The Investigation Continues
Revised 2/1/24
There are so many images available on this topic, that this will be the third posting presenting unidentified material.
This first set is of starting block images – a staple of competitive swimming photography.
I understand that this is a feature of the European naturist swim meets – mixed gender relays. These people (adults, all of them) seem poised to take off on their assigned legs. They are in the company of spectators, other participants and officials who are nude. Definitely not relevant to our topic.
Based on other viewed images, I’m pretty sure this one is from a recent European naturist event. As is typical, the officials and the assistants are clothed, the competitors and spectators are usually in their altogether.
This is recent as well and probably also from our friends across the pond. These modern facilities have the deck above ground, have visible structural members and have plenty of fenestration. Through mid-20th century, natatoriums were often in the basement and typically were covered in masonry with small, high windows – if they had windows at all.
This has associated metadata that cites “Google” as the software it passed through. It is likely that it was altered.
I’m pretty confident that this is a recent image that has been decolorized. The young competitors are decked out in goggles and caps and the bystanders are dressed in a more contemporary manner. The sign on the back wall looks like it may be something other than English trailing the Roman numeral for 13. The place has the look of a high school gymnasium.
Having said all that, as I have mentioned before, this is the easiest type of photo to fake. The visible ligand of a speedo can be deleted from a side view, turning the swimmer nude. I have my doubts about this image.
Whatever amusing thing is happening in the water, it cannot be that a guy swam out of his speedo. Obviously, the guys are not using suits (although they modestly wrap up in towels when not in the water). Their female colleagues are all suited, however. The facility looks rather old and worn, but I think the picture is rather recent. It seems like a private club event, drawing a more mature crowd.
I remain curious about the apparent double standard (girls in suits, boys nude) that crops up in more recent pictures in this collection. It seems to echo the pre-1980 practice, but has not garnered mention in the forums and blogs that I’ve seen.
This next trio of images looks like classic nude male/suited female swim competition but the facility (see comments under image 3, above) and the girls’ suits seem more contemporary than the period we’re dealing with. The subjects appear to be high school age with a few notable exceptions.
A well-lit, modern seeming venue. Note that the girls are wearing random suits. I noticed that this was often the practice in the genuine images of the classic period we are considering.
This image also passed through “Google” software. Likely faked.
Just when you thought you’d seen it all. A bunch of naked, pervy old men checking out the young girls, but no young male competitors in the frame. The one young male in the background of 7A is wearing long shorts that became popular for general wear after the 1970’s. The pictures seem legit because in image 7A all the reflections on the wet floor and the pool align with the figures. So, what’s happening here? (BTW, the sign is in Dutch: No Running.)
A correspondent reported that he had seen the original of these images in a European nudist magazine that dated from the 1990s or early 2000s. A group of nudists was sharing the pool with a girls’ synchronized swimming team. This version cropped out the female nudists in the group to yield this creepy version. These images contain metadata but it does not appear to record manipulation. It apparently resulted from the cropping.
Of course, these two images are not relevant to our inquiry.
This has a more mature set of participants than the girls in the previous pair of pictures. The women seem to be waiting for starting signal but in the meantime, there’s a guy on the 5th starting block. That and other items made me initially suspicious of this image, but the objections all seem minor. It is noteworthy that all of the males in the frame are nude.
The facility looks modern, being above ground with a contemporary-looking radiator on the back wall. The banner behind the competitors sems to be a bulleted list, but is unreadable. I think this is later than our period of interest, but it may be a valid example of the persistence of suited female/nude male swimming competition.
You can read almost whatever you want into this blurry image. It appears to show a suited girl and two nude boys taking the plunge. The bystanders are uniformly in the same gender-differentiated mode of costume. The one thing that prevents me from giving this a passing grade is the fact that the boys’ genitalia seem rather distinct compared with the low resolution of the rest of the image. It seems like their appointments have been burned in. As noted before, this type of indistinct grey scaled image is a staple of fakery.
While the nude swimmers are biting their nails over the outcome of this relay race, I’m stroking my chin over the authenticity and era of this image. As before, the image is quite indistinct. You can just make out the lettering on the wall in the upper right that says “BOYS 2nd.” It looks like a smeary image of a swimmer launching off the starting block was captured on the far right. I’d like to know what the device on the tripod on the far right is. It looks vaguely familiar.
Is the seated woman near the center of this picture holding a mini camcorder? If so, this event occurred much more recently than our period of interest. It also might suggest that alteration may have taken place in the form of depantsing the two boys.
It is noteworthy that this image is not just fuzzy like the previous shot, but it is actually pixelated. I’m not sure what that says about the original image. Was it taken with a digital camera? If so, this picture post-dates 1990. It would have also been in color.
I’m leaning toward “fake.”
The goggles suggest that this event took place no earlier than the 1970’s. The curly/wavy hair style of the woman visible between the two competitors does tend to confirm it’s at least that recent. She also seems to be wearing those large lensed glasses that were in vogue in the 70’s. But is it authentic? If the dating is right, this image was probably in color originally. It is also very low resolution. There is the distinct possibility that this was decolorized in order to perpetrate a fake.
I’ll drop back to neutral on this one.
Not much can be said about this foggy image.
Let’s now move onto some more interesting pictures.
The young man with the hunched shoulders and vacant look cannot detract from the novelty of this image. The accounts one reads talk about classes of naked boys sometimes overseen by equally naked male instructors. There is also frequent mention of naked boys under the tutelage of suited girls and women. There are also recollections of mixed classes where the boys were nude and the girls were in suits. A nude male instructing suited girls is definitely outside that pale.
The suit worn by the diving girl says 1950’s or earlier by its bagginess and over-the -hip configuration. This dating is affirmed by the (dungeon-like) basement location typical of indoor pools of that vintage.
The klatch of females has some points of interest. The seated girl on the far right displays an old Girl Scout logo on her suit. I was not able to discover when that logo was in use to assist with the dating. I suggest that this is group of Girl Scouts on a swim outing. Apparently, they saw nothing unusual in their nude male companion.
It’s highly improbable that this is real.
This looks more like boot camp than training for scholastic competition. The guys (who are definitely past high school age) are doing knuckle pushups in their birthday suits while sporting close-cropped haircuts. The facility is modern with the pool deck obviously at or above ground level. I can’t say how this image fits (or doesn’t) in the scope of our investigation.
Both guys in this picture seem to be pleased with the situation.
This photo was altered on August 16, 2021 using Windows Photo Editor. Apparently it’s not just Mac users who play this game.
The lifeguard looks like he’s doing stand-up at a nudist pool meeting. His audience is certainly appreciative.
The first point I want to make about this very engaging image is that this is a snapshot that was mounted in a photo album. It was apparently scanned in place. Usually, I crop out that frame and any extraneous marks before posting. I did not do that in this case because I thought the frame lent credibility to an otherwise unattributed image.
The cryptic notation on the frame seems more like an archivist’s mark rather than a family album label. This may have been an album maintained by an organization for which this kind of gathering was normal.
The group is interesting in that there seems to be a range of ages. It looks as though some of the participants could be teenagers while others are obviously adults – including the folicly-challenged guy in the center.
The purpose that brought these guys together will have to remain a mystery. But if this is not some nudist club gathering, it would make the point that at one time every day males had no problem with socializing in the nude under appropriate circumstances.
In the next two postings, we’ll sweep out the corners of my photo bin.
Historical Nude Male Swimming Images 