Tales Of The Naked City

By Joel Stratte-Mcclure Sunday, July 16, 2000
    • Everything is different when you are completely nude, though it helps when everyone around you--in line at the post office or dancing at a disco, for example--is naked too. Inside the walls of the "naturist quarter" at Le Cap d'Agde, a sprawling French resort on the Mediterranean Sea that is reputedly the largest assemblage of naked souls in this world, the undressed population soars to 40,000 during July and August.

    A veteran skinny-dipper, I had spent time at smaller nudist resorts in the past and was thus prepared for most of my social encounters in the bare-skinned section of Le Cap d'Agde, separated from "the textile world" by a guarded gate where visitors pay a nominal entrance fee. One of the slogans for the Naked City, I was told, is SEE AND BE SEEN! I had also heard about "boutiques where you can use the changing room--or try it on where you stand!"

    There are dozens of naturist (Europeans prefer this word to nudist to stress its back-to-nature aspect) beaches and resorts on the Mediterranean. Naturism began here in the 1950s at a simple campground that attracted Northern Europeans who wanted to strip in the sun. It took off, however, in 1970, following the French government's decision to promote naturist resorts as a means of diversifying the economy in the face of a decline in the local fishing and winemaking industries.

    Nowadays, Le Cap d'Agde is the nudist community in Southern France, with something for everyone. There are families with young children, large numbers of bronzed retirees, lots of elderly folk (with no handicap access to the beaches, one naked octogenarian regularly makes the rounds with his walker) and representatives of every age group in between. Everyone has a different reason for coming here. "There is more finesse, a bit more je ne sais quoi, to French naturism," a well-tanned Austrian in his 60s tells me as he prepares for another day on the sandy "nudism obligatory" beach, where cameras are taboo and coconut-scented suntan oil seems to be the millennium rage.

    "There's nothing like this in the world," enthuses Claudine Tartanella, who with her husband runs a Florida-based travel company https://www.cap-d-agde.com ). "Americans like the complete freedom and the fact that everything is open 24 hours a day." Commercial convenience might sound like an odd attribute for such a place. In fact, clothing boutiques abound. I easily adapted to shopping au naturel: I bought some T shirts for my kids. I also dropped in on some of the 50 bars and restaurants, where, I learned, it is polite to put a towel on your chair at lunch. I also checked out bakeries, one of which sells bread in the shape of various anatomical parts; a beauty salon called Adam and Eve; and the Ladybel massage parlor, where a sign reads WE SPEAK F-GB-D-NL-I-SP (that's French, English, German, Dutch, Italian and Spanish).

    Today's international clientele includes 10,000 campers living in tents and trailers at a tree-lined campground where no one seems to mind the curtainless showers. There are also 30,000 other residents in villas and multistory apartment complexes. "This is now the world's largest naturist center and is a key aspect of our economy," explains Christian Bezes, a naturist working at the local tourism office https://www.capdagde.com ). "Nudity brings everyone to the same social level."

    Which is not to say differences are not appreciated. During activities that range from beach volleyball and Ping-Pong to yoga, one notices a wide array of physiques--the good, the bad, the ugly and the very ugly. But that's O.K. "The whole resort is geared to living completely in the nude without embarrassment," an Irishman explains to me. "The experience is much more sensual than sexual."

    Does that mean no sex? I ask a German woman as we dance at Cleopatre, a nightclub "reserved for anticonformists."

    "I think you've been misinformed," she replies with a knowing wink.

    The atmosphere is decidedly laid-back in the nude world. A billboard urges visitors to PROTECT OUR NATURIST VILLAGE, asserting that "it is unique and a privilege" to be here. But most naturists don't talk much about the virtues of their lifestyle. And the clothed employees at the various shops and restaurants take their constant encounters with the unclothed in stride. Delphine, the receptionist at the Hotel Eve, even tells me that "naturists are more cool and less stressed than people in the textile world."

    To test this, I don clothes one day and head into the textile part of town, which is one of the most lively, entertaining and congested ports on the Mediterranean. Curious as to why everyone else around here is not a naturist, I approach a topless twentysomething woman on the Richelieu Beach who is attired--if that is the correct word--in a microscopic string monokini. Why, I ask her, isn't she over in the naturist colony to "see and be seen"?

    "Mon Dieu, not me!" she says. "I'm much too self-conscious for that."