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Monday, March 7, 2022

Mass nudity


I'm not 100% certain that this one is military, but there aren't that many other scenarios 
in which this could have played out.  I can't find a single guy here not to like.

 

4 comments:

  1. I came across this photo when I was doing my research into the history of men's sports clothing - although for obvious reasons, it didn't exactly add to my knowledge. It seems to be one of a surviving series of three and by their quality and the hairstyles, think it is quite early, probably 1890s to 1900s, just the period when many men were indeed stripping off to play sports.

    The other two photos pictured the men in some sort of informal scrum and it looks as if they are kicking a ball around. This might well indeed be some sort of regimental game but I am inclined to think that it is perhaps a senior public school or college game. Many schools and colleges had traditions of idiosyncratic ball games - it was out of such traditions that football (soccer) and rugby football emerged and went their separate ways.

    Now, I'm flying kites here, but I have spotted what appear to be quite a few circumcisions. America and English-speaking Canada were at this point way below the incidence of routine infant circumcision in comparison with Britain and the antipodean colonies of the Empire, the English upper classes having taken up the practice as from the 1860s. These lads are also tall, fit and well fed, so whatever they are, they are not examples of the British lower classes of the age.

    So, bearing all the evidence, direct and circumstantial, I think this must be British, from the late 19th century, either regimental or, more likely, university college and some sort of ball game.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for the detailed analysis! It all makes sense.

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  2. You can almost smell the testosterone!

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