august-2009

HOW TO…
Nudist camp documentaries offered a window on a
liberated paradise and a peek at some unfettered knocker
Josephine Baker. In an instant, the pendulum swung.
Having a tan said: “I can afford to loll about in the
sun.” By the 1940s, tanning was championed by
women’s magazines. And thanks to thousands of
working-class lads getting posted to Africa, the Med
and Asia to do battle, the men got a look-in as well.
When they weren’t getting shot at.
Three major developments to the cause of brown
bits kicked in after World War II. The fi rst was the
introduction of the package holiday in the early 1950s,
appealing directly to the burgeoning class of skilled
labourers (tanning’s new implication being: “I can
afford to go somewhere better than Skegness”). The
second was the introduction of proper sunscreen,
instead of baby oil or nothing at all. But what about
the third development – y’know, the one that you’re
actually reading this article for?
The history of naked sunbathing
Now then. If we’re being smart-arsed, we could trace
this all the way back to Adam and Eve, but let’s cut
to the chase. The first nudist beaches, you’ll be
unsurprised to hear, were set up along the French
78JetAway
Riviera in the 1950s. These havens of exposure
quickly embedded themselves as a symbol of
fl ourishing continental liberalness and as a stable for
every UK sitcom (and every other Carry On fi lm) for
the next 20 years. Documentaries set in a nudist
camps fl ourished, allowing viewers to have their cake
and eat it, by offering a window on a liberated paradise
and a peek at some unfettered knocker (usually
accompanied by a neck-slapping “Phwoar!”). Harold
Steptoe, that very encapsulation of Sixties optimism,
summed up the age of working-class upward mobility
best when he told his father; “I’m not going to
Bognor, mate. I want some brown rumpo.”
Obviously, if anyone actually ventured onto nudist
beaches for said rumpo, their balloon was punctured
rapidly. For one, they were more likely to chance upon
elderly German couples than Swedish air stewardesses,
and for two, they would quickly fall afoul of a veritable
obstacle course of rules, laws and social etiquette that
were rigorously enforced: no sexual activity, no
invasion of privacy, no staring, and the fact that you
were expected to get your kit off too.
How To
Sunbathe
Naked
1 Go fully prepared. In
other words, pre-tan your
bits, either by exposing
them in a proper, licensed
tanning salon (which have
increased fi ve-fold over
the past decade), or by
taking them in for a spray
job (which, thanks to the
very present dangers of
skin cancer, isn’t the sole
preserve of the permatanned
lounge lizard of
yore anymore).
2 Go somewhere that
gives you a sporting
chance of actually getting
a tan. Virtually all beaches
in Denmark and Norway
are “clothing optional”,
for example, making
them the most nudeyfriendly
countries in the
world, but you wouldn’t
necessarily want to be
starkers while being that
close to the Arctic Circle.
Try Aguas Blancas in
Ibiza (see our Ibiza afterparty
story on p.42) or
Calblanque in Sardinia.
3 Don’t attempt to get
a completely even tan –
and you know what we’re
talking about here.
Certain bits are usually
darker than the rest of you
for a reason, and trying to
match everything up will
do your head in.
4 If you do insist on
basting your bits, your
normal level of sun
protection won’t suffi ce,
as they’re far more
sensitive than the rest of
the body.
Experts
advise that
you should
increase your
SPF by 10 as a
rule of, er, thumb.