Nude swimming is the practice of swimming without clothing, whether in natural bodies of water or in swimming pools. "Skinny dipping" is a colloquial term for nude swimming.
In prehistory and for much of ancient history, both swimming and bathing were done without clothing. In Western societies into the 20th century, nude swimming was common for men and boys, particularly in male-only contexts; however, swimwear began to be expected in mixed-sex environments. The widespread acceptance of naturism in many European countries led to legal recognition of clothing-optional swimming in locations open to the public.
Nude swimming has been depicted in art and in film.
History
Based upon rock painting found in caves, the human activity of swimming existed for many thousands of years prior to the first civilizations, during which humans were generally naked.
Ancient to early modern In Ancient Egypt, clothing was symbolic of social status, making adult nudity an indicator of low status or poverty. However, children, even of the upper classes, would be naked until puberty. Manual laborers of either sex would wear a loincloth or skirt unless their tasks included swimming; fishermen and boatmen often being nude.
In ancient Rome, clothing also represented social status, but public bathhouses were an exception. Bathhouses might include swimming pools that were located in open courtyards.
Swimming became increasingly unpopular after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, being viewed by the Christian church as both sinful and unhealthy. In spite of church teaching, swimming and bathing returned in the 12th century, sometimes without segregation of the sexes. Defying the Church of England, Everard Digby's book The Art of Swimming (De Arte Natandi) was published in 1587. Melchisédech Thévenot's 1696 instruction book, also called The Art of Swimming, was illustrated by 40 copperplate etchings that showed swimming was normally nude.
Indigenous peoples swimming naked were depicted by colonists in the Americas beginning in the 16th century.
Modern era Australia In the Victorian era, public baths and swimming pools were built in Adelaide to address problems of health and safety, but also to reduce the persistence of nude swimming in open waters. Swimming costumes were issued to pool patrons.
England Modest clothing for bathing or swimming was not considered until the 15th century, when women began wearing bathing dresses and men linen drawers. In male-only groups, men continued to swim nude in rivers and the sea until the mid-19th century. The Bath Corporation official bathing dress code of 1737 prohibited men and women from swimming nude either in the day or in the night.
In the early 1730s, fashionable sea bathing initially followed the inland health-seeking tradition. Sea bathing resorts modelled themselves on Bath, and provided promenades, circulating libraries, and assembly rooms. While sea bathing or dipping, men and boys were naked, women and girls were encouraged to dip wearing loose clothing. Scarborough was the first resort to provide bathing machines for changing. Some men extended this to swimming in the sea, and by 1736, it was seen at Brighton and Margate, and later at Deal, Eastbourne, and Portsmouth.
In England, bathing in the sea by the lower classes was noted in Southampton by Thomas Gray in 1764, and in Exmouth in 1779. In Lancashire, working women and men bathed naked in the sea together in 1795: "Lower classes of people of both sexes made an annual pilgrimage to Liverpool where they dabbled in the salt water for hours at each tide in promiscuous numbers and not much embarrassing themselves about appearance."
At the beginning of the Victorian period in England, men and boys typically swam naked in the sea near bathing machines that were used by women. Some efforts were made to designate separate beach sections for males and females. An 1842 review of seaside resorts noted that naked men in the sea were a primary attraction for visitors to Ramsgate, including women. The writer finds this no different from women viewing images of nude men in art galleries, near-naked men in the opera, or workers in the water. On the River Cherwell near the University of Oxford, an area for male nude bathing was known as Parson's Pleasure.
In the latter half of the 19th century, the rise of the influence of Christian Evangelicals caused arrangements for mixed bathing to be reassessed. Moral pressures led some town councils to establish zones for the women and men to bathe separately. These areas were not policed; mixed bathing was a popular activity. Resorts attempted to placate the Evangelicals without upsetting traditional bathers. There are very few records of magistrates enforcing the bylaws. In 1895, Cosmopolitan reported: "At most English resorts, buff bathing is available before eight o'clock in the morning" while Brighton, Worthing, Hastings, Bexhill, Bognor and Folkestone still tolerated nude bathing at any time of the day, in areas away from the central bathing areas.
However at Margate, the conventions regarding both gender segregation and male nudity were ignored, resulting in what was called "promiscuous bathing"; clothed women in the same location as naked men. Rather than being avoided, beach-goers gathered to enjoy the spectacle, often using telescopes.
Drawers, or caleçons as they were called (fr:caleçon de bain), came into use in the 1860s. Even then, many protested against them and wanted to remain in the nude. Rev. Francis Kilvert, an English clergyman and nude swimmer, described men's bathing suits coming into use in the 1870s as "a pair of very short red and white striped drawers". Excerpts from Kilvert's diary show the transition in the England of the 1870s from an acceptance of nude bathing to the acceptance of bathing suits. Kilvert describes "a delicious feeling of freedom in stripping in the open air and running down naked to the sea."
In 1895, The Daily Telegraph, Standard, Daily Graphic and Daily Mail newspapers ran a campaign to reintroduce mixed bathing in all resorts, pointing out that its prohibition split up families and encouraged them to take their holidays abroad. Commercial pressure defeated the moral pressures. Sea bathing had ceased to be done for health reasons and was done overwhelmingly for pleasure. As the segregated beaches in town disappeared, bathing costumes for men became part of the commercial package, and nude bathing ceased.
The introduction of mixed bathing throughout Europe and elsewhere certainly created pressure towards bathing costumes being worn by both genders. However, well into the latter days of the Victorian Era, whereas all females were routinely wearing modest bathing attire, many boys well into their teens in Victorian England, even when in a mixed gender setting, were still swimming and playing at the beach resorts completely naked. An article published on August 23, 1891, in the Syracuse Sunday Herald suggests naked boys of up to 15 years in age were problematic for American parents with daughters, and read:
South Africa From 1873, the East London, Eastern Cape town council promulgated measures to control swimming hours, apparel and especially separate swimming areas for men and women. These regulations were too conservative and constraining for the taste of the residents of this coastal town and for several decades they were the subject of legal battles, or were simply ignored. The dispute was finally settled in 1906 when mixed bathing was permitted with the proviso that both men and women should wear suitable swimming costumes.
20th century
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) was seen by many as an innocent activity for young males, as long as it did not intrude upon the sensibilities of females. In the 20th century, urban growth had encroached upon this isolation, and also created the problem of water pollution. The development of beaches in the Sunnyside district on the Lake Ontario waterfront marked the end of nude outdoor 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
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.
Germany
Mixed gender nude swimming in lakes, rivers and on sea beaches following World War I was part of the social liberalization in the Weimar Republic. Some swimmers were part of the organized naturist movement (Freikörperkultur), 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".