More tales from the nude beach...

My post topless on the beach -- which I wrote nearly a year ago -- remains my #1 post, bringing in tons of hits from search engines every day.

I hadn't realized the subject of nude sunbathing was quite that interesting. At the time it was a post I tossed off practically as filler. But I'm starting to think that many of you out there in cyberspace have never been to a nude beach (or even a topless beach), and perhaps are curious. So in the interest of making sure my blog provides a valuable public service, today I'm going to try to remember more about the subject.

One question that comes up in a lot of search queries is about nude beaches for families. I personally didn't see many kids the few times I went to the nude beach in New Jersey, and the few I saw were very small. My impression is that bringing kids along for nudist activities is more a nude camping thing. I've never done that, but I've heard about it.

On the other hand, the beaches in France are full of kids, and partial nudity abounds. It's common for little kids to swim naked, and as I said in my earlier post, lots of the women go topless. I don't recall seeing that many moms going topless when they have kids with them, but I wasn't really looking out for that.

Another very common topic for search queries is people being shy about going topless on the beach for the first time. That seems like a pretty logical topic to wonder about since it must happen: A woman wants to go to the nude beach because all her friends are doing it, but she's shy about it. Really, that's kind of an erotic image. Unfortunately I don't have any anecdotes about that because I've never seen any obvious examples. All the people I've seen going nude or partially nude looked like they were either completely blasé about the whole thing or they were actually getting off on it. I know in my own case that was the whole draw: the thought of all these random strangers wanting to get a good look. So when the guy I was with would tell me about this or that guy taking an extra long look (apparently they wouldn't do it much when I was looking at them, but they were ignoring my companion), it was kind of amusing. For my inner anthropologist.

It's a good idea to go with a guy, though, because that way all of the random strangers keep their distance. Whenever we would get separated (if one of us would have to go get something) guys would come around and try to start a conversation with me. It's probably absurd of me to be annoyed by that, but I guess on some level I'd decided that the rules of the game should be "look, don't pester" and those guys were ruining it for everybody. Maybe other ladies feel differently, and in that case they're better off going to the nude beach with other women.

(Feminists will probably be annoyed that I'm taking it for granted that guys will assume that a group of women together are fair game for being hit on. But seriously, if you'd like to go hang out with a bunch of other women without having random guys hit on you, the straight area of the nude beach is the wrong choice.)

One funny thing that happened when I was at the nude beach was that I saw a guy get a citation for public urination. Apparently for some people the mere fact of being covered by pants is their primary inhibition from peeing -- not hygiene or social convention or stuff like that. As soon as the guy was done, a beach cop drove up in a beach buggy and chewed him out, pointing out the public toilets not far away.

That was the only time I've ever seen anyone get a ticket for public urination. I've certainly never seen anyone get in trouble for it here in France. Now that I think about it, I'm not sure it's even illegal here. After all, with all the dog crap in the streets, who's going to notice a little human urine here and there?

That's all I can think of for the moment. I wish I had more stories for you, but I didn't go that many times...