were messing around instead of paying attention to the teacher.
‘He told them to face the pool, bend over, and grab their ankles,’ he began.
‘All of them did. He came behind them, took a swing, and you could hear the crack of that paddle on their rear ends. He went to the next kid, and the next kid, and the next kid.’
The Duluth School Board finally ruled to give boys swim trunks in 1973
A North Dakota student related to these harsh disciplinary actions, telling the Tribune his instructor used a fiberglass fishing rod to whack students’ behinds. He also allegedly made the boys do jumping jacks around the pool.
Bruce Seal, 76, attended Minnesota’s Hopkins High School and had a comical take on this odd aspect of his four years of PE.
He said his teacher routinely shouted: ‘All right boys, I want to see those periscopes!’
Seal remembered laughing so hard when his instructor yelled, that he had to try ‘not to swallow the water’ while doing laps.
Several of these recounts depicted an uncomfortable level of awkwardness as well, as the pre-teens and teens were afraid girls would peak in while they were not wearing anything.
And some PE instructors seemingly found humor in that.
Randy Mikkelson, who went to high school in Minnesota, said that at the start of each school year, his swim teacher would pull a prank on the new students as they were lined up for attendance.
‘Suddenly he’d look up at the (empty) bleachers behind us, and say ‘Girls, what are you doing here now? Your class isn’t till next hour!’ he explained.
The Brooklyn YMCA mandated nude swimming for boys and men in the 1800s
‘All of us boys would dive for cover, and the teacher got a good chuckle.’
Bill Terry, who went to middle school in Minnesota, acknowledged some strangeness, but ultimately has fond memories of swimming lessons.
‘We were going through puberty at the time, and when we would have to line up along the pool walkway, it was crazy looking down the line,’ he told the Tribune.
‘There were hairy, 6-foot-2, well-endowed guys next to 5-foot shrimps all standing in line in our nakedness. I do remember laughing a lot, so I think that it was more fun than anything.’
In Duluth’s case, the school board eventually voted to spend $13,700 to invest in boys swimsuits after board member Ruth Myers described subjecting them to such conditions was ‘objectionable,’ according to the Tribune.
Greenwich Time reported that boys swimming naked in schools was never explicitly made illegal by federal law, but it generally fizzled out of practice in the 70s.
Although testimonials focused on the stories of male children and teens in Midwestern states’ schools, naked swimming can be traced back to a Brooklyn YMCA the late 1800s.
‘Many men don’t speak up about their desire for privacy in fear that they will be mocked for not being “man enough,”‘ Richard Senelick of Chicago wrote in an Atlantic article in 2014.
Many argued that it was not the school’s responsibility to give out swimsuits to boys
In his testimonial piece, Senelick explained that men have essentially been bullied out of setting boundaries for themselves or expressing discomfort with being unclothed near other men.
‘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.’
