When Molly thinks of "the side of the rock" she may 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. A
transgressive exchange in Circe highlights the
transcendent scandalousness of "mixed bathing." After
political candidate Bloom panders to his constituency by
promising "Free money, free rent, free love and a free lay
church in a free lay state," O'Madden Burke parries, "Free fox
in a free henroost." Bloom comes back with the still more
radical proposal of "Mixed races and mixed marriages,"
prompting the comedian Lenehan to utter the crowning
blasphemy: "What about mixed bathing?"
