Mixed bathing

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Tel-Aviv
beach, 1927
Surf bathing at Brighton-Le-Sands, Australia, early 20th century. Women's swim area.

Mixed bathing is the sharing of a

swimming or other water-based recreational activities in public or semi-public facilities, such as hotel or holiday resort pool, in a non-sex segregated
environment.

Ancient times

In ancient Rome, mixed bathing at public facilities was prohibited at various periods, while commonplace at others. It is also possible that sex-segregated bathing was the rule at some facilities but not at others.[1]

Modern times

In many parts of the world, mixed bathing was not generally allowed and

immoral or immodest. Women's swimsuits were considered inherently immodest. To avoid the exposure of people in swimsuits, especially to people of the opposite sex, many popular beach resorts were commonly equipped with bathing machines. Legal segregation of beaches ended in Britain in 1901, and the use of the bathing machines declined rapidly. Another measure in the moral campaign was to ban sea bathing altogether or during daylight hours. Australian bathers were only permitted to swim during daylight hours after 1903. Before mixed bathing became culturally accepted from the late-19th century, public bathing, when permitted or practiced at all, was segregated on the basis of gender, using either separate facilities or using some form of divide or by allocation of times for use by men and women.[citation needed
]

By the 1920s, the public in many Western countries began to flout the ban on mixed bathing in public places such as beaches, and the prohibitions began being repealed. The main objection to the prohibition to mixed bathing was that it prevented families and couples from enjoying the beach together. Following the repeal of bans on mixed bathing, beaches became a popular meeting place and place of recreation, especially for young people, and not necessarily for swimming.[citation needed]

It took longer for pools, including public pools, to permit mixed bathing. For example, when

summer camps
.

Although mixed bathing is commonplace today,

sex discrimination
legislation which extend to the provision of sporting and recreational facilities, including private facilities. However, there are usually provisions for exemptions being granted, and exemptions have been granted in some cases for women-only bathing on the basis, for example, of religious and cultural sensitivities.

In Japan, nude mixed bathing was the norm at public baths until the Meiji Restoration when sex segregation was strictly enforced at sentō-type baths.[citation needed]

See also

References

  1. ^ Garrett G. Fagan, Bathing in Public in the Roman World (University of Michigan Press, 1999, 2002), pp. 26–27.
  2. ISBN 0-9521637-0-5
  3. ^ Melbourne City Baths
  4. ^ Cohen, Michael (December 2005), "Swimming Naked at MGS" (PDF), The Mancunian, Old Mancunians, archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-06-17, retrieved 2007-11-27. From about 1930 until at least the 1970s.
  5. ^ Naked in High School: Bad Dreams Do Come True, National Public Radio, August 1, 2006, retrieved 2007-11-27
  6. ^ Nude Swimming at Johnston JHS, 1959 to 61, October 15, 2007, retrieved 2007-11-27 From about 1951 to 1970?
  7. ISBN 9780520021785
    . Retrieved 24 October 2011. The ordinary man in the early twentieth century thought that mixed bathing was wrong simply because that view had been effectively preached to him from his earliest years; on the other hand, the utilitarian may think that there is nothing wrong in it because he has thought the question out in the way described above, putting himself in the place of all those affected, and decided that he can best serve their interests by rejecting the prohibition on mixed bathing, because, as he says, it does nobody any harm.
  8. ^ The International Journal of the History of Sport, Volume 24, Issues 5-8. Taylor & Francis. 2007. p. 598. Retrieved 24 October 2011. The question of mixed bathing and swimming remained a very vexed one throughout the period. As has already been mentioned, prior to 1800 it would appear that mixed bathing, while not common, did take place from time to time.
  9. ^ Toameh, Khaled Abu (19 September 2010). "Gaza water park burned down after shut down by Hamas". Jerusalem Post.
  10. ^ "Gaza water park torched after shuttered by Hamas". Jerusalem Post. Associated Press. 19 September 2010.
  11. ^ "Gaza: Assailants set fire to water park". Ma'an News Agency. 19 September 2010. Archived from the original on 10 October 2013.
  12. ^ Stefanie Hoss (2005). Baths and bathing: the culture of bathing and the baths and thermae in Palestine from the Hasmoneans to the Moslem conquest ; with an appendix on Jewish rituals baths (miqva'ot). Archæopress. p. 77. Retrieved 24 October 2011. It is very likely that the non-Jewish population rejected mixed bathing just as much as the Jewish population did.
  13. ^ The Discipline of the Evangelical Wesleyan Church. Evangelical Wesleyan Church. 2015. pp. 60–61.
  14. ISBN 9780873980128
    . Retrieved 24 October 2011. On the other hand, fundamentally sound and devoted Christians in the South are nearly always shocked when they find that fundamental Christians in the North have mixed bathing at their summer Bible conferences, and elsewhere Christian men and women and young people go swimming together and sometimes do not feel it is wrong.
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