I once decided to go to “clothing optional” Black’s Beach while in San Diego when I was there for a one-day conference. (I’m not sure it’s still that way.) Just wanted to see what was like. So I just went in my business slacks and short sleeved shirt, minus coat and tie. You had to climb down these steep cliffs with tiny toeholds randomly spaced in the sandy soil. Some families were going down with picnic baskets, so it seemed safe enough, but from the bottom you could see it wasn’t. Lots of collapsed areas along the way.
Anyhow, about half the people were nude, some really striking, but mostly not. Nobody really old like the cliche, but perhaps that was due to the tricky descent.
Most of the people ignored me just walking barefoot in the surf, but a few were compelled to shout insults to anyone clothed as “gawkers” although I hadn’t seen anyone gawking, just acting pretty normal and certainly not staring.
Coming from Minnesota, I was too pale to stay long, and certainly not up to catching any rays, clad or not, so I just walked a ways, turned around and walked back.
End of mystery. No need to return.
I joined some army buddies ca. the Summer Of Love in San Francisco at Half Moon Bay near Monterey (is that still nude?). We returned with bad sunburns in the worst places.
One of us wore a hat and socks, so his bald head and feet didn’t get burned. Everything else…
The only thing worse, IME, is seeing all the Russian babushkas in their bikinis ::shudder::
The nude beaches near Marseille had some eye candy. It’s interesting, though, that entire families are nude and there is none of the prudery one would see with Americans in the same situation.
I’ve been to Haulover Beach near Miami Beach once or twice. At least once clothed, once not. It is a State Park. Same mixed bag of people, some pleasantly proportioned, most not.
The point of being clothed on a beach has never made much sense to me - except for the sake of gawking idiots of course. Not wearing clothes really has nothing to do with “eye candy” and the like. I’ll bathe naked at every reasonable opportunity but will generally avoid nude beaches due to the curious voyeurs. I’m not ashamed of my body nor that of a Russian granny or a fat German - it’s not about the body beautiful. What on earth are you expecting to see? It’s the same people you see on the bus - but without their clothes on.
Yeah, my Dad tells the story of being a 20-something in the Navy, and having the opportunity to visit the Italian Riviera, the topless beach that he’d heard stories of, on shore leave. He was mightily disappointed to find that it was most assuredly not populated by nubile Italian 20-somethings.
There’s one that I get to every year for a couple of hours. It’s a true mix of people, and no one really cares how much eye candy there is. It’s not a beauty contest, it’s a beach. Anyway, whenever I go, I always make at least two observations:
At first, I think that beautiful naked women are beautiful. Then I think that naked women are beautiful. Then I realize that people are beautiful. Male, female, old, young, fat, thin – we’re all beautiful. It really elevates my view of humanity. That someone can come out of that experience even more jaded than before is something that I find really sad.
Except for a few hours a year, there are some parts of my body that never see the light of day. This is clearly not true of everyone.
I went to a topless beach with my family (we were in normal beachwear) while on a Caribbean island. No fat Germans there! Most of the topless were well suited to it, and that’s why they came, to flaunt it while they’ve got it. One with flat droopy breasts seemed more intent on scorning anyone who looked at her. Not sure why she was there, perhaps some point about feminism and women coming in all shapes and to accept that?
When I moved to San Diego in 1996, I wasn’t aware of that particular beach’s reputation as mostly a nude beach for gay males.
I used to go jogging there and it didn’t really bother me…until I “ran in to” some over-the-top (so to speak) exhibitionism by some of the beachgoers. Enjoying freedom from clothing is one thing, but posing in the surf and showing off how well endowed you are is another. Yech.
When I was in college, I occasionally went to a nudist lake that was an hour’s drive outside of Tallahassee. It was relatively unpopulated, but the proportion of unattractive people to attractive people was skewed a little more heavily to attractive on some weekends, especially if it was a full moon skinny dip event. Pretty uneventful overall, but they did a “Greek Games” event one time that I participated in and won an event by default due to lack of participation.
Yes, in New Jersey a dozen-plus times in my 20s, maybe once in California (near Santa Cruz, I seem to remember), and a few times at Hippie Hollow (Lake Travis) outside of Austin, if that counts as a beach. It’s fun. Families are rare in the US – essentially nobody between toddler and college age. Not sure about Germans. Too late in the season to do a survey.
I agree with tdn that, from what I recall, at least half of the people at the beach in NJ had to go every weekend or more all summer to account for their amazing levels of all-over Caucasoid brownness.
As an irrelevant aside, I was hiking alongside a stream in the mountains near here (New York) this summer and stumbled across a dozen or so stark-naked middle-aged men scattered across a flat, rocky area a few hundred yards long. I felt like I’d found the last buffalo herd or something.
For a long time (in my teens and early twenties) the only beach that I could stand was Vancouver’s clothing-optional Wreck Beach.
It was cool. Unlike other beaches, it was laid back. Lots of logs around to provide windbreak and a sense of relative privacy. No douchebags blasting top forty radio or treating the beach like a private sports arena the beach like a private sports arena, except with scattered bodies on towels providing challenging obstacles. Oh, and pretty cool vendors of everything from weed, psychedelics and adult beverages to watermelon slices, baked goods, and what-have-you.
As the nineties wore on, I became much more put off by the ubiquitous creeps, which I don’t recall being there when I first started going. This may be because I started going more with girlfriends than with larger groups of friends of both sexes. There always seemed to be at least one guy that would follow us around if we were in the water, or set themselves up unreasonably close to us to ogle in earnest.
Hmmm- every time I have been to Lake Travis, there have been entire families. I have gone there with entire families, occasionally. I have been there as a 16 year old, as well. Perhaps you were there on a school day during the day?
I was only there once. A friend of mine was turned away at the closest entrance to Hippie Hollow for having kids with her (young, like 2 and 4, I think). This was years ago, though.
But let’s be honest. You went down there to see naked women. That’s the only thing you were curious about. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’d probably do the same if the opportunity presented itself, but don’t act surprised if you get called on it. I imagine a lot of nude beaches are lousy with rubberneckers.
Having lived in Berlin, that is quite true. Even in Tiergarten, the park in the center of the city, people strip nude and sunbathe. There are other parks/lakes where there are FKK areas (the German acronym for nude areas) and it was exciting to go the first time, then after reality set in, it got kind of boring to be honest. I remember seeing about 3 or 4 American GI’s who where there and only stripped to their undershorts and were tossing a frisbee. They looked more ridiculous wearing white briefs on the beach than the hundreds of Germans in the buff.
One funny story…two American women I know decided to go to one of the nude beaches in Berlin and took a snack and some wine. They were getting some odd looks from the guys and one of the women suddenly turned to the other and said, “Ya know, I think peeling bananas and eating them on a nude beach is probably not the wisest thing we have ever done.”
Well ***yeah***. If I wanted to see a naked guy, I'd take off my clothes and look in the bathroom mirror :)
In my younger and wilder days (1980s), on a few occasions while I was in the Navy and stationed on a ship in Alameda, CA (across the bay from San Francisco) I visited the nude beach section of Stinson Beach (and Baker Beach once). My recollection is: the water was too cold for swimming, the UV rays didn't threaten to burn my white bits, and the viewing wasn't what I'd hoped it would be.
***However***, a memory remains, a woman talked me out of the one article of clothing I did wear (a ship's ballcap). I went to Stinson Beach on Saturday, took a towel and newspaper and found a spot on the nude section of the beach that wasn't too near anybody else (didn't want to come off as the perv I hoped to be, the ballcap would shield my eyes so I wouldn't look like I was staring and I could hide behind the newspaper). I stripped off cuz fair is fair, "when in Rome" and all that.
I'd arrived early and as the afternoon approached, folks arrived and filled in spots. A couple chose a spot near me and we started talking about current events. Later an attractive woman joined us, the couple dropped out as the woman & I debated politics (I did have an outside myself moment as I realized "Hey, I'm arguing politics with a naked woman!").
At some point it came out that she was married but it was an open relationship :eek:. The talk turned to hats, she wanted to trade her Dodger ballcap for my Enterprise ballcap. I resisted, I wasn't a Dodger fan and the Enterprise ballcap was a uniform item (all of $5 to replace, I was playing hard to get :D).
As the afternoon wore on, the conversation slowed and the woman fell asleep (ego blow that naked I can bore a woman to sleep :o
The woman was still napping when I decided to depart but being a gentleman;), I put my Enterprise ballcap on her head before I left.
I spent the weekend off the ship, when I returned Monday AM one of the guys in my Division was standing watch on the quarterdeck and handed me a note: It seems the woman from the nude beach had seen my name inside the ballcap and called the ship looking for me! But whoever took the call didn't copy her number correctly :smack:(or she gave a fake number) so when I called, I didn't reach her :mad:
The ship was leaving for a 6 month deployment in 10 days, would I see the woman again??? I went to Stinson beach both days of the next weekend but didn't see the woman :-( And then the ship left on deployment.
What could have been ...
I’ve been to a few nude beaches and clothing optional spa type places. I’m always amazed by how quickly one gets desensitized to nudity when everyone is naked. It’s also about the least erotic thing ever. In this golden age of Internet nudity, I can’t imagine anyone going to a nude beach simply for the people watching. That’s not to say no one does, but I can’t imagine why they would. The real draw is swimming and sunbathing naked – if you like that, you’re good to go. Me, I can take it or leave it. Mrs. Giraffe is more of a nudist than I am.
The only thing worse, IME, is seeing all the Russian babushkas in their bikinis ::shudder::