Ivy League Posture Photos - Part 57

Ivy League Posture Photos

Yale started taking nude photos of incoming freshmen in 1919 as part of a program to detect and correct posture problems.  The Yale photos have erroneously been associated with William Sheldon, a psychologist at Harvard and author of Nazi-like eugenic theories who used Harvard nude posture photos to illustrate his theory of somatypes.  The Yale program predates Sheldon, and, as far as I can tell, the Yale photos were never connected to Sheldon's work.

Here are posture photos of eight more Yale students that I had the opportunity to acquire.  For privacy reasons, I redact the names of men who might still be alive.  Five of these men may still be alive, so their names have been redacted.

This is Yale freshman M. P. on Oct. 21, 1958.

In 1952, Yale installed an apparatus using mirrors to photograph the front, rear, side and top view.

This is Yale freshman D. N. on Oct. 27, 1958.

Note the strange pins stuck to each student's back and chest.

This is Yale freshman John Peet Nutting on Oct. 21, 1958.

The pins were stuck on at specific points for later posture analysis.

This is Yale freshman R. R. on Oct. 27, 1958.

Supposedly, by examining the angles formed by connecting the points where the pins touched the body, certain posture problems could be detected.

This is Yale freshman Robert Blair Reynolds on Oct. 23, 1958.

If posture problems were detected, the student had to attend remedial posture sessions, and a second posture photo was taken.

This is Yale freshman walter Leo Schiff on Sept. 27, 1951.

Photos taken before 1952 show only a side view.

This is Yale freshman R. H. on Sept. 28, 1951.

The photography and analysis of the photos was conducted by the staff of Yale's Payne Whitney Gymnasium.  Nobody outside the gymnasium staff saw the photos, and the photos were not published for other students to see.

This is Yale freshman A. K. on Oct. 1, 1951.

The posture photo program was discontinued in the 1960s, and later, most of the photos were burned.  However, some of the photos escaped burning, including the photos that I have been showing in this series.

*          *          *

Note: some of my followers consider these photos an invasion of privacy for the students.  To protect the privacy of the students, I redact the names of students who may still be alive.  I only publish the names of students who have died.  Legally, the right to privacy does not extend beyond death, i.e. it does not extend to spouses and relatives of the deceased person.

I consider these photos to be a historical record of the time.  Almost all of the Ivy League posture photos were burned when their existence became widely known.  In my opinion, that was akin to book-burning of books that someone claimed were obscene.  These photos are not obscene.  They should be celebrated, not hidden away.

Ads - Part 76

 Elave

Elave is a brand of skin care products made by Irish company Ovelle Pharmaceuticals.  In 2007 they produced this commercial, a deliberate satire of their rivals' commercials, purporting to show their workers creating and testing products behind the scenes – except every single person in the commercial is naked, with plenty of frontal views.  The commercial touts how they have no unsafe ingredients, and it ends with the catch phrase "We have nothing to hide."

The commercial was shown online on the website www.nothing-to-hide.co.uk, which has since been discontinued, and it was also posted on YouTube, where it became a hit.  It was apparently not actually shown on TV.

Bodybuilders - Part 30

 Matt Davis

Matt Davis is a bodybuilder who lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he owns and runs a gym.  He competed in IFBB 2016 (above), but did not win.  He is not to be confused with another bodybuilder named Matt Davis, a black man who won in the IFBB over-60 category in 2019.

Rear view of Davis at IFBB 2016.

Davis found a more successful way to show off his muscles by posing naked under the name Von Legend (above).

Here he is posing for Men magazine, front view ...

and rear view.  Note the tattoo on his back of the Superman symbol.  Is he trying to tell us something?

Here he is sitting down.

And here he is posing on a Hawaiian beach.

He has also done a number of gay porn videos as Von Legend.  None of them involve gay sex, just solo play (masturbation).  Above is the happy ending from one of them.

Hiking - Part 77

 Naked European Walking Tour 2020

The Naked European Walking Tour (NEWT) is a yearly event held in the Austrian Alps.  Pascal, sitting on the wall at left, contributes to and follows my blog, and he is one of the organizers of NEWT.  Thank you, Pascal!  Pascal lives in France, and he organizes naturist walks in France, Austria and Germany.

Above, the NEWT 2020 group of naturists gather outside a mountain inn.

The video above shows the hikers on a portion of their route, as they climb over a ridge and then descend into a mountain meadow.  One of the conditions of signing up for a NEWT hike is that you agree that they can publish photos and videos of you naked.  This hike is for people who are unashamed.

Now the hikers have reached the alpine high country.

This video was taken on the hanging bridge trail above the Schlegeissee (Schlegeis lake) in the Tyrolean Alps, Austria.  Some (but not all) of the hikers dare to pose on the bridge.

We end with a photo of the unashamed naturist hikers posing on the bridge.

Events - Part 78

 Burning Man 2024

Burning Man is an annual event focused on community, art and self-expression.  Today we'll look at Burning Man 2024.

Burning Man is held in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, a featureless playa (dry lake bed).  As part of the focus on self-expression, the event is clothing-optional, and many attendees are naked.

Overnight, a tent city springs up consisting of hundreds of "camps".  

This guy found a way to attract even more attention with the placement of "eyes".

Can I say things are looking up?

In recent years, Burning Man has featured a Naked Pub Crawl.  These participants seems to have been issued yellow mugs.

More Naked Pub Crawl participants.

And two more in the shade.  It can get hot in the desert sun.

But what could be hotter than all those naked men?  It's a heaven for unashamed males.

Not the Same Old Song - Part 69

 Singin' in the Rain

Singin' in the Rain is a song written in 1929, but it was popularized by Gene Kelly singing it in his 1952 romantic comedy of the same name.  My version uses Gene Kelly's version of the song.

Weighing In - Part 78

 Clifford Starks

Clifford Starks (born 1981) is an American mixed martial arts fighter who competes as a Middleweight.  At the UFC 137 event in Las Vegas in 2011, he did not strip naked to weigh in, but as he was stripping down to his undershorts, the camera caught sight of something (above).

He won the fight against Dustin Jacoby.  In an interview afterwards, he was happy with the fight, and he joked that while weighing in he had "let it all hang out."  Well, it happens.

Starks' overall record is 14 wins and 5 losses.