Vintage pics
Great photo's and the ones with gang showers etc. are not that uncommon but it is surprising to read they were in a mainstream magazine. The ones with the mixed swim teams I look at and wonder if this could have been possible. There are lots of stories but could this be true.
I would bet these have been skillfully faked - there is no way that LIFE magazine ran frontal nudes, male or female.
Note in the pic with the female swim team in front of the naked male team that there's a "mystery" arm over the shoulder of the 2nd/3rd woman from the right - a vegistal twin or... messy Photoshopping.
The old photo's of guys nude with other guys, clearly possible and likely to be real. The mixed ones are hard to believe and maybe the comment about photo-shopping is correct, it's too hard to believe this would have happened in that era, it's a great idea and maybe wishful thinking but it was a very conservative time then.
I can't speak of Life Magazines policies regarding nudity, but I have seen old high school year books of naked swim teams with full frontal nudity. It was common practice for boys to be immodest and for girls to be decent, and naked swimming for boys and men was the norm without any sexual connotations. I'm not old enough to remember it, but I am old enough to remember it being talked about. Photoshopping is hard to discern, however, vintage nudes tend to have these similarities: body hair is not modified and facial expressions tend to be as if they were wearing clothes - eg no strutting stuff, looks of come hither or seduction. That is what makes them refreshing from my perspective.
Amazing glimpse into a much more innocent era. Interesting that not only were the males nude but they were in a co-ed setting with females wearing swimsuits. There did not appear to be any sense of shame but rather that it was a perfectly normal state to be seen in.
Sadly, we have lost that sense of innocence.
Jay
What WolfSteve says is so true! My Dad was a WWII Navy vet of the Okinawa Campaign. He was on a troopship with 5,000 other guys. Open showers and the head was a 100 foot long trough with constantly running seawater from one end to the other used for peeing & pooping! No place for modesty! We need to return to those times!
Many very interesting points made there, Wolfsteve. Think I too have heard the belief, whether it's true or not, that the smell of male urine is a deterant to ward off certain unwanted animals and insects from gardens. Also, until the 1950 or so, even into the '60s people were quite used to taking a bath in a tin bath. Poor people especially - or those living in spartan, cramp conditions - had little choice. Miners would come home from the pits and strip off and get into the tub in front of an open fire while the wives poured hot water over them as they cleaned themselves. Any children in the household would naturally be playing and were used to such a ritual as a necessary and ordinary part of everyday life. Witnessed such scenes as a child when visiting aunts and uncles.
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