The Exhibitionist’s Dream

Revised 10/24/25 Added one image

Nothing says “exhibitionist” like springboard and platform diving.  And if you do it in the nude in front of a crowd, that has to be the ultimate rush.  Anecdotally, I recall a former participant from this era saying exactly that in a blog forum.  He always paused to give the fans an eyeful.

As with other posts, we have found ample evidence of falsification.  But don’t take my word for it, let’s dive in.

This poised young man is garnering no notice at all from his female colleagues, perhaps because they’re not there.    

This could represent a new high (or low, depending on your point of view) for fakery.  Previous fakes involved deleting a swim suit and substituting a set of genitals on a black and white photo.  This fraud would involve very believably adding new figures (and possibly improving the picture quality) to a color image.

On the other hand, looking at areas vacated by the female figures in the second image, there seems to be some waviness to the mortar lines in the brick wall, the bench seat, the black line of the baseboard and the chalk ledge under the green board. I could convince myself that there was an imperfect fill-in after the girls were deleted. Moreover, the shadows cast by the seated girl seem to persist as though the ‘shopper had overlooked them. Also, as I noted above, the picture quality seems a bit better in the first (original?) version. Finally, there is the girl on the right who is blurred as though she was in motion.  If this photo were taken in available light with slow lens speed, that would account for the blurring and also suggest that the first image was genuine.  A counterfeiter would not have added a female figure that was indistinct.

If the girls were added (my first assumption), one could conclude that the faker was trying to convert the image content to a tantalizing CFNM situation. If the girls were removed (the second possibility) what was the faker’s motivation? The most plausible explanation is that the image containing the females is genuine.

Next are a few springboard action shots.

The girls in the background suggest that this is from the 1960’s.  All of these action shots are probably from the mid-60’s to mid-70’s. The male hairdos are on the bushy side. 

Here are some setup images.

This was faked on Photoshop on February 13, 2016 using a Mac device. As it turns out, this was originally a nude shot as it appears here.  It was a page from a German monthly Naturist magazine from the 1990s. The alteration was to remove the title frame.

Like the previous image, it was modified using Photoshop on a McIntosh on April 22, 2012. Also like the previous image, it was a German magazine photo from which the frame was removed.  Otherwise, it was a genuine nude – but not relevant to our purposes.

And here’s one that looks like it’s from ‘way back. Among other dated elements, this doesn’t look like a modern springboard.  What’s that white line in the water?

Speaking of ‘way back, this picture was published in the Illustrated Australian News in March, 1895. This was a new bathhouse in Collingwood, Victoria.

This image, however, shows a metadata stamp of “Google” but no other parameters.  This may not mean that the image has been manipulated in a substantial way. It may just be an indicator that it was prepped for posting

This is image was obtained from something called the Digitaltmuseum organization. They collect and archive images from various Swedish museums.  The description was simply “four men in an open-air bathhouse.”  No date, location or further description. Nice pic, though.

These two unclad lads seem to be contemplating a plunge from a homemade diving tower. We’ve seen these types of purpose-built outdoor structures before in various images posted on this website. The thought that always crosses my mind when viewing such an installation in a natural body of water is: “How do they know the water is deep enough?” 

This undated image is of a scene that took place on an unidentified lake near Gainesville, Florida.  This photo is held by the State Library and Archives of Florida.

14. Her Friend

This image was recorded at Springfield College in Massachusetts sometime between 1970 and 1990. 

In case you haven’t spotted it, in the first picture it appears that the male in the background has his one-eyed worm peeking out from under the diving board. Were bare boys were still in vogue in this era? Apparently not, because the second picture is cropped slight wider and shows a suited male.  The idea that one boy could elect to wear a suit and one not is ‘way too much of a stretch. This was probably faked.

A blowup of the area of interest in each of these two versions yields

Although the resolution is low, I think it is clear that there is a light element in the strategic spot in the first with correspondingly dark element in the second. This really appears to be an instance of counterfeiting a nude male into the picture but the subtlety of the change makes me wonder whether I’m chasing an optical illusion.  

This group of boys seems to be uncertain as to their next move on this multi-level diving structure.  This image dates from 1974. The scene took place in a PE class of the London School for Boys.

Here are a few very old-looking diving images that seem to take us back to the good old YMCA.

The caption is actually the title of this image.  This was apparently an art photo.  The lighting was obviously the star of the picture.  It looks like it was shot at an outdoor pool along side a building.  Whatever the photographer went through to set this up, he probably had no trouble finding a nude model.

This image was retrieved from the New York Public Library Digital Collection.  This photo is undated but the collection itself carries the date range of 1860-1920.  This is obviously from the latter end of that period.

A tank-suited diver is being watched by crew of nude boys. My guess is that they wanted a promotional shot for encouraging enrollment in swim classes, but hesitated to show penises, hence this quirky hybrid shot.  Note that the onlookers are discreetly posed to avoid revealing anything that might be considered offensive.

This image is from the Boys’ and Girls’ Club of Greater Boston archive held in Northeastern University. Based on the date range of that archive, this photo could date from as early as 1923.

Looks like another posed promotional image.  This time, however, the brave producers were okay with bare buttocks. Although the spectators are pressing their knees together, three or four seem to be in tank suits. At first, I questioned whether they could be girls until I saw …

… this original version in which all of the audience is completely uniform (no pun intended) in appearance.  I can’t imagine why someone would make such a subtle change.

This is attributed to a Miami YMCA in the 1930’s. It resides in the Romer Collection of the Miami-Dade County Public Library Digital Collection.

Next we’ll take a little vacation from this intense analysis and broaden our consideration to off-topic images.

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