Ira/Dick... the real question is WHY is it illegal? That would perhaps start to explain the differences in European and American public morality (I suspect there is very little difference in private morality - lets face it we're all the same all over the world; we just live under different skies).
So... can anyone explain why nude bathing should be illegal in the States?

Dr D.

Dr DoGood- good reading. Though when casually typing messages it's easy to write something that can be taken wrong, you are right here. I just returned from the UK. But the German things i saw indeed in summer but not this year. Looking at how i wrote it what you say is exactly right. That it could have been written more clearly yes, but the point remains the same regardless of when i saw it.

Dr,

The beaches are illegal because nudity "offends" the religous right.

I have been to beaches where there is only access by foot and you had walk two miles on a beach to reach the nude area. It is hard to believe that even such a remote location bothered the local "church goers" ....but it did.

Dick, are you sure that ONLY the religious right (your words/term) are offended by nude beaches? I would think
a number of non-church-goers would also object. Just a thought.

degas,

Certainly that is possible..even likely..but the "church goers" seemed to be beter organized and more active politcally.

And the case in a nearby town here in the conservative Midwest. A nudist group had used the local high school swimming pool on a permit basis for a few years but were denied the permit later after complaints from religious-organized folks who, even though it in no way impacted on them, decided that this could not go on. A friend in high school years ago had a German exchange student who at their cottage unassumedly went out to the swimming dock and took off his clothes! My friend's mother said get out there and tell him to get some clothes on! funny it's the same human body in each country but many here find it repulsive and many there don't bat an eye lash.

Dick - you are saying that it is only since church goers got politically active that (for instance)nude sunbathing was outlawed?
I don't know but that sounds a little unlikely to me - and maybe just a pat retrenchment of current political/moral battlefield lines.

My impression is that it is MUCH more than just the "Religious Right" (btw is there no "Religious Left"?) - I somehow feel that it all bound up in the very essence of the USA and seen symbollically every year in Thanksgiving. Its all wrapped up in that Puritanical ethic, the way that protestantism has been empowered and ennobled and the way that people see their country as a refuge from Europe - from both the Catholic Church AND also the moral decadance which seemed to be synonymous throughout much of Europe's history.
And I believe it is these same attitudes which continues to shape a the way that Europe is frequently seen by many Americans even in the 21st Century - that Europe is corrupt, corpulent and every so often in need of saving from itself by our younger, morally stouter, cousins from the west (thinks WW1 & 2).
In the same way "Old" Europe is portrayed as moribund and reeking of decay whilst "New" Europe is rosy of cheek and clear of eye.

Anyway that's just my personal view from the "looser" side of the pond. (Not MY description!)

Dr D.

Dr D,

Your explanation speaks to why the States does not have many nude beaches. If your logic were true there wouldn't be so many people looking for nude recreation. There are many thousands that belong to nudist clubs. Some travel agents offer clothing optional cruises on major cruise ships ( obviously they charter the whole boat)

Mine speaks to the beaches with years of customary nude use being forced to close because of the "religous right".

PAlQ, don't you think people can object to nude swimming/sunbathing without all of them viewing the human body as repulsive? Just a thought.

Degas: you're right. repulsive wrong word, i should have said obscene, in which case the famous Supreme Court Justice's saying about what is pornographic - he said he couldn't define it but knew it when he saw it. Further court rulings based it somewhat on community standards. But no they do not have to think they're repulsive, their bodies.

>the real question is WHY is it illegal? That would perhaps start to explain the differences in European and American public morality ...<

Are you claiming that nude bathing is permitted on all beaches in all European countries?

I know a repulsive body when I see one, but still feel its obscence for anybody to walk around naked in public. Too much sharing leads to trouble.

There was one for years on Cape Cod, though not legally on the books but when the beach was mentioned in an underground newspaper, the crowd changed and grew too large so it was closed down, because they were disturbing the ecology of the sand dunes and using private properties for toilets. There are still patches of nuse beaches and some rangers will let it pass, others may give you a warning.

No most beaches in Europe are not nude-tolerant. I don't know if it's illegal or not but the average beach i've been to is always topless is OK, not every woman goes topless but many do, of all ages, even though after a certain age it does become repulsive, if not obscene, to me. But there are many nude-friendly beaches but these are usually in tourist destinations such as islands, etc. But i have seen people skinny-dipping many times by themselves - i recently saw it on the train from Ventimiglia-Nice, a couple frolicking au naturel in eye shot from the train. Even in local swimming pools in France when i used to take my French son there were many topless ladies - it's just become non-chalant. Yes it's more plausible for something to be considered obscene in public in general, much as it would be in Paris on the Champs-Elysees; but on designated beaches where you don't have to see it, that's another question.

I'm not sure Europe is too loose.
But I'm sure Toulouse is in Europe.

To be too loose in Toulouse is to lose?

My only problem with nudists is that many of them are just as evangelistic as their prudish opponents. I made the mistake of joking about it in a thread somewhere ("What's the best form of birth control for those over 50? - Nudity"), with the result that one of these fanatics promtly suggested that I had unresolved sexual problems.

For the record, I think the first legal nudist beach in Australia was so designated in the 1970s, and there are now quite a few. Topless bathing seems to be tolerated on Sydney beaches. Not that I was taking any particular notice.

Notwithstanding their Folies Bergeres, etc., the French were still being terribly prudish about giving women there the vote, long after women in the state of Wisconsin, in their corsets and bustles, exercised the franchise.

As for Germany, who can forget the film "Cabaret" which depicted how both licentiousness and totalitarianism reigned hand in hand in Nazi Germany?

Maybe, PalQ, you might enjoy reading Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World", wherein is portrayed a fictitious (?!) future world in which the citizens enjoy plenty of casual sex and government sanctioned drugs (including the pleasure drug 'SOMA'.) Then come back and tell us if you think meaningful freedom has got anything, whatsoever, to do with attitudes toward nudity, sex, or drugs. Just curious. (Yellow or Blue, take your choice...):)

I wonder how European men view the topless situation. Take that volleyball game i saw in a German park. Here were high school kids, both guys and gals playing and all the gals were topless. If this had been in American the boys would no doubt found it erotic just to look. I wonder if those German boys did too, or any men are they turned on at the beach or don't they bat an eyelash? It seems eroticism may be a learned cultural trait and not just visually oriented. But i don't buy all of that and i think European men may get aroused as well. I wonder what they think?

PalQ - Now you are getting to be a troll. Keep wondering!!! ((b))