Naked Wanderings
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Why Social Nudity is Larger than Ever
🕑 Added 2024-06-10 10:14:45 +0000 UTC
Is the end of naturism showing up on the horizon? Are we all becoming more prude than ever before? Are drones, smartphones, TikTok, and Instagram forcing our youth to put on another layer of clothing rather than take one off? Will new technology make sure that soon babies are born wearing pyjamas? Well, it is according to this article (except for the pyjama baby, we just made that up) and it's the biggest bullshit we read in a while. Excuse our German.
The article popped up in our notifications around 8 am, when we were finally enjoying our first coffee. Finally, because three hours earlier our alarm had gone off and we had rushed outside to take shots for a video. We're on the Croatian island of Rab, a popular vacation destination among Germans. Now if there's one absolute fact we can tell you about German naturists, it's that they are early risers. Forcing us to head out at sunrise if we want nude beach shots without naked German butts in it.
Our first reaction when we read the news about the decline of German naturism was "We wish", spilling some coffee because yawning and drinking at the same time is an art we haven't mastered yet. But then our irony turned into sadness. Why would someone want to send such false information into the world? Who's trying to make naturism unpopular again? Apparently, it was the German naturist federation.
Long story short
If you haven't read the whole article, here's a quick summary. This year, the German Naturist Federation, aka the German Association for Free Body Culture (DFK) is celebrating its 75th anniversary. Unfortunately, the festivities have to be cancelled due to a lack of interest.
The president of the organisation presented to the media a variety of reasons, ranging from generation conflicts to the before-mentioned fear of phones, drones, and social media, to the somewhat old-fashioned attitude of naturist clubs.
During the last 25 years, the DFK membership has dropped from 65,000 members to 34,000, barely half. As their members are ageing, it's not hard to imagine that the numbers are pretty scary. How many of these will be left in another 25 years?
The flaw in the statistics
One thing we immediately wondered was: "What kind of event were they planning to organise?". Even though the numbers are dropping, they still have 34,000 members. That should be enough to organise a nice barbecue, have a band playing and, why not, do a bit of petanque and give people an entertaining afternoon. Had they been planning to hire the Rolling Stones?
Could it be, hypothetically speaking, that there's something about the association or the event they were planning to organise that wasn't very attractive? Even to their current members?
What disturbed us the most though, is their claim of a monopoly on naturism by creating a direct correlation between their memberships and the total number of naturists in Germany. If their memberships decline, it must mean that the number of Germans who like to go naked declines as well. Could it be though, hypothetically again, that these statistics say more about their organisation than they do about naturism in general?
To prove our point, let's have a look at our own statistics. Over the last few years, our blog readers, YouTube subscribers, and social media followers have been continuously increasing. Using the DFK math, this would mean that naturism is growing. If we dive a bit deeper, we see significant subscriber growth between the ages of 35 and 55 and much less for 65+. We can easily conclude that more younger people are interested in social nudity and that the older generations are becoming more prude.
The disappearing naturist families
One day in late September, a Dutch lady wanted to talk to us about the disappearing young naturists. For the last 5 years, she had been coming to this lovely naturist campground in Italy and hadn't seen a single family. Her conclusion was simple: Youth has become prude (and it's all the fault of the internet).
We asked whether she always travelled around this period. She did. She loved late September, it's quieter on the campgrounds and the prices are lower than in the high season. Had she ever considered that most children need to go to school in September and that younger people may actually enjoy the lively atmosphere in the summer months more than a relaxed one at the end of the season? She had not.
We just published a video about our trip to Formentera, the smallest Balearic island that is supposed to be a naked paradise. We went very early in the season and there were few other tourists. When we went to the beaches, we never found more than 10 naked people. This could make us conclude that naturism in Formentera is pretty much dead. On the other hand, there were hardly any clothed people either, so the nude vs clothed ratio was often 50% or more. If we extrapolate this, we could say that this is the most naked place we've ever been to.
The disappearing nude beaches
It is a fact though that nude beaches in Spain as well as in other popular vacation destinations in Europe are suffering. Especially during the summer months, the nude vs clothed ratio tends to drop to 30%, 20%, or below. This makes many conclude that the interest in going nude on the beach is declining. But here too are other elements to take into account.
One is what we call the "nude discomfort level". Every naturist can handle a certain number of clothed people before it becomes uncomfortable to be naked. This differs from person to person. Some need a 100% nude to be comfortable, others are perfectly fine with only 50% nude. Others don't care if the whole beach is clothed. The problem is the snowball effect. When your "discomfort level" is reached, you might find it more comfortable to wear a bathing suit than being naked. When even naturists don't undress anymore, the ratio just keeps dropping faster and faster.
Another one is mass tourism. In Spain, for example, the number of tourists rises by about 2-5% per year. As the size of the country obviously remains the same, this means that every year, there will be more people in the same place. The main beaches are running full and visitors are packed like sardines. So many of them start heading out to the more remote beaches, which are traditionally only visited by naturists.
What's a naturist?
Another interesting element is that, at least in Western Europe, the fear of nudity seems to disappear. There used to be a time when if a family spotted a naked person on the beach, they would put their hands over the children's eyes and run off in the distance. More and more, we notice that the clothed don't care about the nude anymore. Unfortunately not realising that they might be disturbing someone's "nude discomfort level".
Lots of naturists hate it when clothed people come to their beaches, and we can very well understand this. Yet, we believe that this general acceptance of nudity is a good thing and that it encourages many to give it a try. Creating different forms of social nudity along the way.
The other day, here on Rab island, we saw someone sunbathing naked on the beach, then putting on a bathing suit to go for a swim in the sea, and then taking off the bathing suit again to sunbathe some more. The same day, we kid you not, we saw the opposite. A person in a bathing suit on the beach takes it off to go for a swim and puts it back on once out of the sea. Why would they do that? We honestly can't tell. We've probably been naked for too long to understand. But the point is, these people are very unlikely to become members of a federation and will thus never reach the statistics.
Why social nudity has never been bigger than today
We hope that by now, you understand why we were annoyed by that newspaper article. But it could be that you disagree with us. If you believe that a requirement for being a "true naturist" is that you join an organisation, the German association is right and German naturism is on a fast decline. The numbers prove it.
Unfortunately, we don't have any statistics to prove our point because there has been no accurate research done about how many people enjoy social nudity in one form or another. But there are numbers that do indicate that we're on the right track. Never before in the history of naturism, have there been so many different kinds of naturist accommodations. Only a few decades ago, if you didn't want to go to a nude beach, you had to go camping. Today, there are hotels, BnBs, homestays, and even cruises.
During the last decades, naturists have started organising in more countries than ever before. While this used to be a European and North American thing, you can now find naturist organisations in every continent of the world. The newer ones, like in South America and Asia, typically attract a lot of young people.
Even in more conservative countries, naturism is on the rise. During our travels, we've met naturists from India, Malaysia, China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Among many other countries where you wouldn't exactly expect it. These people too, will hardly ever be included in the statistics. But there they were, skinny dipping in a resort pool. Maybe the newspapers should write about that.
Comments
Naked Wanderings
This could be very true. A downside of what we do is that we sometimes lose "Western common sense". Once you've been in places where little fish can swim up your pee and hook themselves inside your body, you pretty much consider every other water safe :-D
Bill Harris
Dan ^ beat me to the Benjamin Disraeli/Mark Twain/whoever originated it quote about lies/statistics. Turning to the two beachgoers and their diametrically opposite swimsuit on/off practices at the beach, it could be one is afraid of sunburn "there" while the other is afraid of being bait to things in the sea. (Our older daughter HATES being in open water - she's convinced "something's going to eat me!")
Naked Wanderings
This seems to be a very cultural thing. During the last month in Spain, we've seen more topless than ever before. Especially among younger women. Interestingly, there's much more topless on beaches in the less touristy areas where it's mostly locals. In the tourist hot spots, you'll see many more bikini tops. We think that this too proves our theory about the "nude discomfort level". Women will be much more comfortable going topless in places where other women are topless than in places where women wear full bikinis.
Jacques Botha
Interesting read. What is sadly a fact is that the general public are getting more prude. My wife was telling me that in her younger days, topless bathing was very common on Swedish beaches, now you almost never see someone topless. I don't know if this is due to social media or just a more conservative approach.
