The politics of nudity

Spectator

15 hours ago

A recent, rather beautiful piece published here told of how the writer, Druin Burch, initially somewhat alarmed by the variety of naked bodies he unexpectedly encounters while swimming in the Med ('I wouldn't mind if it was only young women,' he says to his wife) comes to appreciate the loveable imperfection of the human form. I can't say I'm with him on this. I totally understand fit women wanting to take their tops off in public as an expression of sheer high spirits; as a teenager, I used occasionally to do it. But humanity generally? Put it away, puh-leeze!
As a resident of the fair city of Brighton and Hove, I've got skin in the game, metaphorically. We've had a nudist beach here since 1980: the first in the country, it came into existence after an enthusiastic campaign by a local councillor named Eileen Jakes. (There's something of the Carry On film about her name, 'jakes' being slang for outdoor toilet – also popular in Brighton – and 'Eileen' having a slightly comic turn to it.) The Brighton Argus reports: 'The beach aimed to offer a progressive approach to normalising bodies in a non-sexual way, with around 200 yards of the beach set aside for nude bathers, despite strong opposition from some who warned the space would attract 'perverts and voyeurs'.'
At a heated debate in 1979 where the council agreed to give the beach an initial year-long trial, the then Tory councillor John Blackman blasted the prospect of the 'flagrant exhibition of mammary glands… I personally have got no objection to people showing their breasts and bosoms and general genitalia to one another. Jolly good luck to them, but for heaven's sake they should go somewhere more private'. As the Argus sadly reported two years ago: 'Unfortunately, the beach does attract some people with poor intentions, with reports of beachgoers performing sex acts while visiting.' This probably isn't helped by the fact that the city's most famous gay male cruising area, Dukes Mound (stop sniggering), is located right behind the nudist beach.
And now things have gone from bad to worse – except it's the unclothed who are the disapproving ones, with our local rag reporting: 'A nudist has claimed that tents pitched on the nudist beach are 'spoiling' the area. A regular visitor to the beach, who wished to remain anonymous, shared their view of the situation. They said: 'There's about seven large tents on the beach. It's like tent city; it's spoiling the nature of the beach. It looks so untidy. They shouldn't be there.''
I must admit to laughing out loud when I read this, as it's exactly what I would say about nudists on public beaches. It's untidy and it shouldn't be there – put it away! If only they stuck to that one patch of shingle it might be tolerable, but every summer this city is also lucky enough to play host to the Brighton Naked Bike Ride. In Sussex World, one 'Connor Gormley' writes: 'Dating back to 2006, organisers say it's simultaneously a celebration of the human body, a statement about the vulnerability of cyclist's (sic) on the road, and a protest against the UK's growing dependence on fossil fuels.' Really? I'd say that if the participants were not unclothed, one might easily mistake them for participants in an annual ambulatory Alfred Steptoe lookalike contest.
Talking of bicycle seats, there's the 'rub', as it were: do we merely object to nudity when we don't find the nudes attractive? A gay male friend says: 'We were having a beach day in Corfu and had staggered up to a taverna for lunch and met two Brits who worked as reporters for the BBC. We got talking to them and they asked us our thoughts on nudism and I said: 'It's always the ugly people who strip off and bend over in your face – never the gorgeous people you hope might.' After lunch they asked if they could join us on the beach. Just as we were getting comfortable they both preceded to strip off to the buff and then bend right over in front of us. Proving my point entirely.' But on the other hand, I remember being on a beach in Portugal and not knowing where to look when my friend, an exceedingly beautiful actress, took her top off and happily lay there soaking up the sun, though as a proud Scotswoman you'd think she'd had even less practise than me growing up, knowing how chilly it can get there.
Am I just being an uptight Brit here? It must be said that our allegedly more 'relaxed' European cousins can't seem to make their minds up. In 2023 a law was brought in legalising topless sunbathing in Spanish resorts from the Costa Brava to Barcelona, where in a lovely bit of reverse-shaming the 'Naturist-Nudist Federation of Catalonia' complained about swimwear-sporting tourists who made them feel uncomfortable. You couldn't blame your average drink-addled Brit for maybe feeling a bit confused when just a year later the same hotspots were reported as bringing in £500 fines for going topless on beaches and shirtless in pubs.
France, of all places, is also not sure what breasts mean any more; in 1984, a survey found that 43 per cent of French women sunbathed topless on the beach, but by 2019 it was down to 19 per cent. Regrettably, 59 per cent of young women said that this was because they did not wish to arouse men, whereas in more innocent times, before youngsters were so pornography-conscious, that might have been seen as a normal part of the merry dance; it's hard to imagine Brigitte Bardot, the most likely to cause such a result, having any such qualms. Perhaps in order to 'redress' the balance, many French beaches now fine women for wearing the 'burkini' – the 'full-body swimsuit' which makes the Muslim women who wear them look such dupes as their male co-religionists prance around in little more than budgie-smugglers and a smug grin. Nothing puts the Germans off, though, and they don't even confine their flesh-baring to coastal areas; you can take a tuk-tuk through the Tiergarten and pass the nudist areas. First one to point and laugh's a vile Brexiteer!
But public nudity isn't all fun and games. Looking – reluctantly – at the photographs of the most recent Naked Brighton Bike Ride, it was striking that not only were the majority of the participants unattractive, they were also overwhelmingly male. Similarly the increasing levels of nakedness at Pride parades – while simultaneously pushed as family affairs – seems yet another way to normalise the desires of weird men at the expense of women and children. As children, 'flashing' was the stuff of comedy routines – but as if it wasn't revolting enough by itself, exhibitionism in men is often a gateway to worse sex crimes, a favourite of sex offenders as diverse as Wayne Couzens and Harvey Weinstein. On a less evil note, everyone knew a kid at school who had a parent who used to boast of 'wandering around naked' but rather than normalise it, as intended, it marked one's classmate out as The One With The Freaky Parents with whom – once you'd breathlessly relayed the info to your own parents – one was never permitted a play-date again.
Let's look on the bright side. The writer Michele Kirsch told me: 'My friend had cancer and the treatment had left his body wasted and old. He used to be quite the man about town, got all the hot babes; then he got cancer. He finally got over the treatment but still hated the way he looked, how it had ravaged him. He decided the best cure for it was a nudist colony in France. He found everything just hilarious; how people did all their normal stuff, like talk about what to have for tea, or what was on telly, but naked. And in this seeing of the human body for what it was, in older age, not really a lovely thing, that made him feel much better about his own body. Basically he just thought of the nudie colony as one giant wardrobe fail.' To all who can find it in their hearts to be so accepting of the decaying human form, my admiration; just don't expect me to applaud too, because I can get that at home, looking in the mirror.