Skinny Dipping

[John]

I’ve finally gone and done it. There’s a club that has a naked swim every fortnight, and I went tonight.

It was a bit surreal standing naked in the changing rooms in front of dressed and naked men and women in the changing room, but I didn’t feel uncomfortable.

Going to ache tomorrow, long time since I swam. The only weird bit was the feeling of the water around my bum. I thought I’d had an accident for a split second 🙂

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[Jesss]

Roughly how busy was it? How many brave females?

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[John]

There were about ten there, two females, apparently there are normally several more women but some were away with Easter holidays.

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[John]

I’ve heard that most wild swimmers that swim nude are actually women, but I have no evidence to support that as I haven’t been myself.

It is something that I would love to do, but as wild swimming is inherently more dangerous, I need to get my fitness levels right up.

I’ve always been a strong swimmer, but need to build up some stamina before I attempt wild swimming.

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[John]

Went again tonight, 9 or 10 men and 4 women.

Going to be sore tomorrow, I pushed myself quite hard as I need to get fit.

Really enjoyable, and it’s surprising how quickly you get used to talking to people when you’re both naked.

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[Ed]

I haven’t got the budget to do it and getting volunteers would be considerably harder than usual, but it would be interesting to do an experiment over the space of a week and measure how participants react to being naked with other people each day.

I’m sure some people would get used to it faster than others, but we could investigate why.

[Jesss]

You would need to assess how much each person has done before though. In still jumping when my husband comes down to the kitchen (he’s working at home today) and looks out to see that I’m naked in the garden.

[Ed]

That would be an integral part of it.

[Jesss]

I think that if it was the same people who had already seen me naked, then by day 2 I’d have no concerns — except possibly how the act of stripping off feels like preforming as a sex worker? You’ve commented elsewhere how being naked and getting naked are different.
I’d cope easily with being in a skimpy bikini in-front of a crowd — but turning up in business wear and starting to strip to underwear? Even if that underwear covered more than the bikini, that would feel different.

[Jesss]

We had a conversation today and I think I can be a bit more open at home (during school hours only!)

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[Jesss]

I think a woman who got caught nude while wild swimming would only need to deal with embarrassment. There’s not much risk of anyone calling the police. I know that public nudity is legal here, but I still think some people would report a man, especially if a group of 14 year old girls wandered into the area he was already in.

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[Since1980_v2]

Interesting I started reading an account on x from a couple not to far from me who often swim in Thames and see people who just stop for a chat with no judgement.

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[Since1980_v2]

I wonder if it was just a man it would be different

[Ed]

I certainly would not do any nudity experiments in public places without at least a 50/50 gender split.

Also, attitudes vary wildly by area. There are a lot of small beaches near me. If you go down there on a hot day (I know they are a rarity), you will most probably see fully naked people sunbathing on the upper part of the beach. There are always topless women there too. It’s not zoned as a nudist beach or anything, but I’ve never heard of anyone complaining.

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[John]

Technically there are no nudist beaches as all are by the terms of the law, providing you don’t mean to cause offence.

I have heard a whisper that Starmer the Tory’s (sorry but I detest that man) new law going through may remove the intending to cause offence option, which could have a lot of repurcussions.

[Gary]

I am in Brighton for a business trip.  There was a very nice 4 hour “downtime” in today’s schedule so I thought, “if I don’t try the nudist beach now I won’t get another chance and will always regret it.”

At 2:00pm it was quite busy, and I found it really easy to get completely naked and then walk to find a suitable place to enjoy the sun.  It’s a stone beach so everyone looks when you approach and I felt no embarrassment.  I found a place to sit and then decided to try swimming- very liberating to be in the naked, even just 10 minutes sat in the waves.

Of course I had to sit in the sun a dry (not towel) and was amazed how quickly the time passed.

I did manage to get a picture and a video to add to the MDL, which I’ll send to Ed

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[Jesss]

Were there many other people naked? Some “nudist beaches” are just quiet beaches where you might be the only person to strip. That ups the level of challenge.

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[Gary]

Yes, nearly everyone

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[Jesss]

That’s good to hear actually.

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[Ed]

Years ago in France they had an excellent system. Beaches where nudity was officially acceptable (in reality nudity was permitted almost anywhere – it is France!) were split into two types. They had Zone Naturist beaches, which were effectively clothing optional, and Zone Nudiste, where clothing was not allowed. After family holidays (which were not naturist), I came to see “Nudist” as meaning clothes not permitted, and “Naturist” as meaning clothes-optional.

These days, the terms seem to be completely interchangeable, which seems unhelpful.

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[Jesss]

This is particularly interesting as you don’t often seem to tell us much from your own perspective/background Ed.

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[ptHarry]

I’m not sure how it works (or used to work) in France, but in the UK all land between mean high tide and low tide (ie, the major part of most beaches) is public property and must be available for any legal purpose.

In theory, only a privately owned UK beach (which would have to be part of a beach that isn’t normally tidal) can restrict clothing either positively or negatively. That is the reason why most UK beaches are legally considered to be “clothing optional” even when not specifically designated as such. It is also the reason why (theoretically at least) councils are prohibited from putting up signs that require clothing to be worn.

Personally I think that it would be more productive and helpful to change the rules, so that councils have the option to designate some beaches as specifically naked or clothing optional, with the strict rule that:

• all beaches are clothing optional unless there is a designated adjacent clothing optional beach
• designated clothing optional or naked beaches must have adequate capacity, remain free to all and have similar facilities (ie, beach surface, sea quality, equally step-free access, nearby shops and toilets etc) to the non-designated beaches
• councils can optionally designate part of a beach as naked-only

The first rule would ensure that councils who want clothing restrictions on some of their beaches must first designate adequate nearby clothing-optional beaches to be used as an alternative. The second rule would ensure that they cannot allocate substandard areas for those beaches (because by default, all their beaches will remain clothing optional) and the final rule gives them optional additional flexibility to create an area which only fully undressed participants may use.

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[Jesss]

I do actually see a need for protecting some space on beaches for families who would rather not see anyone topless or nude — But as you have said, the way to do that would be to first provide a designated area for nudity.

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[Gary]

Here is a picture from Brighton Nudist beach.

I ask the lady if she minded me taking a picture, she wasn’t worried as long as it wasn’t a close-up and she couldn’t be indentified

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[Ed]

If I was her, I’d be more worried about it looking like she is picking her nose 😂

[John]

There are worse places to be picking on a naturist beach 🙂

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[John]

So two members of NE went to a naked swim together tonight. Something else happened before that, but we’re not meant to give any spoilers.

OK one slight spoiler, I managed to make both the other person and Ed blush at the same time 🙂

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[ptHarry]

The unthinkable has also happened. There is now a place for naked swimming in Central London. Saturday and Sunday evenings.

I wasn’t able to go at the weekend, due to other events, but am booked for a session for the coming weekend. I’ll post more about it next week.

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[John]

Enjoy, it’s really friendly and fun. Oh and if you’ve never done it before, don’t panic when you first get in. The water flowing up the crease in your bum makes you feel like you’ve pooed yourself for a few seconds.

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[Jesss]

The lengths I have to go to in order to go swimming! 3 of my local swimming pools have closed in the last few years.
I have a very sore shoulder today from my poor technique and posture!

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[TheG]

Ours seem to be mainly run by volunteers these days, who definitely go above and beyond to make everything work. The official council ones are outsourced to a national chain, but the worry then is that they could close them for purely commercial reasons. Large national companies don’t seem to think very much about sore shoulders and posture, which I imagine were some of the reasons that councils opened them in the first place.

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[Jesss]

Now I think about it, a fourth one closed about a year or so ago!

[John]

Definitely got the bug. I just braved the motorway for the first time since the crash, and have just arrived in north Manchester for another naked swim. I believe this pool has saunas etc, also.

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[Jesss]

Did you go in the sauna in the end? Or were they not available?

I used to go to the sauna on my local gym membership, but they closed the sauna first, then the swimming pool.

[Jesss]

Are you getting fit enough not to ache the next day now?

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[John]

No. It was a full size pool, rather than that half one at Newcastle. Really sore today.

Swam nowhere near as far as I used to and I was knackered. Was pretty busy as well.

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[Ed]

I suppose there’s no point splitting the changing rooms into male and female if you’re all going to be naked together in the pool anyway.

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[TheG]

On a beach, people undress and dress together, so I’m not being very logical here. I’d find it very easy to come out of a changing room naked, especially those individual ones that are the opposite of a tardis. I’d find it more difficult, at least at first, to get undressed in front of everyone. It would be a good initiation, though, if I was joining a group for the first time. Reminds me of Cybill Shepherd in The Last Picture Show.

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[ptHarry]

@ed: “I suppose there’s no point splitting the changing rooms into male and female if you’re all going to be naked together in the pool anyway.”

If it’s a full time naturist or clothing-optional pool, then it would be logical for everybody to undress together.

But imagine a pool is built with separate male and female changing rooms and no separate cubicles within them. The last session of the day finishes at 8pm but is hired out for a naturist session later in the evening.

• The non-naturists would occupy the changing rooms until maybe 8:15pm and it would probably not be considered acceptable to admit naturists of the opposite sex into the changing rooms before that time.
• The naturists then need 10-15 minutes to change, so there would be around 30 minutes of downtime when the pool is not being actively used
• But by keeping the changing rooms as single sex, the naturists can start changing at 7:45pm ready to take over the pool at 8pm with no pool downtime.

 

[Ed]

I realise that but I was talking in general with nudist changing, not specific situations to interface with non-nudists.

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[Jesss]

There are generally cubicles available. I don’t believe there’s enough demand from naturist, to plan changing facilities with this idea in mind!

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[John]

Generally people stand in front of the lockers and just put their clothes in the locker, but use the cubicles when getting dressed again., just to try and avoid putting on wet clothes.

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[Beace]

When the Mrs and I went to the Friedrichsbad spa in Baden-Baden, we knew we were getting into an all-nude mixed gender situation. That’s why I wanted us to go in the first place. The changing room at the beginning was where it seemed weird. There was just one room with a bunch of lockers. No cubicles, no separation of any sort. It’s one of those things that feels strange and unexpected but totally makes sense when you think about it. The baths are entirely mixed gender and mandatorily nude. Highly recommended if you’re ever in Germany.

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[TheG]

I’d have found that weird, but would probably quickly get used to it.

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