Nude beach

A nude beach is a beach where the users generally wear no clothing, often for practical, philosophical or religious reasons (see nudism).

Most existing nude beaches have been used in that way for many years, and thus have become "traditionally nude". Many are "unmanaged" beach areas that have been adopted by the local users in the effort to maintain the beach's quality.

One can distinguish:

• official ones
  • nudity is compulsory unless the weather is bad, etc.
  • clothing is optional
• those tolerated by the authorities
• those where users risk a fine or worse

In each case the nude areas tend to be in isolated sections, where encounters with clothed or "textiled" swimmers are less likely to occur.

In the U.S.A, the number of traditional nude beaches has declined somewhat over past decade due to the influx of abusive users. However, the number of "official" nude beaches has, in fact, increased during this period. Most of these have been the direct result of the ongoing stewardship of local nudist organizations and the establishment of a working relationship with the local municipalities and law enforcement agencies.

The users of nude beaches are often the target of legislation to ban public nudity, often because of overly broad language included in bills otherwise written to target sexually oriented businesses. It is only through the work of National organizations such as the Naturist Action Committee that such legislation has been corrected or allowed to die before being enacted into law.

See Also

• The Naturist Society
• Naturist Action Committee
• International Naturist Association