Molly may possibly be referring to one of the pools created
by erosion in cliff walls near Margate. But the crowded
"strand" had its own opportunities for women to gaze on nude
men. The Victorians believed, in theory, that men and women
should bathe apart from one another to avoid the arousal that
might (ahem) arise from seeing members of the opposite sex
without much clothing on. English beaches that had been
developed for tourism had horse-drawn "bathing machines" that
enabled people to enter fully clothed on the beach, change
into their swimwear while the vehicle was being pushed out
into the waves, and then discreetly enter the water down some
back steps that were covered with fabric, preventing any
viewing of exposed skin and clingy garments. On many such
beaches, the men's and women's bathing machines were kept far
apart, and swimmers were expected to frolic with members of
their own gender while in the water. Violations of this
expectation were referred to as "promiscuous bathing."
Margate possessed a reputation for very promiscuous bathing
and for voyeurism, both of them aided by the fact that men's
and women's bathing machines were not separated by any
appreciable distance from each other or from the shore, as the
photograph reproduced here illustrates. It also developed a
reputation for tolerating male nudity. Mimi Matthews observes
on her weblog, mimimatthews.com, that some gentlemen "emerged
from their bathing machines in what the 2 September 1854
edition of the Leeds Times describes as an
'entirely primitive state.' Once in the water, these naked
gentlemen had no compunction about approaching the female
bathers nearby."
The chats and splashing contests that ensued attracted
audiences on the beach, "some of whom employed telescopes to
get a better view of the indecency. During the 1854 incident
with the naked gentlemen, the Leeds Times reports
that 'The beach was thronged with admiring
spectators, and many of them with glasses, although they were
not required, as the bathers, from the high tide, were close
to the shore.” As in the 1850s, Matthews notes, "the crowds at
Margate during the 1860s often used telescopes to get a better
view of the 'nude groups and sportive syrens' in the water. As
an additional point of interest, the Era reports
that these 'magnifying mediums' were as likely to be used by
ladies as by gentlemen."
Ink was spilled on the degradation of public morals
threatened by the carryings-on at Margate. Matthews quotes
from the 23 July 1865 edition of the Era, a
London newspaper: "There must be something morally infectious
in the atmosphere of this popular watering place that induces
men and women to do that at Margate which they would blush
even to be thought capable of doing in any other
locality—namely, disregarding all those social observances
which are usually called decency in men, and modesty in women.
. . . The bathers of both sexes romp, laugh, and perform all
kinds of antics in which the actual nudity of the men is
infinitely less offensive to our sense of decency than the
modest immodesty of the clinging gossamer vestment in which
the females cover, without hiding, their forms." This "chronic
evil," according to the Era, corrupted not only the
bathers but also those watching them from the sand.
In other parts of the UK, police actions were sometimes taken
against men who strayed "within 200 yards of the ladies
bathing ground." Such laws against promiscuous bathing were
not unrelated to the obscenity laws that kept Joyce's works
from being published for many years, and it seems likely that
he took an interest in Margate because it represented another
form of resistance to the enforcers of public morality.
