Yesterday, the New York Times turned its august attention to naked men.
Did you know that Manhattan's alpha males are meeting around private pools in private clubs and swimming together, naked? I didn't, and when I remember that most of the alpha males I know are fat, bald and short, I say to myself: "Thanks for putting that image in my head New York Times!"
Anyway, it seems that, according to the Alpha Males, at least, nude swimming, like pastrami with mayonaise on white bread, is something we ethnic types aren't supposed to understand.
"It's a matter of the WASP ethic," said one investment banker in declining an interview about [his] club's swimming practices. "What goes on at the R.T.C. [ed note: The Racquet and Tennis Club (five recommendations needed for admission)] stays at the R.T.C. We don't want the general public having a peek at the last bastion of old-school pleasure, the last oasis."
Well, sorry, Mr. WASP, but not the very last oasis. Unless we miss our guess (and we never do) Amshi, MoChassid, Akiva, and perhaps some of our other regular male readers, are regularly enjoying the delights of nude bathing, too. Just like WASP bankers!
Ok, there are some small and insignicant differences. The mens' mikva in Amshinover was not designed by McKim, Mead and White, and Woodmere's ritual bath has nothing like The Racquet Club's "cavernous rooms for... obscure racquet sports played since the time of the French Revolution by the kind of people against whom the French were rebelling." Still, nude swimming, is nude swimming; out of shape men, are out of shape men; and once you've enjoyed the pleasentness of floating naked in one amniotic pool, you've floated in them all.
So take that WASP bankers.