FROLICS ON THE “NUDE BEACH”

Negative attitude to Naturism in Quick
– with a positive conclusion
Original article titled “Brüder, zur Nacktheit zur Sonne” in Quick, 25.8.1963

It is some consolation to realize that other countries have their “funny men” always ready to ridicule the naturist movement when stuck for something better to write about in the dead summer season. All the “Peter Simples” are not confined to Britain by any manner of means. An article by one such named Manfred Schmidt, a Teuton whose attempts at humour are more heavy-handed than the majority of his race caught my eye recently. He paid a visit to the North German island of Sylt famous for its “free beaches” and dipped his pen in vitriol although it is only fair to say that the non-naturist areas of the island fared as just badly. But his comments are worth quoting if only because they turn out to be a triumph for naturism in the really important issues touched on.- Truth will out, even when one desires the opposite.

We begin with Manfred looking tentatively towards the free beach but obviously lacking courage to make his way there. Suddenly our hero notices two damsels in tempting “playing costumes” approaching him. Yes, you’ve guessed it, dear reader, these two turned out to be saving angels who offered to bring him to the naked strand. But what a rude shock awaited the poor chap when he got there. As one who had always been led to believe from his perusal of naturist magazines that free beaches were peopled with diving female beings who might have stepped right out of the “Arabian Nights” he was horrified, shattered and disappointed when, as he puts it: “the first thing I saw was a completely naked man… whose only common feature with the classical Apollo was the human frame. Otherwise he was round-shouldered, pot-bellied and bandy-legged.” Though Manfred does not expressly say so here I feel that that the individual mentioned must also have had false teeth and worn glasses at the cinema. The girls told him (obviously without malice aforethought) that Sylt had an “intensifying climate” and all his appetites and weaknesses would be sharpened. If one was inclined to drink one knocked back the double amount and the same applied to all other human foibles.

“So this is what they call nude culture” mused Manfred as he looked around him “Surely a classical contradiction in terms” since for him “culture” only began when man started to cover his nakedness whether he used bear’s hide or grass skirt. But these devotees of culture run around stark naked at the slightest excuse”.

Sensing his shyness about going naked the girls told him he could keep on his shorts until they reached the strand basket. “That was a really big gesture on their part” in his sarcastic comment. Our hero’s description of Kampen, Sylt is worth quoting in full:

“A scene unfolded itself behind those dunes such as I had only previously conceived possible in nightmares or artistic representations of the Last Day. Thousands of entirely naked males and females were milling around having abandoned themselves to the sun, the sea, and the beach-ball. Some wore short shirts or pullovers because of the fresh North Sea wind but these were strictly confined (be it noted!) to the upper part of the anatomy. Anyone who conjures up lustful pictures of a free beach” concludes Manfred Schmidt “can dismiss such ideas immediately”.

Vindication of naturism number one: “Anyone who conjures up lustful pictures of a Free Beach can dismiss such ideas immediately”.

That Manfred does not boggle at the semi-pornographical is proved by the following passage in his article: “Many of these people had obviously been suntanning elsewhere before they came to the free beach and it was obvious that they had worn bathing costumes. The effect of exposing their backsides to the elements at this late stage made their buttocks shine a discoloured mixture of red, pink and purple. Any objective bystander must at once be reminded of baboons at the zoo. It seemed to smack of an army medical where we waited for the quacks to segregate candidates for the infantry, the artillery and the women’s services and some of the females looked rough enough for the latter in all conscience”.

The girls gave Manfred two basic rules for behaving on the Free Beach. These will no doubt interest our readers and so we will quote them:
1. Act at all times as if you were wearing trousers.

2. Never wear sun glasses as no one knows where you are peering behind them.

Schmidt then sounds a word of reassurance for all those whose lack of physical perfection has so far inhibited them from visiting the nudist enclosure. “Be of good heart” he tells them “you cannot possibly be more malformed than some of the specimens there.”

A curious couple passed along at the edge of the water. Manfred raised his eyebrows when he saw a decrepit looking male with bathing trunks slung carefully around his neck accompanied by a plump young blonde whose bikini was tied in her hair. The female guides solved the mystery by explaining that those people had obviously been strolling outside the area of the free beach and needed something to hide their nakedness very quickly in case they spied strangers.

Then Manfred remarks with truth that there is nothing strange in going nude provided everyone else does the same. In his own words: to have a trousers on a nudist beach feels like a naked man at a correctly dressed evening party”.

Even so, our dear Manfred couldn’t get the right “feel” for the nude and while the others were joyfully throwing themselves into the briny with female squeals he hung back for fear a wandering jellyfish or tentacled North-Sea crab might take advantage of his temporary nakedness and attack some tender portion of his anatomy. “Naturists must be optimists at any rate” he says “on my way back from the water’s edge a girl asked me if I had a light”. A curious request in view of his lack of covering – or didn’t she notice he had no trousers on? The old accusation that nudists lack humour is refurbished and this passage would no doubt meet with the full approval of the editor of the “Irish Rosary” who once wrote a leading article on the subject. Manfred says “there was no laughter on the beach. Perhaps they wanted to avoid giving the impressions are anything but funny when seen en masse”.

Schmidt’s conclusion completely confirms the naturist case for nude bathing and by implication pin points the reason fo the bikini cult. “Sylt” he concludes “offers sea, sand, sun, society and even sex. But to enjoy the latter one must rigorously avoid the free beach”.

Vindication of naturism number two: there is no sex in nude mixed bathing.

Peter Quirin

(Source: Sun and Health International Edition, April, 1964)