Naturist Commentary

SEX ON THE BEACH: Why a Newbie Naturist Should NOT Visit Cap d’Agde!

12 Comments

We’ve been at least a half dozen times over the past twenty years, usually staying for two or three nights en route to another naturist destination. But this time, we were simply making a day visit with a couple friends – one a confirmed naturist, the other, new to the concept, but most certainty social nudity curious.

We did the best we could to prep them for this visit to the Naked City. For our naturist friend, this was something of a pilgrimage, having read so much about the most expansive naturist enclave in the world. And to be sure, depending where you’re looking on the internet, the place sounds like naturist Utopia. 24/7 nudity – in the shops, restaurants, and even in the post office. You can easily think you’ve got a good pulse on the place on the web without bumping into the language about foam parties and libertines (swingers) if you’re simply searching for the ultimate naturist destination.

On previous journeys, my wife and I have typically stayed in the modest Hotel Eve, tucked away at the edge of the village. While we’ve seen a few amorous couples there over the years, they have typically remained just within the lines of acceptable public display of affection. We understand “amorous”, and like to think we have cultivated a good appreciation for such in our 30+ years of marriage, but we have never chosen to imbibe in the libertine scene, nor are we likely to put our own affections on public display. 

Admittedly, my wife and I hold differing perspectives on the sexual pulse of Cap d’Agde as you pass a club with pole dancers on the way to the grocery store, or a woman walking by in a negligée that simply exaggerates the body parts that a bikini typically covers up, while keeping her partner close by on a studded collar and leash. “There’s some wild and crazy going on in our midst,” we say. I have always thought it to be a bizarre study in humanity. While she has never felt like we’ve put ourselves in a particularly threatening situation, my wife finds the whole environment someplace between disquieting at least, and disturbing at most. 

Until this time…

I had given a brief history of Cap d’Agde – the great naked city of France – to our friends in the car on our way down the autoroute from Provence, including the details of the original charter that still permeates the regulations to be acknowledged at the entrance today, banning overt sexuality and a wide array of other inappropriate behaviors. Some online reviews even tell stories of being denied admission at the gate due to the lack of an affiliation with a legitimate naturist organization.

In the meantime, I’ve kept up on my reading about the place over the years: the opening of a new “genuine naturist hotel” that hosts getting to know you parties on the terrace (along with alluring photos); the arson reports related to the total destruction of the most prominent swingers’ club (and the subsequent rebuilding) a few years back; and the varied reports of just what happens on the beach, especially around the time the sun begins to set. We certainly had an awareness of all that from our previous visits, but we simply weren’t prepared for what awaited us on this visit.

Once parked with clothing safely secured in the car, we made our way into the heart of the town where we consumed copious amounts of vin rosé beneath the relieving protection of misters that ameliorated the blistering heat during this prolonged heat wave in the South of France. We each ventured down to the beach now and again – the familial section of the beach near all the restaurants and shops – noting an occasional couple riding the waves locked in a suspiciously euphoric embrace. It was the typical intergenerational mixture of young families to senior citizens, with a near 100% compliance with the total nudity regulations. This was the Cap d’Adge we had experienced in the past.

Having made 8:00 pm dinner reservations, the defining moment arrived when we decided to take a stroll down the naturist beach as the sun was beginning to set. I suppose timing is everything on occasions like this, but we were hardly a few meters beyond the first beach bar when we came upon women on their knees pleasing their partners, then circles of spectators watching various displays of human sexuality – and as often as not, a circle of men, gazing on the event, pleasuring themselves in a participatory sort of way.

I should reiterate at this point that we (and thankfully, our friends who were with us) are of the live and let live variety of human. “Do what you want as long as it’s not invasive or hurtful to the other people around you.” But I have to say, this was a country mile beyond the world of bizarre. For me, it was something akin to a visit to the city zoo. “Ah, do you think we’ll see the monkey lick the other monkey’s butt today? And why doesn’t that bear ever come out of his cave!” What it wasn’t, however, (at least for me) was the least bit erotic. And my wife was (quite appropriately) offended by a woman who was simply gyrating in the sand to the pleasure of a circle of dozens of lonely-looking men. Naturist values be damned – this was in no way what we’ve come to associate with the pervasive values of social nudity in France!

It’s impossible to know the psychology at play amidst the people “playing” on the beach that day. Were they liberated? Desperate? Or just out having a good time with strangers and friends? Is that appreciably different than some of the groping and such that goes on at a New York City night club any night of the week? 

Regardless of intent, what Cap d’Agde is not is the naturist Utopia the forefathers set out to create, if simply imagined through the eyes of a person who travels half way across the world to visit this iconic naked city. Even given our recurring experiences with the place, our wandering trek through the sexcapades, as perceived along side our young naturist friends, was simply over the edge! What if an eager husband has been working for years to convince his partner that naturism is a holistic movement intended to embrace body acceptance in a non-threatening environment? It’s difficult to imagine that if Cap d’Adge were the first stop on a journey of naturist exploration that the reluctant partner would ever go near another “naturist place” EVER – again!

I suppose this is really a microcosm representing the confusion in the general public’s perception of social nudity to begin with. We keep trying to convince people that it’s not just one giant orgy in the making, except… when it is! And in this case, the naturist charter that supposedly governs the place has been completely undermined by the actual law of the land. While Cap d’Agde is advertised as the great naked city, it is actually the primary destination for, well… MANY giant orgies, which in turn generates copious amounts of revenue through tourist taxes from the tens of thousands who go there each year to experience exactly that.  I might add that this is not an effort to condemn such activities, nor do I have a desire to pass judgment on people who enjoy such an environment, but if one is trying to make a case for non-sexual social nudity, Cap d’Agde is not going to do much to help your case.

I’ve tried to imagine the dinner conversation for the young families who stay there for weeks at a time each summer. “Mommy, why were those men all standing in a circle around that woman this afternoon?” Perhaps that simply becomes a teachable moment over macaroni and cheese, but such a conversation would require a level of tolerance that most Americans could never imagine. Be that as it may, but just a word to the wise…

If you are curious about social nudity and you’re eager to find out what it’s all about, there are about three-hundred naturist centers in France alone. Cap d’Agde may not be the entry point you were hoping for.  

Photos were found on a Google images search. If you find one that belongs to you, we will be most willing to remove should you ask.

The “Right to Bare All”… and other news from Ile du Levant

1 Comment

If you’re a keen advocate for naturism, and you haven’t yet made a visit to Ile du Levant, you need to move that up on your bucket list. It’s one of a handful of places that has self-identified as the birthplace of naturism. (Germany and Croatia contend for this distinction as well!) At the very least, it seems to be something of a naked renaissance town at the moment, but more about that later.

Part of the adventure of coming to the naked island in France is catching the ferry from the port of Le Lavandou. Since the boat makes two stops, one at Levant, and the other at neighboring Port Cros, it’s fun to play the “I wonder who will get off the boat on which island” game. This time, the boat was quite full, and nearly every person on board disembarked at the first stop – Ile du Levant!

Mind you, we had been in transit for nearly twenty-four hours having made our way from Newark Liberty Airport, through Brussels, then on to Marseille. After another two hours in the car, and a 40-minute ferry crossing, I was itching to embrace the late day Provençal sunlight, free from the bondage of North American travel-wear!  Thirty meters up the path from the port, a quick bathroom stop, and voila! Naked!!

A few years ago, we brought long-time friends from California along with us to experience this little naturist mecca first hand. They would not call themselves naturists, but have been willing nakation companions over the years. Our friend Tom was particularly intrigued with the history of the island, the prevailing rules regarding nudity, or more acutely, “Why were there so many people walking around the island fully clothed?” Eighty-five degrees Fahrenheit, not a cloud in the sky, and so many a passers-by wearing jeans and a long-sleeve shirt. What’s up with that?

Fair question, I think, particularly on this landmass isolated from the prudish nay-sayers who might suffer the oppression of unwanted nudity. NOBODY comes to Levant without the expectation of seeing naked people. And it seems even more peculiar to me that someone might come here without the expectation of becoming an enthusiastic clothes-free participant. Tom prodded our innkeeper about the politics of it all, unpacking the complicated history of this naturist hamlet island with nearly a hundred years of controversy in defining how naked is naked. (See: Another Round of Crazy on Ile du Levant)

Now, several years later, we’re back for a weekend of naturist serenity and solitude, and I, for one, plan to get my money’s worth! While anecdotal at best, it seems this is not an uncommon perspective amidst visitors from North America, as evidenced by the only other couple at breakfast who were as naked as we were. Perhaps some people come here simply for the pleasure of lying au naturel on the beach or striving for no tan lines by the pool. Or maybe the French people think nudity to be such a non-issue, with so many places “in the neighborhood” to get naked on the day-to-day, that they lack some of the zeal of the prudish American who has waited all year (or years!) for the privilege to bare all.

We have experienced this again and again during our European travels, going to great lengths to find places where nudity is not only allowed, but required– as is the case on the coastal path just beyond the port of Ile du Levant. (Explicit signage near the port tells you where you can’t be naked, where you can be naked, and where you must be naked!) But on this morning trek, we found the demographics to be about 50-50, some fully nude, some donning beach cover-ups, and others dressed as if prepared to take on the Appalachian Trail in early October. Really!?

There is a sub-plot to all of this, pertaining especially to residential naturist places, which Ile du Levant most certainly is. (We’ve experienced this at La Jenny as well.) With increasing frequency, it seems that families have purchased homes in these naturist communities two or three generations back. The home stays in the family, but the naturism gene didn’t carry forward. 

“Hey! We have this lovely home near a beautiful beach in France!”

“Isn’t that one of those places with loads of naked people?”

“Oh yeah… you’ll encounter some of the crazy nudists, but don’t worry about it! You don’t have to get naked with them!”

As with the evolution of any neighborhood, I suppose such unintended outcomes are inevitable, but if it’s a total naturist experience you’re seeking, there’s a compelling case to be made for camping establishments that cater to young family tent-campers – the most transient of communities where the main attraction is the right to bare all. If you didn’t want to get naked, you simply wouldn’t go there.

Which takes us back all the way to our very first experience with Ile du Levant sometime back around 2006, when we came out on the ferry for a day trip for our first exploration of this historic naturist landmark. My wife and I still reminisce about her reticence to get naked that day, despite the hype about a naturist island and her confirmed affinity for naked travel.

“Are you sure we can be naked here? Why aren’t those people naked? Really, I can be topless in the village?”

We laugh about it now, but for the novice naturist, this can be quite a conundrum! As my friend Tom learned from our innkeeper that day, the modus operandus at most naturist places is simply that… “You have the right to bare all,” but there are few places that even attempt to impose any sort of regulations for mandatory nudity. “As you wish” seems to be the presumptive rule of the land.

So last night we frequented one of our favorite bistros on the island where the wait-staff were attired in their typical apparel; sandals and full-length aprons with ample butt cleavage on full display below the apron tie. While they actually advertise that nudity while dining is permitted, if not actively encouraged, I found myself – again – in the midst of that proverbial third grade dream when you realize that you’re the only one in the room with no pants on. (Except, in this case, for the waiters, of course!) It’s a small island, and by now, we’d seen at least half the people in the restaurant earlier in the day, fully nude by the pool or along the sea. But here at dinner, most everyone was fully adorned, some of the women rather provocatively so in sheer fabric that would never make muster for the church covered-dish dinner or a PTA meeting. As I made my way to the restroom, I couldn’t help but wonder if I was the singular freak-show for the evening, dressed in a button-down shirt, but nothing below. Perhaps I was, but alas, we are here in the land of as you wish, and if anyone batted an eye, they were most discrete about it. 

But it was a beautiful evening, on a naturist island, and I simply couldn’t resist the all too infrequent… right to bare all!

As to the renaissance – it seems there are more 20-30 somethings on the island than we’ve seen in recent years, and at least during the day, more naked people than we’ve encountered on previous visits. They say young naturism is on an upswing in France. Maybe the young naked people we reclaim the naturist vision on this remarkable big rock off the Cote d’Azur!

Oh, the places we’ve been… NAKED!

4 Comments

Back in 2014, shortly after I started this blog, I began a series of posts called “One-Hundred Naked Places.” The idea was to document the places we had visited, including the ones we weren’t so keen on, in an effort to provide an admittedly biased resource for others who are looking for great places to get naked. The bias part is simply admitting that the very thing we’re not looking for may well be the thing somebody else is looking for.

Looking for naturist nirvana on Fuerteventura

I’ve listed those original posts at the end of this post, and I’m gradually working through them again as we’ve done a lot of traveling since 2014, and I never quite got to the end of the series. BUT NOW… we have interactive Google Maps, which can be updated as we go along.

CLICK THE LINK HERE to go to our INTERACTIVE GOOGLE MAP where we’ve marked the NAKED PLACES WE’VE BEEN.

Now you can click through to our personalized Google map of “Places we’ve Been Naked,” which will provide you with a link to the most recent information and photos on the web, and our brief commentary in the list view regarding our visit there. As noted on the map, I can’t quite figure out why all the pins don’t automatically appear on the map, but as soon as you click on the link from the list, it will pin it on the map.

CLICK THE LINK HERE to go to our INTERACTIVE GOOGLE MAP where we’ve marked the NAKED PLACES WE’VE BEEN.

By now, I have over a hundred blog posts since 2013, so if you’re looking for information about a particular place, or would like to know about our experiences there, use the form below to inquire. It’s always fun to chat with people who are looking to plan their next “nakation!”

LOOKING FOR SOMETHING WE’VE ALREADY BLOGGED ABOUT?

Alternatively, if you would like to suggest a place we need to add to our list, or have some other question regarding our naturist travels, we invite you to fill out the form below…

Hope this is useful, and that others can benefit from our thirty years (Oy!!) of naturist travel experience. Bon voyage!

In the meantime, here are the links to those previous posts:

One-Hundred Naked Places – North America

Revised – June 2019

One-Hundred Naked Places – Africa, Asia, and Australia

Currently being revised

One-Hundred Naked Places – France

One-Hundred Naked Places – Europe (other than France)

Under Construction

One-Hundred Naked Places – Caribbean, Central and South America

Under Construction

The Stigma of Social Nudity in the Age of Casual Sex… Please explain this to me!

11 Comments

This is sort of a slow starter, so I hope you will “bare with me” until I get to the twist!

I was chatting with my millennial friend Addie the other day about outing oneself as a naturist through social media, noting that we both work in education related fields that frequently involves working with minors, and a well-intended misstep could easy escalate into an unintended kerfuffle. In fact, I endured one such incident about a year ago when my naturist platforms became entangled with my professional profile; when Facebook algorithms grabbed my Instagram data and started asking all my professional colleagues to follow Naturist Dan!

I found the glitch and disabled the effected accounts for a few weeks and essentially shrugged it off as, “Well now, there are a few more people who’ve seen my naked ass than existed three days ago.” One never knows the long-term implications of such an episode, but at the same time, I’m finding that one of the benefits of aging is caring less and less about such things, as my professional endeavors are gradually taking a backseat to my ambitions for personal fulfillment. If I had a therapist, I suspect he’d say that I’m making good progress with that.

It’s here in the conversation where a reader will typically chime in to admonish me for not coming out with the Full Monty, proudly posting photos on any social media platform that will allow full-frontal nudity, while fervently proclaiming, “I’m a naturist dammit! If you don’t like it, don’t look at me!” I’ve been the direct recipient of this sermon on repeated occasions, and I get it! We can’t fully normalize social nudity if we are apologetic at best; coy at least about revealing our identity. In my case, even if the platform allows it, (e.g. Twitter) I have yet to post personal photos that reveal genitalia, nor am I willing to let anything out there that could be picked up by facial recognition software. I’m really not eager for someone to go searching for my latest bio pic before an upcoming professional presentation, only to find me butt naked at the swim-up bar at a Mexican naturist resort. (Thank you Google Image search… you’re miraculous!)  In fact, that would be awkward even if I had swim trunks on!

But here’s where the conversation gets interesting!

As the youngest of four, my older siblings were young adults during the Summer of Love. Despite the fact that we lived only an hour away from the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, I don’t think any of them were “cool enough” to really get into that scene, nor did they exploit the era of “any California beach could be a nude beach!” Truthfully, we were a blue-collar, Protestant work ethic, All-American Family, and the social norms of the household were extremely clear. “Thou shalt not bare thy ass in public, and should you choose to have sex before marriage, you are destined to burn in hell!” By the time I came of age, the Moral Majority was on the rise and Family Values were the heartbeat of every political campaign. With the sudden proliferation of AIDS, the once common bathhouses of San Francisco were shuttered as dens of promiscuity, and the Summer of Love gave way to the Cold War on Sexuality. “Put your clothes on, cut your hair, and get on board with Nancy Reagan’s message about abstinence and maybe we can save ourselves from the moral collapse of America.”

I mentioned Addie at the front of this piece. (You can read her guest blog posts here and here.) She is roughly the age of my own children, and embraces a similar ideology of my own children. She is neither promiscuous, nor is she narrowly conservative. And thus, given her moderate live and let live perspective, the knockout punch was her consternation as to what exactly the average rank and file human thinks naturists do when they get naked together?

Of course, any seasoned naturist knows that you have to be careful when choosing your nakation destination, should you inadvertently stumble into a swingers retreat when it wasn’t your desire to make new friends with immediate benefits. But Addie’s immediate counter to that was, “But why the hell should anyone even care about that? How many 25-30 year olds haven’t been to a social gathering in the past ten years where casual sex and hooking up with a new acquaintance was simply part of the third beverage and beyond protocol?!?” Just who chooses to participate, and what benefits they are willing to provide is a matter of personal preference, but am I just being delusional when I observe that anyone outside of today’s super-conservative religious enclaves has long since accepted today’s terms of casual sex, and even the stigma around “open relationships” has increasingly morphed over to, “Yeah…  I guess if it works for them… whatever.”

So, as I scroll through innumerable memes on Twitter with catchy sayings like “Nudity doesn’t equate sex,” or “Newd isn’t Lewd,” it suddenly occurs to me that the social construct of promoting social nudity is even more complicated than I thought!

To that end, I thought I would see if I could create a new set of guidelines to help us all get on the same page. Let’s see…

  • Sex before marriage = Well, of course. Expected.
  • Sex on the first Tinder date = Acceptable.
  • Sex on the second or third Tinder date = Required!
  • Party with alcohol = Expect unauthorized physical contact
  • Party with more alcohol, and good friends = Expect marginally authorized physical contact.
  • Party with LOTS of alcohol = Make sure you choose a house with enough bedrooms!
  • Come out as a naturist to your friends = Expect your friends to ask, “Are you a sexual deviant? WTF??”
  • Get caught naked on the internet snoozing on the beach = Get labeled as a sexual predator and banned by all social media as a menace to society, and maybe even lose your job.

Turns out, I guess, that nudity doesn’t equate to casual sex. For most people in 2019, casual sex is just an everyday thing. But if you dare to take off all your clothes and simply go for a walk in the woods or take a nap in the sun! What the hell were you thinking?

Photos in this post are from vintage naturist magazines located on the web.. If you find one the violates copyright infringement, please notify me and I will remove it immediately.

A Naturist’s Labyrinth on Instagram

9 Comments

Naturism… and Instagram. Two words that are inherently problematic when they appear in the same sentence.

I have several Instagram accounts, though it’s only been within the past six months or so that I’ve become one one might consider an active IG contributor. I find it quite annoying that the platform is almost impossible to maneuver from a real computer (as there are things that can only be done from your mobile device – like posting a new photo!) and it’s even more annoying that IG has been swallowed up by the Facebook conglomerate (where I have multiple personalities as well), and you simply have to concede to the fact all those platforms are connected and it’s pretty easy to inadvertently get your wires crossed.

Why so many different accounts? Well, at the risk of invoking a cascade of rage comments from the “bare all or go home” crowd, it’s a simple fact that while what you do in your free time shouldn’t matter in your professional circles… it matters; especially when your work involves interactions with minors. Looking for an annoying example? Read this ridiculous article about the locals who staged a protest against a British Naturism event held at a water park in Great Britain last week!

And so, I have IG accounts that are connected to various elements of my professional life, but two accounts that I actually care about: one dedicated to our love of world travel (@mileagerundan), and another specifically focusing on… well, our naked asses (@naturistdan) as we’ve sought out naturist places all over the world.

Photos from @mileagerundan

I’m a little surprised at myself that I’ve gotten into the IG thing at all, but it’s turned out to be strangely cathartic! For starters, we’ve amassed over 100,000 photos since the advent of digital photography in the early 2000s, and digging back through the archives that document our travels – naked or otherwise – immediately lifts me out of the daily grind, if only to take a moment to muse over places we’ve been, people we’ve met, or moments of reveling in a great meal in a quirky cafe in Thailand.

But beyond that, it has been fascinating to watch the feed develop as the list of people I am following – naked and otherwise – has grown. Sometimes a quick shot of “naked in nature” is simply that inspirational jolt you need to augment that morning Cup of Joe. And on the mainstream travel feed, I’m forever finding places to add to our bucket list, quietly envious of some twenty-eight-year-old dude who’s working his way across Asia with one spare t-shirt and a smartphone, capturing images of nature and humanity along the way.

Photos from @naturistdan

So, this all sounds lovely, I suppose, but there are decisions to be made and strategies to be considered in shaping one’s IG presence. These perils are best documented by a recent post from Nick and Lins blog (@n_wanderings is their new IG account!) where we were fortunate enough to make their Top Twelve List of IG naturist accounts. This, after they’ve been going through something of a reconciliation process with Instagram since their account with 42,000 followers was suddenly dropped after posting a screenshot from Austin Powers that, ostensibly, was well within the criteria for acceptability.

The image that got Naked Wanderings thrown off of Instagram

I wrote to Nick and asked him about their appeal to Instagram, and whether they were able to elicit a response from an actual human. “Nope! Just automated bot responses to reiterate IG’s Terms of Agreement.” But he did send me the most recent press release that explains Instagram’s updated policy on nudity. By all counts, Nick and Lins passed the test, but alas… DELETED!

FORTY-TWO THOUSAND FOLLOWERS!! THINK ABOUT THAT! Knowing that in the current format, you get a sponsored ad for about every four or five “organic” posts on your feed, and here was an account that was playing by the rules, attracting a diverse and highly engaged audience, and POOF! Disappeared without a trace with no recourse or process for an appeal. In an age when people are so paranoid about censorship from the government, doesn’t anyone give a flip about censorship from commercial social media?

As I write this, my naturist IG account is creeping up on 1600 followers; the fully-clothed travel account continues to hover around 300 followers. Which brings up an intriguing element of the psychology of posting on social media altogether. Quite directly… Why bother?

The fervent naturist community likes to tout the mission of normalizing nudity in mainstream media. That’s certainly been my stated modus-operandus, though quite honestly, I can’t really tell if a presence on social media is actually helping or hurting the cause. It seems there are three positions on that front:

  • Converting the Converted: I don’t know that other naturists need to be convinced about the virtues of social nudity, though that sense of solidarity is sort of nice.
  • Entangling with Erotica: With all the preaching (from naturists) that nudity is not inherently sexual, I find it challenging to decide who I’m willing to follow on IG under the banner of naturism. A photo of a naked person walking in the woods, that draws you into their feed where you find photos of a couple in a deep embrace, then you scroll down and there she is posed in a decidedly seductive position. And then you’re suddenly getting suggestions for other accounts that are downright pornographic or hook-up leads for swingers. Again, no wonder people are so confused about social nudity!
  • Sustained Success to Sudden Death: So, you amass 1000 followers, or 10,000 followers, or 100,000 followers, then suddenly some algorithm in the nipple detection software catches one of your images and your entire identity disappears from the internet! Just like that! So many naturist profiles that read, “my last two accounts were deleted – Starting over!”

Starting over! Why bother? And what is that addictive drug that causes us to covet followers in the first place? That same impulse that causes you to check-in every few hours to see if your Pic of the Day is getting the love it deserves (measured in likes and comments). But if we’re going to be honest, there’s a clear hierarchy that garners “likes” in the Instagram game…

  • Pics of your family vacation will draw a handful of followers and a smattering of likes
  • Put humans in the picture (clothed) and you’ll get more
  • Put a naked human in the picture (Sorry – but especially an attractive female*) – and you’ll get a truckload of hits.
  • Hint at full frontal nudity and WOO-HOO… You’re an instant celebrity!

*I use the word “attractive” with a good bit of trepidation in this analysis, as naturists like to embrace the idea that every body is beautiful, but I think it illustrates the point.

This whole concept became a bit more curious when this topic came up with an IG-savvy friend who pointed out to me how people will follow your page just to get you to follow them back, then as soon as you do, they unfollow you! Huh! Turns out my social media friends aren’t such great friends at all!! They just liked my pic of the Golden Gate Bridge to curry my favor in adding one more follower to their own feed! Jeez! We humans are so petty!

My point in all this? Well for starters, I’m mad as hell that advocates like Nick and Lins have followed all the rules while doing all the right things to promote something I feel so passionately about – the right to embrace social nudity in an appropriate context. But in the last place, their efforts have been thwarted by the very cause they’re rallying against.

Thanks Nick and Lins. Keep up the good fight!

And what does that say for the rest of us who are chipping away at the social nudity acceptance cause. In the end, it seems that us naturist types can be as altruistic as we’d like, but amazingly enough, even given the bottomless pit of every kind of pornography anyone could ever hope for on the internet, the naturist cause will always fall victim the biological desires that sustain the human race. (Thank you for sharing your picture of Mt. Rushmore, but could you just put up a photo of a naked woman instead?) It’s simply a mystery to me why someone would spend time trolling naturist social media accounts for a glimpse of nipplage when there has never been such easy access to so much erotic material at one’s fingertips at any time. And this says nothing about the number of times I’ve gone searching for “genuine naturist information” on these very same prudish social media platforms, only to accidentally click into a thread of hardcore sex videos that have yet to be detected by the nipple and buttock detector bots. It seems those sites can survive for months – unnoticed and unfettered, even with direct links to porn sites.

Here we are in 2019. People in my age bracket have seen a fleeting image of Janet Jackson’s nipple – blurred of course, for our safety – and it’s almost impossible to set parental controls on the family computer to keep your seven-year-old from stumbling into a hard-core fetish site. All the while, protesters are gathering outside organized naturist events to “protect the children (they don’t even know) from psychological damage,” and butt recognition software is routinely freezing and deleting legitimate accounts that are lobbying for one simple concept: “A body part is a body part is a body part. Don’t objectify or sexualize. Just realize that most humans have one set of parts or the other, and they are all attractive and beautiful in their own right.”

And so, I’ll play the Instagram game for another day, knowing I’d best avoid posting an image of Austin Powers lest my followers and I are eliminated in an instant – just like that.

Humans! How can we be some complicated and so simple minded all at the same time? Can’t we all just be naked and get along?

Naked People Watching at the German Spa: “Finding your place in the naturist Eco-System.”

6 Comments

I’m writing this post from 38,000 feet on a flight home from Berlin. My wife and I spent the weekend in this Renaissance city with the intent of doing a bit of sight-seeing, enjoying a couple nice meals, but most specifically, checking out a few German spas (“Saunas” or “Thermes”) that are particularly renowned for their traditions in nude bathing – on in the case of the saunas – nude sweating!

I’ve already written this post from a somewhat different perspective in a piece called The Demographics of Nakedness, where I sought out to dispel the myth that nudity is the great equalizer. “We are all the same when we’re naked,” have said so many people in advocacy for nude recreation. “You can’t tell a doctor, from a business tycoon, from a pipe-fitter when everyone is nude, as clothing provides the social cues that allow us to form our preconceived notions about other humans.”

I love the genuine sentiment and conviction of such statements, but the longer we’ve participated in social nudity, the less I have been able to lend any personal credibility to such a mantra. And never has that been so evident as during this brief qualitative study we just completed while visiting the most nudity-friendly spas in Berlin. What did the study prove? Well… naked humans are simply human, but naked! Profound…  I know! 😐

STUDY – PHASE ONE: Europa-Therme in Central Berlin.

SETTING: Just a couple blocks from the Berlin Aquarium and Zoo, each of which border the expansive Tiergarten, this is most definitely a center-city location that would probably be best described as “my neighborhood sauna.” The striking element of this particular venue is how it is situated amidst the commercial and residential high-rises of downtown Berlin, with a rooftop view of several historical landmarks. Of course, that means a reciprocal exposure of the sundecks to the inhabitants of those high-rises, which must be a source of amusement in the middle of summer when I suspect the rooftop nude sunbathers are plentiful and in clear view of the apartment dwellers across the street.

We arrived late on a Thursday morning and stayed into the early evening hours. Even on this near-freezing day, the “seasoned locals” showed little reticence about meandering out onto the veranda in the all-together. It immediately made me think of the insultingly redundant comments on sites like Trip Advisor where first time nude beach goers comment on “the perils of encountering the people you never want to see naked.”

But if I’m going to be completely truthful, there is a discomfort in visiting a naked place where the clientele is mainly in the “over-80-years-old” bracket, not unlike that of visiting my 93-year-old mother in a “sunset-living community” where everyone starts lining up with their walkers and wheelchairs at 4:00 pm for the first seating at dinner. This is always a reflective dance with one’s own mortality that has little to do with nakedness, but everything to do with how each of us grapple with the aging process. In that spirit, part of me wants to jump up and say “GOOD FOR YOU NAKED OLD PEOPLE!! I celebrate your confidence for putting so many decades of wrinkles and scars on display.” But in that very same breath, you find yourself catching a glimpse of yourself reflecting in the glass walls in an attempt to quickly assess where you are in that process. Sobering, at least.

As the day progressed at Europa-Therme, the crowd grew a bit more diverse, with a couple dads and their kids (Yup – naked children at the spa! That’s a thing in Berlin.), and some middle-agers that looked more or less like us. You could tell this was a place that was once on the cutting edge, but now on the backside of reality. Who knows, maybe the local hipsters show up on Saturday night to soak in the rooftop pool and gaze at the Berlin skyline, (Which sounds like fun!) but I sort of doubt it, because now they have other options, like…

STUDY – PHASE TWO: Vabali Spa in Berlin

SETTING: Located between a city park and a soccer field, you could easily walk past the front door of Vabali Spa Berlin amidst the local service industries and apartment blocks in the sprawling development at the foot of the track where the Berlin Wall once stood. But once inside the door, you are guided down the path of Asian influenced self-realization into a labyrinth of saunas, hot tubs, tepid swimming pools, and rest areas with luxurious waterbeds that invite napping even when you thought you were wide awake. Children are allowed, but we only saw one mom with her young daughter in tow. This is a mecca for young adults.

Interestingly enough, friends visited the Vabali Spa in Düsseldorf a few months ago, where their defining moment was a reprimand for being “too naked” – a result of walking from one attraction to the next without bothering to wrap themselves in a towel or a robe. That most certainly resonated with us as we observed this to be a place that is really well managed, or perhaps more appropriately – micro-managed!

As best I can tell, they opened in sometime in 2014 (with the Düsseldorf establishment opening in 2017, and a third location scheduled for Hamburg in 2021). As part of a consortium with Claudius Therme and Neptunbad in Cologne, they have similarly strict policies that forbid you to leave a towel or a robe on a lounger, at which point, said item will be confiscated and sold on Ebay before you can utter the word Aufguss! Along with that comes a sense that you are being watched all the time-in the pools, in the quiet rooms, walking around naked – whatever. The rules are in place for a reason, and they must be adhered to.

I get it. There’s a strong tradition of sex clubs in Berlin that have hijacked the “FKK” nomenclature that once belonged exclusively to hard-core naturists, but now denotes a nightlife where, truly, anything goes. Vabali is clearly seeking to set an industry standard, which could quickly be tarnished by people getting frisky in the hot tub.

But alas, I’ve drifted off topic. And that is, who goes to Vabali? Well, pretty much anyone that might identify themselves as a young professional hipster, along with a few strays like ourselves. We were in a smallish minority of those without tattoos ranging from subtle line-art to body sleeves. Lots of young couples apparently took Friday off, while several “girls’ day out” groups seemed completely at ease with the co-ed naked part, but uniformly uncomfortable with the “Crap! It’s cold out here” part. (Many of the most alluring parts of the property are outdoors, decidedly uncomfortable when making your way from the outdoor pool to the deep-heated resting areas.)

But again, to the point… The crowd at Verbali looked very much like what I would expect to encounter in the mainline nightclubs of Berlin. Successful, educated young people out to have a relaxing and sensual day at the spa. Naked was not the attraction for coming here – Chillaxing is what’s on tap, and what’s the big deal about naked? “We all get naked… every day… right? Why not spend the days that way with my friends?

STUDY – PHASE THREE: Kristalltherme Ludwigsfelda

SETTING: Kristalltherme is a chain of sauna and pool complexes scattered throughout Germany, though the venue at Ludwigsfelda, a 25-minute train ride outside of Berlin, is known to be “the most naked of the entire chain.” On Wednesdays and Sundays, bathing suits are allowed, but during the rest of the week, the expectation is total nudity in the saunas and in the pools. Covering with a robe or towel is the supposed expectation when walking about, but many – male and female – don’t bother to cover up at all unless making their way to the food concession, and even then, nobody seems to care. (A marked difference from Vabali where the immediate action upon exiting the pool was to wrap in a towel.) And on a Saturday? This is most definitely a family water park. Those under 18 are allowed to wear swimsuits, and I would say roughly half of those in that age bracket did so – but the rest were naked.

This was my third visit to this naked water wonderland, the most relaxing in some ways, and somewhat disorienting in others. If Europa-Therme has assumed the role of a senior day center, and Vabali has found its niche as an enclave for open-minded hipsters, then Kristalltherme falls in that middle ground of “a place for the rest of us.” To that end, it was interesting – given the lack of textile cues other than bathrobes and towels – to imagine the lives of these patrons fully clothed on a workday, and in that light, I would surmise this to be the most socio-economic diverse crowd I’ve encountered at any place where social nudity is practiced. Keep in mind that our ability to converse with the locals was essentially non-existent, leaving one to draw such conclusions on the basis of people-watching alone, the same way one does in an airport, a restaurant, or a grocery store. Sure enough, clothed or not, people send off innumerable non-verbal cues that define who they are and where they fit in.

We arrived early, having read that finding two loungers together after the opening bell on a weekend could be a challenge, and for a good while, we felt a good twenty-five years younger than the prevailing median age. But as the day progressed, families arrived in droves until our departure at dusk when the young couples surrounded the bar, creating an ever-evolving ambiance in the warm pool.

It occurred to me while I was sitting in one particularly unique sauna at the Kristalltherme – called Brutal Aufguss! that had this been my first experience at such a sauna, it might have also been my last. Whereas the typical demeanor for the sauna infusion ceremonies is one of meditation and mind-expansion, this particular theatrical presentation – all in German, of course – involved an aggressive dialogue between to two sauna-masters which apparently played a bit over the top even with the locals. (It was called the “Brutal Sauna” experience, after all.) But in that moment, it was something of an epiphany to me. Just like anyone in the hospitality industry, the most important element in a business plan is to know who your target audience is, and why wouldn’t that be true for businesses that cater to naked people as well, since as I stated earlier, naked people are just as different from one another as clothed people, except without the clothes!


In Germany, I believe there are nearly 300 saunas, some similar to one another, but none exactly the same as the next. In France, there are nearly as many naturist centers, some of which cater to people looking for “lots of friends with lots of benefits;” others which seek to create a family friendly environment something akin to Disney World. But at the end of the day, except for the very most adventurous, people want to hang out with people they feel inherently comfortable with, which is why there are so many different restaurant and hotel chains, boutique malls, and discount super-shopping centers. It’s difficult enough to find one’s niche when fully clothed, let alone putting yourself out there wearing nothing but your own skin. Perhaps the awkward truth is that even if you have no intention of actually socializing with other people at a particular place, most of us are hard-wired in our efforts not to stand out from the crowd.

I have written before that I think millennials may have a golden opportunity to sway attitudes regarding social nudity in America in a very positive way, but in the end, and in the same breath, one’s first experience with public nakedness will quite likely be their last if it doesn’t turn out to be at least a marginally positive experience. Especially in America, given so few opportunities to even “give it a try,” it seems a bit of a long shot for getting it right on the first try. That can only lead to the riveting cocktail party story that goes, “I got naked this one time, and you wouldn’t believe how it turned out. OMG… SO awkward!”

Thanks to the ever-growing database of reviews such as those on Google, Yelp, and Trip Advisor, and a few tireless bloggers who are adding more substantive information about experiencing social nudity, there’s more information out there than ever to help you find the right place. That said, I suspect if you go to a subpar restaurant and don’t like the food, you may never go back to that place, but I doubt you’ll give up eating. But if you’re contemplating your first experience of getting naked with others, you may want to do a bit of research. I suppose it’s like any number of experiences that stretch your horizons – Once you find your way there and have a mountain top experience, you’ll wonder why it took you so long to try it in the first place. The tricky part? You have to get it right the first time!

The Case of the Disappearing Nudist Children

17 Comments

[It takes me a while to actually get to the point on this one, but eventually, this post is going to be about the absence of children at most naturist places in the US – or at least my perception that this is the case – and what that may or may not mean for the future of naturism in America.]

I’ve been ruminating on this post for quite a long time. In fact, since my oldest daughter just turned 31 a few days ago, maybe for about thirty years. The subject matter? The ever-controversial topic of children and social nudity, and simply what to make of it all.

The blogosphere is a strange place as people don’t typically read a blog in any sequential sort of way. Maybe one finds a link on Facebook or Twitter and clicks through. Or perhaps you’re even a follower of a particular blog, and if the timing is right, you’ll read posts as they are released in succession. But personally, I find the digital age to encourage rather impulsive behavior. “Oh… look at that! I think I’ll read that, or maybe part of that post, or maybe I’ll bookmark it for… I don’t know when.” All that said, if you’re a regular reader, I apologize for the redundancy here.

I’ve already written a lengthy piece about our own personal naturist journey, and another post that has gotten a good bit of airtime about taking kids to “a naked place.” But I’m not sure those actually capture the essence of my desire for having a presence on the web in the first place.

My first efforts related to internet advocacy for naturism date back to 2004 when I bought some space on a remote server to launch a full-blown website called P and C Naturist Travel. I had little to no experience with web design and the result was pretty rough around the edges, but the mission was clear. We had taken our children to Domaine Naturiste La Jenny for the first time in 1999 after several attempts at finding a suitable place for family naturism in the United States, and I was hell bent on starting a campaign that would contribute to the efforts to normalize family naturism in America! By then, we had made several trips (with kids) to Europe and had discovered a plethora of places where children were not only welcome, but plentiful. When our kids went on nakation in Europe, they essentially thought it to be a holiday resort on par with any large family campground or resort. Similar demographic. Amenities you would expect in a large summer seaside village… but no clothes required at any time. Natural in every sense of the word. That first webpage was simply a series of trip reports about our naturist travel.

A subsequent effort led to the creation of a “community” called the Naturist Family Network. It occurred to me that the United States of America is a big place, and there must be others like my wife and myself who were eager to cultivate the ideals of French naturism in this most diverse nation on the planet. Surely… there would be others who were in a similar conundrum as ours, fully enthralled with social nudity, and wanting to create a safe and enjoyable space for their children when seeking a summer vacation destination. I stayed with that project for a year or two, met a few interesting people, (one who would eventually take over the project) but also encountered a lot of trolls or lonely single guys (as are prevalent on Facebook and Twitter today) feigning an interest in family oriented naturism for who knows why. That message board was handed off to several entities, and as I do a quick Google search at this writing, it seems the last remnants of that project have finally disappeared. It was a valiant effort.

I suspect I’ll receive a number of messages and comments in response to this post, as I did during the years that I maintained those two websites, that I have missed the boat, and that family naturism is alive and thriving in the United States. Which brings me back around to the title of this post as I have found myself wondering time and again about the Case of the Disappearing Nudist Children. I keep hearing about them. I’m told there are places where they are plentiful, but when visiting those places, especially on a weekday even in the summer, they are scarcely to be found!

We have visited perhaps two to three dozen naturist (nudist) places in the US over the past thirty years, and indeed, a few times have found children – mostly preadolescent – to be present. But then we have stories of a visit to a place in Pennsylvania where the senior citizens (the predominant age group at this place) were reminiscing about the party the night before, still in something of a drunken haze the morning after. No kids around.

Or a couple places in Florida, both advertised as family naturist destinations, the first of which was highly charged with sexual energy, while another led to an unfortunate incident where our children – the only children on the premises that day – were chewed out by a not-so-friendly owner when their ball bounced out of the pool. And then there’s Desert Shadows (now Desert Sun) Resort in Palm Springs that was going to be the ultimate family naturist destination, but ultimately, a change in management resulted in the banning of all children from the premises. Had you purchased a retirement property there in the early days, you would later find out that your grandkids would never be allowed to visit you!

There will be those who are quick to tell me that my aim is poor and my timing is bad. And, in fact, I’ve written about quite a few naturist places the world over – most recently in South Africa – where children are, indeed, part of the mix, but maybe only on the big Saturday BBQ and pudding toss festival day! (I’ve always thought the “pudding toss thing’ to be a funky idea at naturist places… just sayin’) This leads to yet another interesting phenomenon when it comes to naturist places outside of Europe, and that is, most of them lack Europeans!

Europeans know how to do vacation, and are allotted the time to do a week in a mainline tourist destination, but with one, two, or three weeks left over for a relaxing stay in a sprawling naturist resort (or wherever) with all the amenities one would expect at a Disney resort. Such a place can’t exist if the critical mass isn’t there to fill the place to capacity. Especially when social nudity is the main attraction, and even in the warmest corners of Europe, (let alone North America) that’s a season of five or six months at best. So even if you find a place with a great family vibe going over the weekend, which is tricky to do in the first place, what happens on Monday morning when everybody has gone home and back to work?

This got me to thinking about my friend Addie who has contributed several posts to my blog over the past year, including one about dating and finding a naturist soul-mate. Turns out she is quite well traveled as well, having visited several naturist places in Europe, and even Paya Bay on Roatan. Would she have the fervor for the naturist cause had those not been her first defining experiences?

And what if she is successful in finding that naturist-friendly soulmate and they start a family? Won’t they find themselves in the same conundrum we did thirty years ago? Most young families are stretched for resources to begin with. Will they have the time and resources to take the kids to France or Croatia for the annual nakation? Or alternatively, even if they are fortunate enough to live within an hour or two of one of the few resorts in America that have a vibrant family naturist weekend scene, will two or three weekends a year sustain a lasting culture of family naturism? We have been several times to Gunnison Beach in New Jersey where there are typically a few kids amidst the crowd, but you can’t really compare that to the demographics of the large naturist beaches on the southwest coast of France where most everyone there is there with children.


My hunch is that Addie will figure it out, and in all likelihood, will have the wherewithal to do so, but if there truly is a generational divide related to the future of naturism in America, I think this is it! There most definitely appears to be a counter-culture resurgence amongst the millennials that is funding a social nudity renaissance of sorts in the pre-family demographic, and AANR is quick to fire off statistics that nudism is on the rise, due in large part to endeavors like the Big Nude Boat that is capturing the discretionary income of the empty-nesters. But what about that twenty-year stretch in the middle, when the kids are young, the parents are strapped, and the family traditions are being carved into stone? Most of the naturist families we’ve met in Europe are multi-generational… “Yup, I’ve been coming here since I was a child when my grandparents bought that little house over there.”

Who knows… maybe the millennials will pull a rabbit out of the hat on this one. In the greater context of time, the huge naturist centers of Europe are not really that old. France’s naked city, Cap d’Agde (a questionable exemplar for family naturism, to be sure) has only really existed since the 1970s, and the sprawling resorts in Croatia opened not that long before that. But could the American culture of paranoia or highly sexualized perceptions of nudity be ready for the open-minded twenty-somethings who are ready and willing to bare all? And is there a capital venture entrepreneur who is prepared to put down the money to build it so they will come? (Seems that was the plan for both Caliente in Florida and Desert Shadows in Palm Springs, but maybe it just wasn’t time yet.)

We’re counting on you, millennials! Drop your clothes, stand, and be counted. Now is your chance to create a body-positive environment for your own children, and all those in the generations to come!

Photos for this post were found on internet sources such as Twitter and Google. If you find an image that belongs to you and should be removed, please let me know and I will respond accordingly.