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Is the internet killing the nude beach? (theatlantic.com)
141 points by fortran77 on Sept 1, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 340 comments


Back in university, we sometimes organized nude swimming events for students. We had a private lake, so nobody from the general public was bothered. Sometimes, old couples would walk by, giggle, and then go their ways.

But then video cameras became cheap and easy enough to use. So eventually, a creepy old man showed up and started filming our swimming event without anyone's consent. As part of the organization team, it was my duty to confront him and ask for him to wipe the tapes. His wife had died, he was lonely and horny and just wanted to capture his lucky sight for himself.

So we succeeded after a long discussion and he let me wipe the tape. But the damage was done. Afterwards, everyone was afraid of being filmed without consent again. We never got enough sign-ups for another event after that.


>But the damage was done. Afterwards, everyone was afraid of being filmed without consent again.

Devil's advocate, but isn't the point of being nude in public that you are destigmatizing it? I know you mentioned this was a "private lake" but it is unclear of if you mean legally private or de facto private. In case of the latter, even creepers have a right to be there and film.

I used to visit a nude beach and there was always some clothed weirdo with their phone out. They would get unfriendly looks by everyone though, and I think the ostracization kept them on the outskirts of the community.


The lake was on private property owned by the parents of one of the participants. But there's an "open to the public" hiking trail at the border of their property. So legally, I'd consider this similar to looking over the fence into your neighbor's garden.

I'd estimate that for most participants, the point of being nude was to feel free. I mean this was students drinking, swimming, and playing beach games for relaxation, not some political rally.


That’s not the point of being nude in public. For some people sure. Others like the freedom of it.

In either case, most just want an ephemeral experience, and don’t want permanent recordings.


I don't think people really like permanent recordings even when they're wearing clothes. One of my favorite things about the pandemic is the sense of anonymity in public that wearing a mask offers. Less likely to get messages like "hey I saw you slip on that ice on r/all". Instead you're just some rando slipping on the ice!


You can enjoy the freedom of being nude on your own private property then. No need to add "in public" unless you are trying to a) destigmatize or b) be an exhibitionist


No.

I like to be nude swimming at the lake, but I don’t have a lake on my property.

There’s a whole culture of this in Eastern Germany, where I currently live.


Your choice to swim nude in a public lake outweighing the choice to be more prudish is destigmatizing.


Of course, but that’s not why I’m swimming nude.


Sorry but I just don't buy it. There's no functional difference between swimming in undergarments or swimming nude, so if you choose nude, it's because you don't think it should be stigmatized.

If you think it feels so much nicer, consider that it's because it's a mild rebellion against a social norm.


It's nice to get an even tan and some exercise and feel the sun and wind and water all over your body. Daenz... have you tried it?


Yes. I've probably spent more time tanning at nude beaches than most people.


Purely as a political demonstration?


Look mr prudent, you don't get the motivation why folks do it, fine, but show some respect. And yes there is huge difference between swimming naked and in some swim shorts. I couldn't care less about rebelling against something, and I am definitely not any kind of exhibitionist.

Done it cca twice if I don't count swimming during night, second time got sting on the shoulder from medusa that left burn scar for years and hurt like hell back then. The idea of getting something similar on my johnson makes me shudder even now.


>And yes there is huge difference between swimming naked and in some swim shorts

I didn't say "swim shorts", I said underwear, which tend to be tight fitting and not baggy. And there really isn't a "huge difference."


Or it could be because it feels good.

Not everything has to be making a point against society. In places where being nude is normal, it isn't considered a weird thing.


Why is being nude normal in some places, but not others? That suggests that a stigma exists in one but not the other, and so participating in one or the other is implicitly supporting that.


No one is arguing against that


How can it be so difficult to comprehend, that people might want to be nude with other people but not have it shared with the entire world for all eternity?

How can you not comprehend there are stages between "complete and total privacy with one person for a moment" and "film this and display it for all time to everyone"?


That's not difficult to comprehend at all. It sounds like you're not comprehending my point.


You shifted the goalposts into a false dichotomy about "public vs. private" and the concept of de-stigmatization. I am saying the entire premise is bunk, there is not only "private" and "public".

There is clearly a definition of "public" that involves a limited, semi-unrestricted number of like-minded people in a safe setting without tools to record behavior for eternal and unlimited rebroadcast. You do not acknowledge this; you are talking in binary.


Then why do people do this in cultures where it's not stigmatized?


Which cultures are we talking about?


East German, as I mentioned above


> There's no functional difference between swimming in undergarments or swimming nude,

I can tell you haven't been backpacking.


What does hiking with a pack have to do with swimming in water


Not specific to backpacking, but bathing nude and having dry clothes is very preferable to walking around in a wet bathing suit or wet underwear.


I think you have a wrong understanding of nude beaches. People are usually very friendly and relaxed. Most have not a model body and are a bit older. When I was younger I also could no imagine I would go to there, but it's just so a much nicer experience. I feel much more calm on a nude beach than on a normal beach.


Guess you are from the USA, where no digital age concept of privacy exists, and the word still has a 17th century meaning of "behind closed curtains at home" instead of the modern interpretation of "requiring consent of the data subject". I am from europa, our laws, culture and philosophy are different. More specifically i am german, and we have a nudist tradition that has nothing to do with making statements.

Not everything "in public" is a statement made with the consent to be recorded, shared over the internet by bystanders, exploited by corporations and archived for eternity. A public nude beach, and take note that this thread is actually about a private nude beach but let's argue the weaker point, is a place for people to be nude, not a place to be exploited to make porn. The fact that it is physically possibly to exploit a nude beach for softcore porn does not mean it is acceptable. In the same way that being nude at a shopping mall is physically possible, but socially not acceptable and mostly also not legal. Please note that nudism and exhibitionism are not the same.

For most participants Nudism is about freedom of self and a return to nature, it is about oneself, not about society or making statements, and not about pushing ones own nudity into other peoples faces. That would be exhibitionism. Many nudists are quite shy and not interested in becoming someone else wank material, or an actor on national television, or instahub. They do not wish to be recorded. They just want to be nude at the beach, there is no larger meaning or implied consent. Let me repeat that: being nude at a nude beach does not automatically imply consent to be filmed by anyone for any purpose. And we can argue this finer detail of "privacy" as being different from "privatly/publicly" and how it hinges on consent, without looking at nudism in particular:

Imagine every time you leave the house a national television crew follows you around. It doesn't actually matter what you do, they will cut and manipulate the footage to fit their narrative. You are not getting paid and are not consenting, and you have no influence on what the show is about. But it is going to be degrading, let's call it "americans most stupid". You should have stayed inside if you don't want to be exploited like that. This is the american idea of privacy: once you step outside, you have none. The usa does not differentiate between "being seen on the street, at a bar, at a beach" and "being published on national television, on instagram, on pornhub". If you want to use the former, you must accept to be exploited by the later and their endless supply of unpaid content creators. The european interpretation says that these people are not content creators, but creeps that are violating your human right to privacy and self determination by recording and publishing your activities without your consent.

The public is facing the tragedy of the commons as "public spaces" have become freely and easily exploitable by corporations in the age of surveillance capitalism and social media.

Note that european style privacy law is differentiated in the finer details: a person who films at a nude beach can claim to do so as a technological extension of their own personal memories and with no intention to publish the material and that is not in violation of privacy laws. This is the case in the thread starter. For the law it is the exploitation of the material, turning personal data of unwilling subjects into commodities without their consent, which is illegal. This is a detail most people at nude beaches do not like: they find the act of filming itself to be as creepy as a wanker sitting in the bushes.


Thanks for the detailed reply, but I disagree with almost every point that you made. You took the extreme version of "no privacy" with the "America's most stupid" example, so allow me to take the opposite extreme. Imagine every conversation and every form of public interaction going through real-time government censors to decide if it is appropriate. If it's not appropriate (for some subjective definition of 'appropriate'), you're arrested or fined for offense. Sounds dystopian right? I'd much prefer being followed around by a malicious film crew in public all day.


You’re arguing between two absurd extremes that have nothing to do with reality. Maybe a more grounded analogy would be more convincing?


Can you explain your argument better? I don’t follow it. How does requiring consent equate to dystopia?


Well, consider the grandparent's example:

> Note that european style privacy law is differentiated in the finer details: a person who films at a nude beach can claim to do so as a technological extension of their own personal memories and with no intention to publish the material and that is not in violation of privacy laws.

This would be reasonably clear-cut if images were being published on a professional pornography site or whatever, but what happens when the voyeur changes their mind and sends a pic to a friend who never re-shares it?

There are two possibilities here: either the law is unenforceable in cases like these and acts more like a security blanket than any sort of protection to be relied upon, baiting people into a false sense of privacy where they're open for exploitation by creeps - or you've got mandatory on-device image scanning / no E2E / etc, as compromising private communications is required in cases where the material would never hit public services.

Btw, I don't even really see this as a US vs. EU philosophy-of-law thing - the US has plenty of dumb unenforceable laws that do more harm than good as well, but imo does at least get the privacy in public issue roughly correct.

e: downthread, this is at least anecdotally a problem: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32673402

My uncharitable take is that this is the result of this style of privacy protection's unenforceability problems. If it works so well, why the decline in participation / increase in electronic voyeurism?


i do not agree with the idea that every human right and corresponding laws that are not perfectly and fully enforcable under all circumstances must either lead to an ever increasing trend towards a surveillance state, or be dropped entirely. Both of those are terrible choices. Almost all human rights have some edge case were lack of discoverability prevents enforcement of the laws and prosecution of severe violations. Even murder cases go cold. Does not mean it should be legal.


That’s quite a bit of a slippery slope you’ve got there. Intent matters a ton in law. It’s the difference between man-slaughter and murder. It’s the difference between negligence and property damage. Why can’t it also be the difference between recording memories and publishing without consent?


I agree that such a government agency would be dystopian, but not that it is a logical extreme of a consent based right to privacy. Quite the contrary such an agency would be in violation of the right as it spies on all public interactions. Yet I am not surprised you radicalize a negative liberty of freedom from harassment by a malicious film crew, towards an intrusive government agency that ensures their absence. Consider the right to not be subject to violence, which you hopefully agree we have, and tell me, where is my government issued bodyguard ensuring absence of harm 24/7? I can claim a right, demand others limit their actions in respect of it, sue them if they violate it, and likely win, without needing a totalitarian surveillance state. But you can't win trial against a malicious film crew, if you have no right to privacy in the first place.

Let's meet in the middle, at "freedoms end where rights begin". For most interactions this balance is kept not by a government agency, but by the people respecting each others rights. The censor that decide if it is appropriate in real time is not part of some government agency, it is the little voice of moral and reason in your head that says "don't punch him in the face" and, if you get my drift, "don't film at a nude beach". The government steps in after people sue.

I bring the european understanding of a human right to privacy based on consent into this discussion, as a consideration about limiting the right to film, as a counterpoint to your "even creepers have a right to be there and film.", which you made as the devils advocate and which is true, but ignores the creepers disrespect for the right to privacy of those they film. The american interpretation is that humans have no right to privacy in public spaces, at all, that the creepers freedom to film is unrestricted in such a situation because privacy only exists behind closed doors and drawn curtains. This further means the creepers right to sell the content to distributors is unrestricted and their right to edit and frame this material is unrestricted, without any consent of he people filmed, because in an american public space their human right to privacy is non-existent. In the post I answered to, you reinforced this by claiming a person going to a public space makes a statement, implying consent. I reject that. There is a fundamental difference between using the commons and consenting to be exploited. I think the american threshold of where one sides freedom ends and the others sides rights begin in this matter is unfit for postmodern times where cameras have become cheap and omnipresent and publishing of the filmed material turned into a big market.

The american understanding of privacy comes from a time when the discussion was about being seen by neighbors, not about being filmed and published on the internet for millions to gawk at. Had the founding fathers bathing nude in a public lake not only implied that some fellow people present there could see them, but that pictures and videos were being made available on the world wide web, the concept of privacy in the bill of rights may be very different. Times have changed, technology changes possibilities and the evaluation of the freedom to do whatever you want in respect to other peoples rights to not be subject to whatever someone else wants must change with that as well.

As a moral and constitutional framework, i prefer consent based privacy above curtain based privacy.


> Devil's advocate, but isn't the point of being nude in public that you are destigmatizing it?

Destigmatizing doesn't mean people are free to stare or film you. It's the same if someone were filming on a regular beach because they find people's bodies in bikinis attractive (or to have a wank, as admitted by that old creep). You probably wouldn't like that very much.


Assuming we're talking about the US, if you are in public, people absolutely are free to stare or film you.


I assume they're also free to film in a nudist beach, or are there special laws?

Still, free or not, I can approach the guy with the camera and complain, like OP did with the nudist beach creep.

I'm in Europe, not sure how this works to be honest.


In the US, basically any public place (nude beaches included) is open for people to film. I believe there are some exceptions like public restrooms, where there exists a "reasonable expectation of privacy."

But yes, people are also free to complain to the person and make them feel uncomfortable for the scumbag behavior.


In Europe (Slovenia) you can't film people without their consent even if in public, unless if there's a huge number of people. Thus you're filming the crowd and not just a select few.


And I'm pretty sure that even in European counties that theoretically require consent for publishing identifiable pictures of people in public, many thousands of such photos are posted every day.


Same in Austria, and I believe, in the whole EU.


Not the whole EU, just the sensible parts.


There's the law and then there is etiquette. They do not necessarily match up. In this case the law is a lower limit, and you may face social counter-action: a person standing to block your camera, angry words, etc.


There are indeed plenty of legal ways to be an asshole.


Not to mention a drone operator can be pretty far away from a drone nowadays and the stability/video quality is increasing with every passing year.


No, but people being free to stare at whatever they like in public means that they are free to stare at you.


Just because there is physical distance it does not mean it is not harassment.


And just because something upsets you doesn't mean it's against the law.


And just because it's legal doesn't mean it's right. They're orthogonal dimensions. What's your point?


That it's not illegal.

That's the thing about going about in public, you have accept that others will be there and tolerate what they do even if you don't like it.

Try go acting the clown in public and see if people won't stare and record you.


Sorry, but I'm not following. How do you make the connection from going out in public to you have to accept what others do? It feels like you're bringing in NAP or something without actually saying it.


> Sorry, but I'm not following. How do you make the connection from going out in public to you have to accept what others do?

Start with the context https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32673550

I don't know what you're having trouble understanding.

> It feels like you're bringing in NAP or something without actually saying it.

I don't know what NAP is or how that might address what I wrote.


No, I mean, please explain why you have to accept what others do. Are there people who are going to make me? If so, then they have some justification to do so - what is it?


> No, I mean, please explain why you have to accept what others do.

Because the law allows them and prevents you stopping them.

> Are there people who are going to make me?

Police officers perhaps. Depending what you mean by not accepting it.

> If so, then they have some justification to do so - what is it?

Who and what? I don't really follow. People are free to look at what they like in public. I feel I'm repeating myself, I don't quite know what the difficulty is with this.

And what is NAP?


Thanks for your patience. I'm trying to understand your first principles, and they seem to be what is lawful is moral and what is moral is lawful. I simply find it difficult to accept that as an axiom.

NAP is the non-aggression principle[1]. I brought it up, not because I agree or disagree with it, but to jump to that part of the dialog were that your basis for framework.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle


Those are not my "first principles", but otherwise I'm not really interested in explaining to people on the internet what they are.

But people are free to be in public and look at things that are in public view. This is not a statement of my beliefs or principles it's just a matter of fact. If you disagree, can you provide evidence?


Sorry, but matters of fact, in my experience, rarely are. Rather, they are typically assumptions, and personal and cultural projections about reality. It's a common trope around here to state opinions, assumptions, and unexamined ideas as fact as a rhetorical device, and when pressed, to avoid such an examination. At the end of the day it's not up to me to prove that they aren't; it's up to you to prove that they are.


So I take that to mean you are unable to substantiate your claim with evidence.

Generally people are permitted to do something unless it is prohibited, so as I see it the burden is on you to prove your claim.


We can make a very long chain saying vaguely related truism forth and back.

Or I could recommend reading https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/12/weak-men-are-superweap... instead.


It's not a truism that people are not free to cast their eyes in any direction they like in public.


This is exactly why I posted that link.

I never said anything about what people can or cannot do in public or in private, I only pointed out that "just looking" is not an ironclad defense.

Harassment is better defined in terms of both side intent, personal effects, and reasonable expectations, especially when anonymity and safety can be at risk.


People are free to stare in public. I don't know how else to put this to you.


isn't the point of being nude in public that you are destigmatizing it?

Context matters. The act itself can be destigmatizing (doesn't have to be the goal), but recording it and displaying it out of context usually causes more stigmatization.


Guys with cellphones are really a pain in nude beaches. I just go to nude beaches for swimming, tanning etc. But there are allways just some whatever rude word guys who act like "just do something on my cellphone" but it is very clear, they make a video.


One of my favourite places in Austria did close recently after they simply did not find a way to control all the bush wankers around the area. It hasn't always been like that, but in the last years you could hear people wanking and running around the bushes constantly. Creepy as fuck.


What's changed to increase the numbers of them?


I really have no idea


Disruption of gender roles and de-stigmatising hookup culture.

Nowadays average girls sleep with the top x% guys from tinder instead of finding local average peers. They also out-earn their male peers and just a small percentage is willing to date down and settle with a guy earning less then them.

This brought kids to find refuge in videogames or the internet in general and be overall very lonely.

The media outrage towards typically male traits (think toxic masculinity) and a unmeritocratic culture (think everybody gets a prize, "positive" discrimination for "minorities" in college admissions and in the work force) is also incredibly damaging to guys who struggle more then ever to be successful.

The rise of porn, onlyfans and twitch (as it provides companionship) are clear symptoms that each passing generation is more and more lonely.

Loneliness will eventually breed creeps, incels, school shooters or people who are easily radicalised by terrorist organisations.


> Nowadays average girls sleep with the top x% guys from tinder instead of finding local average peers.

I think this is drastically overestimating the reach of Tinder. Some quick searching suggests that in 2020, 15% of adults between 18 and 29 used Tinder in some capacity. Meanwhile, Tinder's users are 80% male. Finally, less than a third of those users actually open the app more than once a week. Putting this all together, the number of female Tinder power-users might be about 2% of this particular age group, which is far too few to draw conclusions about the behavior of the average population.


It depends on where those 2% of women are. If they are spread uniform across the globe (unlikely) then yeah, it will probably have virtually no effect. However, if they are densely located to certain areas, they could have a global effect.


> This brought kids to find refuge in videogames or the internet in general and be overall very lonely.

That's a sad response—"I actually have to work at finding a partner, so I'll just not bother".


I think carrying a water gun to accidentally fire in their direction would be met with near universal acceptance.


IIRC I remember in Miami 20 years ago people with camcorders walking around. Some were brazen about it getting within 5 feet and zooming.


On the flip side, in the near future - I can imagine a world where everyone's nudes are floating around, and people just don't care anymore.

In 10-20 years, I imagine the majority of people running for office are gonna have their nudes leaked.


Not only that, but faking someone's nudes will become so easy that future leaks may lack any credibility and people REALLY won't care.


Why do people think this? We have ample evidence that prudes and judgy people have no issue freaking out about fake scandals TODAY. Judging other people based on crazy rules you put on yourself is a human nature thing. There's no reason to believe there will be fewer prudes in the future to shame you for totally normal things.

Remember, there are people today who genuinely think rape victims got what they deserve for being sluts. I don't know how you can look at that situation and think "surely those same horrible people won't use this as an excuse to otherise someone". There are people within my own country who say "it was a mistake for the supreme court to allow gay people to marry" and the politicians who say such things are broadly popular. Where is this magical world where people aren't busibodies?


>Why do people think this?

Because it's already happening.

Things that were career ending scandals for politicians two decades ago are only a couple of days worth of news now.


I thought so. And then the prime minister of Finland got in trouble for dancing!


Well at least they have a female prime minister.


This coin has two sides, same time lying by politicians, offensive language and other bad behaviours starting to be normal and accepted too, making standards lower every year and society more divided.


That has more to do with rabid fan bases than lessening social stigma. Trump may be immune to stigma, but that doesn't mean most people are. Al Frankin still got kicked to the curb for groping a co-worker.


Right. For PRETENDING to grope a co-worker.


Why do nudes even exist for most people? No shame or anything, but I honestly don't understand. I've never had any inclination to take nudes. As far as I know, none exist of me. Am I the weird one?


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhibitionism

Maybe it doesn't float your goat but many people are interested in it and sext with their partner. Who might become an ex which is when the trouble starts. Which brings us to...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenge_porn

But really, leaks can happen through a bunch of ways. An old hard drive thrown away, a stupid password on some online storage...

But I'm not surprised people do it, to be honest. Porn is big these days and people get enticed to make their own.


No. You're not the weird one. Most people do not have nudes floating around the internet.


to make my boyfriend excited mainly or see how I've changed over the years


We = were you head of the fraternity? Affiliated with the university?


Nope. I was just a regular student. But I was part of a group of friends who thought this would be fun so we just privately organized beach parties. Except we didn't have a real beach.


What's wrong with wearing a swimsuit?!


Not just the nude beach. Also the gym shower. All older sporting facilities in my neck of the woods have communal showers (typically gender segregated, though I've seen some exceptions). People used to get naked and wash (as one does in a shower). More and more, (young) people have started showering with underwear. Newer sporting facilities have started catering to this trend by providing individual shower cubibles. Which seems a bit silly, as you're far more likely to take a long time in a cubicle, thus wasting more water and more time. In a communal shower, you can just give someone the stink eye if they're taking too long ... no such luck in a locked cubicle.

I don't think this is a good thing. If you're not seeing any "normal" naked bodies, and are only ever exposed to idealized movie/porn bodies, aren't you more likely to get all kinds of body issues?


> I don't think this is a good thing. If you're not seeing any "normal" naked bodies, and are only ever exposed to idealized movie/porn bodies, aren't you more likely to get all kinds of body issues?

I agree and it’s a vicious circle ; the reason this happens in the first place is because people are already self-conscious about their bodies in ways that previous generations weren’t (of course this is specific to time & place and there were other issues back in the day!). Getting to see the variety of naked bodies that exist IRL would surely help, but that’s exactly what one would be avoiding.


> In a communal shower, you can just give someone the stink eye if they're taking too long ... no such luck in a locked cubicle.

How do you know someone else is taking too long unless you also have been in the communal shower too long?


The frustration builds when you're waiting in line for the communal shower.

At my local gym, there were 12 communal showers, but it was common for a class to be scheduled with an end time at 6:00 or 6:30 on the dot, so in addition to the steady traffic from the pool, weight room, or the ergs, you'd have a sudden exodus of 20 or 30 guys (or 50 in January) all waiting in line for showers so we could get to work on time. Then (in spite of signs prohibiting phone use in the locker rooms) people started using their phones for messaging/emails, usually conspicuously held within the locker or otherwise aimed so that they couldn't be used for photos...then they converted the showers to 8 private cubicles.

Even with 8 instead of 12, it was no big deal if people were taking 3 minutes to rinse off the sweat. Whether you left at 6:33, 6:36, or 6:39 was not a problem. But if 10 or 20% of people were treating the shower like a sauna, luxuriating in the steam until their fingers and toes got wrinkly, throughput went down the drain along with those gallons and gallons of hot water... you might have to wait until 7:00 to take a shower after your 6:30 spin class.

Putting a lightswitch which had a 10-minute timer outside the cubicle, plus a sign urging users to conserve water and take showers shorter than 5 minutes, was a big improvement. However, lots of people would do everything they could to minimize perceived awkward nakedness in the communal showers, getting clean in record time, but feel no such pressure in a cubicle.


Back in the single-room houses of yester-generations, wives and husbands would have sex with their children in the room. There was no stigma to doing so. Queens and kings had sex while people watched to make sure it happened. It really hasn’t been until the last few generations or so where sex and nudity were looked down on. I don’t know what caused it, never cared to look into it. I just find the behavior interesting.


Why do you care about other people wasting time?


probably because the number of showers is limited and they're making other people wait?


Limited hot water


> If you're not seeing any "normal" naked bodies, and are only ever exposed to idealized movie/porn bodies

False dichotomy. How about only seeing "normal" naked bodies within the bounds of marriage, and banning porn?


Sounds like a recipe for an unhappy marriage.


Happy marriages require porn? That's a new one.


A bit disappointed that the author quoted so many people speculating on the thought processes of young people, but did not ask any young people their feelings. (or asked but chose not to report)


It's just the usual newspaper argument linking X to rise of technology-bad. As a young Euro myself I love nude beaches, but rarely went there with friends my age; I think the most common answer was "It's something for old people". Second most common I something about body awareness/fear of being ugly, which is more common in my generation and young people in general. Of course, nobody I talked to mentioned fear of becoming an unintentional pornstar.


I think this is the answer. Both your points are two aspects of the same idea. It's something for old people because old people have the maturity needed to be comfortable with their own body in public. Younger generations are victim of the fake beauty standards promoted by social networks and maybe porn and are a lot more self conscious. Online nudity is filtered, fake, staged, edited... when you go to a nude beach there are no filters, no perfect lighting, no make up, just the bright sun that highlights all your imperfections for all to see.


To be fair, I think it's much less likely that some creep is going to try to record an old person and post it on the internet as opposed to an attractive younger person...


I don't think the individuals know why the norm exist. It is probably an emergent phenomenon and not something that each individual thinks about or even decides for themselves. I am one of these young people and I just never thought about it. On this particular matter I just do like everyone else because I have no reason to deviate from the norm.

Tbh, I do not see why nudism is attractive. Just does not appeal to me. However on a couple of occasion I did go skinny dipping, but more out of the necessity of not having planned for the swim, rather than out of some life philosophy that my penis must be in view of others.


Internet for real is killing balls, I like to go out and go crazy a bit at bars at concerts etc and would just like to forget it the next day, instead there are people always with these fucking phones at hand making pics and videos, starting from some components of my group with the tags etc, had to delete all socials I have to let them do the reporters and live my life without being aware of what they publish


> instead there are people always with these fucking phones at hand making pics and videos

A few friends and I went to go see Taake at a little venue in Greenpoint, NYC years back. We wanted to be in the pit so we moved towards the front and it was clogged with what some call "poser hipsters." They just stood there texting, playing on social media or filming the whole time wasting venue space. It was infuriated as these idiots just stood there staring and tapping at their phones while a band was playing. So we decided to make life miserable because it was the pit after all. So we started up the pit and explicitly threw each other into the human tripods for laughs. After we knocked those phone zombies around a few times they got the hint and moved towards the back. And you could even see some were miffed and gave us dirty looks but hey, this is a metal show so FUCK OFF AND DIE! We had a blast and there was just one pic taken of a friend who managed to grab a selfie with Hoest.


I get your point and I wholeheartedly agree… but I’m also having a chuckle thinking that you mean you like to just go nude to concerts and bars with your friends.


Yeah :D was just trying to say that people with phone are killing all sort of fun / life, in any context


I would be in favor of nude concerts. Where, of course the artists should follow the dress code.


As Italian: then go to maneskin :D


Of course these things are possible only in Europe ...


No you know if you’re American then I am going to cheer you, the maneskin are Italian, but the first time I saw the singer topless was in US at coachella, so while the soul is Italian, the place is US :D


In theory, it's not them recording it, but rather the reactions of society that cause the problems. Banning discrimination based on out of work activity might be a good remedy.


Yes but it’s unlikely to have that kind of cultural change during my lifetime so the most realistic solution right now is just to avoid reporters, on the other end I don’t really see the value of being published to be seen by strangers in any case, when I’m enjoying human in person company


Since it seems we can't actually own our smartphones anyway, perhaps beaches and concerts should be geofenced.


And make it socially acceptable to destroy any phone you see in such a setting.


The geofence will automatically shame you on social media, if you bring your phone.


While I don't go quite crazy at the bar or club, I'm quite annoyed that my friends only remember to take pictures at the end of the night when everybody looks at their worst - to post to social media.


I seriously feel bad for the youths these days. I had so many hijinks and antics partying when I was young. Now that would all be on social. A real panopticon we live in now.


[flagged]


Some of are perfectly capable of being dumbasses in public perfectly sober and still would prefer it not be documented for internet stranger ridicule if it is not harming anyone.


I am also capable of that, perfectly able of go crazy when sober too, and still I don’t want to think about it in other settings, I disagree with other people that say that I want to forget about it because I am ashamed, I just want to have fun when I have to have fun and then live seriously or not crazy when I don’t have to or there are other backgrounds


Getting a little drunk at a bar or a concert once in a while is a problem?


> I like to go out and go crazy

sounds like more than a little drunk. I liked to go get drunk and do stupid shit too but I stopped after I realized I was at an age where doing stupid shit was potentially harmful to my wellbeing and welfare and not worth the fun it provided in the moment.


If someone is doing something and then immediately wanting to forget about it, there might be a reason why they want to forget about it, probably because it’s unhealthy for themselves and for others


Or maybe because it is fun in the moment 9/10 times but that 1/10 it is not makes you want the ability to forget by default and compartmentalize that part of your life.


Or just you want to have fun when it’s time to have fun and just have a work setup when it’s work environment, family setup when it’s family environment etc. yeah compartmentalise when it’s time :D


I suspect if they wanted your advice they would have asked for it.


Judge not, lest ye...


..be doxxed on the internet.


I thought the article touched on an important point: the reluctance to be nude in public is the commodification of bodies (through photography, social media, plastic surgery, porn), where effectively people drawing a line where they did not have to before. I think people are increasingly aware of this in their interactions in public spaces, especially when so much more of our social interactions are up for commodification through social media and the like (even the commodification of sentiment and political issues which is raison detre for many Twitter personalities, journalists and podcast hosts)


To some degree, nudity was/is a bit of a conscious countercultural thing against prudishness in society.

As society has become significantly less prudish about showing skin, the countercultural impact of total nudity has gone from total reversal, to being just a bit further down the free spectrum, and that gives the whole act in general less of a reason. It's a big deal, but not nearly as revolutionary, and so I would imagine most people would shrug and say "why?"

---

Also, it doesn't really help that nudity is these days associated with the crowd of its heyday, who are now well into being senior citizens, and that just makes the whole thing even less cool.


I agree with the (counter)cultural aspect and that after more than a generation isn't a hot new thing anymore. But it's not only nudity, it's also swimwear. Especially to be observed with young males, where we went from Speedos to voluminous, maybe multi-layered (if local regulation don't prohibit this) pants. There's definitely a "new shyness".


Speedos were never particularly big in the US, so I can’t particularly comment on those.

I will say, that in 2022 I don’t think it’s necessarily shyness. We are now generally much more aware of the harms of UV damage to skin than we were in the 60s and 70s, and so there is actually a trend away from tanning and towards covering up. Which is probably for the best since skin cancer is the most common cancer in the US.


I'm not sure if awareness of the dangers of UV damage serves an explanation. The area covered isn't huge and tights aren't typical regions for skin cancer. Having said that, the heightened awareness may introduce a cultural bias…


I guess speaking of cultural bias, one other thing to note is that Europe and the US are not the only game in town anymore.

Japan and Korea, and probably in the future China, are big players in cosmetics and fashion these days, and those countries never had a big nudist culture and generally dislike tanning and nudity even more so. And their products are gaining ever greater market share in the West.


Of course. I was writing mostly from a European perspective.


Right, but even young European influencers today are often hawking Japanese and Korean cosmetics.

Our cultures are mixing together in this globalized world, and other stuff like K-pop is already big business in Europe.


My recollection is that Speedos weren't exactly rare but they tended to be more associated with sports than something you wore to hang out at the beach.


There may be cultural differences (esp. regarding the US, which were generally known as somewhat prudish in these concerns), but in Europe sporty swimwear (rather by Adidas and similar domestic brands than real Speedos) was the default. Anything else was asking for an explanation or would even provoke open ridicule (like Hawaiian shorts).


That is almost certainly fair. I know I wore Speedo-like swimwear for water polo but would have worn nylon shorts of some sort at the beach generally.


Speedos are associated with older generations and/or homosexual themes. That is why they are not popular among young males. Nothing to do with shyness.


I don't know. I think some young males might not be sort of shy when it comes to punishment size. There's no shortage of posts on the internet or media stereotypes about size. And of course porn has a size bias too. It seems that some women want their man to stay private because they want the social approval of their friends group, which tends to place value on large members.

Obviously this doesn't apply to everyone, but I do think it's a non trivial number. Maybe it's a vicious cycle and more exposure of normal sizes would help normalize expectations/views.


I reject that hypothesis outright and submit another one:

It's the cameras. They're everywhere now.


cameras by themselves don't mean much but add in social media and my understanding is that this is already well known as 'social cooling' https://www.socialcooling.com/

in particular was a story about how in the past there was girls gone wild etc but that's now starting to fade away as young people are aware one dumb moment can live on forever thanks to social media


>cameras by themselves don't mean much

Couldn't disagree more. Years ago if you dropped your trunks at a beach and there were ~10 people around who didn't know you there there were virtually no potential consequences except a little embarrassment from a few total strangers (who you'd likely never see again) seeing you naked from a distance. With cameras your nudity is captured in HD from a distance and potentially distributed to the entire world, in perpetuity.

>but that's now starting to fade away as young people are aware one dumb moment can live on forever thanks to social media

Even if its true that shameful and/or embarrassing moments captured on film are less of a social stigma among young people (because they are so common now), that doesn't mean there isn't a massive difference today due to the ubiquitous presence of cameras. In my opinion this ever-present recording has significantly changed society and the way people behave - and not for the better.


On the positive side, cameras and social media are increasingly catching everything on the spectrum from anti-social behavior to crimes and providing consequences where there were never any before. You can't just trash a McDonalds, go on a racist tirade, or act belligerently in public without a good chance that someone's going to capture it and post it on social media. These are cases where "social cooling" is welcome.

Ubiquitous cameras are also slowly starting to allow the public to hold police and other public authorities accountable for actions they were previously totally unaccountable for.


>These are cases where "social cooling" is welcome.

Maybe. Some young (or not) person does something dumb one time maybe after getting a bit too intoxicated (and maybe even somewhat out of context) and a recording is available for an indefinite period of time at the top of Google searches of their name doesn't seem obviously always a good outcome.

There's arguably something to be said for having a common name. Or at least not having an unusual name that you nonetheless share with the wrong person.


I don't view social media justice as positively as you do. Even when it seems like the person really deserves it, those subreddits etc. that exist for no reason other than to gawk at terrible moments in other people's lives aren't doing anyone any favors. There are no limits on the length or severity or appropriateness of the punishment.

At the same time, the worst of society doesn't seem all that cool to me but it could just be unusual times.


Not just cameras. They're just one small part in the overall degradation of privacy. Constant surveillance _is_, unfortunately a reality. Dystopia right before our very eyes.


3 years ago if someone took a picture it wouldn’t be seen by anyone else (or very few)

Today it’s shared on the internet, not only seen by dozens of the photographers friends, but linked via face recognition to you even though you live the other side of the world and was on holiday.

The problem isn’t the camera, it’s the internet.


It's really the combination of cameras plus internet.


I was thinking about the same thing. If you go to nude beach somebody could take your picture and put it online and then when you apply for a job they could find that nude picture and could think there is something wrong about you.


Shows there is something wrong with our culture when anybody could think there is something “wrong” about somebody relaxing on a beach while being nude in a non-sexual context…


I don’t want anyone on the planet to be able to see a picture of me naked and it has nothing to do with the perception they’d think something was wrong with me. Merely a healthy interest in personal privacy.


Not to mention legitimate blackmail of the content being sent to friends family and coworkers. Almost always accompanied by a threat to be paid in, guess it, Bitcoin


My family and coworkers would just go "haha who that weirdo sending nudes of you?" They would see fault with that person, not me. But some people could be spooked by the threat, yes. I wonder whether this population is large enough to make attempts worthwhile.


They’d need to identify the correct person to blackmail first though, I don’t know that I could 1:1 recognize a total stranger on the beach


Guardians or the "norms" will use any deviation from norms against you.


And? If somebody is not offering me a job because of some image of me on a nude beach I am glad they sorted themselves out for me. I would not want to work for people like that.


That’s all well and good until that means no one with interesting work or good pay wants you to work for them.

Which for many people is a real concern.


Serious, non-rhetorical question:

Do you guys think that the correlation between "interesting work or good pay" and "would not hire a employee who frequents a nude beach" is positive or negative?

(Probably best to mention the country where you work, when you give your answer.)


That's not quite the question I think to ask.

What might be more useful to ask is 'in my area/social strata/available employer options, would they hesitate to hire me if my nude photos at a nude beach show up when someone does a typical google search for my name.'.

Replace nude beach with 'revenge porn', 'embarrassing rant at taco bell', or whatever.

Relating to the nude beach thread, don't forget that can happen due to things outside of their control (rando comment on a picture someone else took, creeper writing some 'ship fiction, god knows what).

There is a ton of noise out there of course, so odds are even something really embarrassing won't be found unless it makes the social media spotlight of the day, but most sane folks are going to think twice before doing something because of it. Which is enough for a chilling effect.

A great many employers (including ones that many people here consider interesting work and good pay) would hesitate to hire someone with that kind of baggage for public facing jobs. Some of them even for internal jobs.

Tech tends to be pretty unusual here, in that there isn't a lot of public facing jobs period, and they tend to be so in demand (recently) that employers can't be very picky. If you're high profile though, it can still be a problem, because they'd need to ask 'am I ok having this person represent me publicly, when x thing shows up in a Google search'. You might see that in leadership positions, for instance.

A findable Twitter post that seems believable enough from someone claiming you sexually harassed them, for instance, could be enough to round-file you for a leadership position at a FAANG.

Most of the population doesn't have a lot of good job prospects accessible to them - they might have only 1-2 decent employers for their type of work in their area, and have a house and kids - and in some geographic regions, such things that are considered boring in Tech can not only make you homeless/unable to support your family, but get you outright murdered or thrown in jail for life.


I can largely agree with your post except for one critical passage:

> Replace nude beach with 'revenge porn', 'embarrassing rant at taco bell', or whatever.

These three things are in no way comparable.

An embarrassing public rant is direct evidence of you being rude, unhinged, and/or prone to substance abuse. It is legitimate evidence against your character, even if it was a one-time event many years removed.

Revenge porn is not your fault and should not affect your professional reputation. However, I can see how it can paint an unflattering or unpleasant picture of you. Maybe you're being the submissive in a S/M relationship, which pretty much by definition will make you appear passive and low-status. Or vice-versa, maybe you're very dominating during sex and it might make others afraid to deal with you even if you're the nicest dude ever in the office.

Going to a nude beach says nothing bad about your character, assuming you are just sunbathing or swimming and not acting like a douche. And neither does it paint an unflattering picture of you, assuming your private parts are not utterly out of the ordinary.


Those are entirely socially subjective judgements.

Do you think a manager from Saudi Arabia, India, Japan, or China would agree with your assessment? Or who grew up in the Bible Belt in the US?

Especially if the candidate happened to be female? Culturally, odds aren’t great.

In fact, in some of these cultures, I could see the nude beach as being the biggest offense since it was the most clearly voluntary. Everyone has a bad day and gets angry sometimes after all (Taco Bell rant), or can be attacked by an angry Ex (revenge porn).

Not condoning, providing understanding for those who haven’t seen that kind of judgement happen from someone before.


I can't imagine a company saying "sorry, we have to let you go because we saw a naked pic of you on xvideos in a non-sexual context made by a creep"


Of course they wouldn’t say it, generally, you’d just be round filed along with 90%+ of the other applicants and never know why.

Unless they’re entertainingly dumb, in which case they’ll bring screenshots. Which has happened.

Most companies don’t want drama with, around, or from employees. They want people who get what they need done, done.

Something comes up that looks like drama? Round file.

And good luck contesting it if they do this - courts generally give quite wide discretion to hiring decisions like this. It would need to be explicitly based on a protected class, which is quite narrow, AND they’d have to have documented it as such - which they’d have to be complete idiots to do.

Oh, and you’d have to know about, and find the documentation.


Then you aren't very imaginative. Teachers have literally had this happen to them for a couple decades now. As have politicians.


Do you think HR is going to investigate? The type of company that rejects you for something like that is just going to look at the thumbnail and not mention why they haven't hired you.



Our economy hates full employment so people are always scared of being the one who is unemployed.


But that somebody would need to somehow connect that image with my name.

I mean one thing is taking nude selfies and then posting them on my IG or whatever and the other is random stranger snapping pictures from far away. How would the latter turn up when someone is looking for me? Face recognition? Possible, but I don’t think we’re there yet, or?


Automated facial recognition and image correlation has been widespread and used on photos on the internet for a decade at least now.


Okay, true. But which employer is going to use this to check up on new hires?


It used to be pretty common in California, which is why California passed all it's various laws restricting background check scope and degree of information. Now most big corps farm out background checks to various third parties.

In my experience it's usually the small to medium companies that don't care about stuff like if it's actually legal or not, and it's not like it's hard to do - [https://pimeyes.com/en] is one of a great many.

That said, if a hiring manager looks it up, and passes instead of hires and doesn't tell anyone why, it's not like that would show up in a database or procedure somewhere.


That's only one side though: the other side is that people really like posting their own lives, particularly highlights like going to the beach. But they certainly wouldn't want to do that in the form of nudes. Nude beaches are supposed to be a camera free zone, and people are not interested in camera free zones. If it's not on Insta is did not happen, to paraphrase the Strava addict's creed. Nude beaches are dying because everyone has become too exhibitionist to go there.


There are a ton on people that barely use social media and do not post anything, so this is at most a very limited explanation


How is that person going to link your name with your nude picture taken by a stranger?


Facebook used to do that for you though maybe that has been curtailed? The tech is there in any case.


I believe systems like clearview.ai are forerunners for ... well, everything.


YES. The cameras. At least here in the EU, many don't mind being naked, but have absolutely no interest to end up on a porn (or whatever) website. Basically people do not want to be THAT guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Vx008uwMfA

Before cameras and internet, that would have been a fun local event and long forgotten. Now the pictures are everywhere.


I don't care except for the negative impact of getting fired, etc. If it's something I'm fine with doing in public, then I'm fine with it on the internet. I doubt there's very much demand for non-sexual public nudity photos as compared to all the other stuff on those sites. I'd easily be lost in the noise. I'm also a guy, so there's probably a different viewpoint for some women.


Cameras facilitate making 'the body' a commodity in a way they couldn't in the past i.e. cameras, and the ability to share photos with others are both ubiquitous now.


Why give it up for free, nude is for your subscribers only.


Bare breasts have definitely been making a comeback the last couple of years in the public room in Denmark. Now it is just an individual choice instead of something everyone does like 40 years ago.

A much better article on how going topless has changed over the last 50 years in Denmark is [1].

[1] https://www-dr-dk.translate.goog/nyheder/indland/nye-toploes...


You do see it, but it's really not that common. As an example, here's a walk through one of the Copenhagen harbour baths in 2022: https://youtu.be/S8t6sYECNUI


The act of you linking the video in this context is very ironic. Yeah, I wonder why girls are less topless nowadays -- maybe because the chances of their private parts ending up on YouTube is much higher?


That is a huge part, another large part is the world is now more global and the prudishness of America has become part of other cultures.

My father is from an Eastern European country so I traveled there as a kid. The cultures were very different. You saw bare breasts at pools, in tv commercials, etc. Few people owned cars, no one wore deodorant, all of the food was local style, ie people didn't even eat pasta. It was truly like stepping into a different world.

Now with the internet it is basically like the US with a different language. Being nude is frowned upon in the US and it is now frowned upon there. No one is going topless to the pool anymore and you can find pasta everywhere.


Or is it that they are considering breasts as private now, when they weren't (or not as much) as before?

If it's normal and there's no social stigma, then who cares. But now if there is increasing stigma, at least in that the images could be used against you in the future, then that seems more like the problem.


This is probably in the article (I haven't read it...), but my guess is, in the past they probably didn't care if people had a glimpse, there were no cameras, and most people were polite enough not to ogle; but nowadays people can just pull out their phones and record for (presumably) their sexual gratification later.

Warning, this is analysis from not an anthropologist/sociologist: Maybe the prevalance of porn and screens to view them on has also made for creepier men/men who are now more used to viewing women as objects. I remember reading an article many years ago about how teenage girls are acting more like porn stars because they believe that's what attracts guys...


"but nowadays people can just pull out their phones and record for (presumably) their sexual gratification later."

As someone who grew up as a teen without a phone, I can say that mental pictures can be enjoyed (even without ogling), and it was very common.

I agree that the second paragraph is likely. Although if the girls are acting more like pornstars, wouldn't that make nudity less of an issue (or more normalized) even with a sexualizing audience?


This started way before Youtube or smartphones in Denmark.


Your use of the word "act" is also ironic.


>Torben Larson, the chairman of the Danish Naturists association (naturist is another term for nudist) told me that he was less convinced that the rate of nude bathing is universally declining—he senses that it is increasing among older Danes—but agreed that younger generations seem much less interested in nude bathing, and in other nude activities, for that matter.

My personal theory borne out by the age gap is the influence of American/Anglo culture on young generations. Contrary to popular opinion which seems to be convinced that the youth has no limits I think my generation (people in their 20s/30s) is incredibly sexless, prude and neurotic about just about anything, taking most social cues from the English speaking internet.

My family is half ex East-German and West German and that split on nudity / FKK (free body culture) is extremely pronounced as well. I don't think the "camera surveillance" theory holds up because given what else people do on camera for clicks and attention indicates that there's more shame going around. Particular the youth does not seem to care if they're caught on camera doing just about anything.


As a teenager I went to a Quaker summer camp with a lake where everyone swam naked if they wanted, counselors included. It felt healthy. The camp had very strong messaging about respect and how the body can be naked without being sexualized. Actually the rules were that anyone could be naked anywhere, which made communal living much easier, what with showering and people who like to sleep naked. I guess they probably can't do that any more (but I haven't asked).


Interestingly, gay men are moving in the opposite direction. The stigma around showing your body in public and online has always been lower for gay men, but there’s been a marked change in the past 5 or so years.

De facto gay nude beaches have become much more popular among younger gay men (I’d posit that they’ve always been popular with older gay men.)

There’s a pretty likely cause of this - I think gay men are completely desensitized to showing their bodies and being seen thanks to platforms like Grindr, OnlyFans, and the rise of the “alt Twitter.” It’s also easier to discover these places through social media where word of mouth was likely how they continued in the past.


I agree, and have seen this, but I think this should be far more normal for more than just gay males.

From anecdotal experience, many gay males that share salacious photos of themselves on Twitter (at least where their intent of their account is not only sex/nudity, but to participate in the community of twitter) tend to share healthy and tasteful "thirst traps", semi-nudes, and sometimes nudity. It's rarely "porn" style content, and almost never problematic. And it's also some twitter gays with normal bodies too! That's good. We should celebrate that. That makes twitter the non-ephemeral nude beach.


Maybe it's not Internet but the camera phones? I mean they are everywhere.


This is mentioned in the article, and while it is a factor, the fear of being photographed would be much lower if it wasn't associated with those photo's being posted online for any future personal associate to see.


It goes both ways. In a non-puritanistic society, where nudity isn't frowned upon, ideally you wouldn't care if pictures got shared. But because (at least American) society tends to be puritanistic, there's a lot of damaging reasons if a nude photo of you is identified, even if it was taken and shared without your consent. That's fucked.


Posted online where though?

I'm sure this is the fear, but the perceived risk surely outweighs the actual risk.

It's not like there would be zero repercussions for posting nude beach pics on mainstream social media, and anywhere else (niche, personal website, porn forums/sites) means almost nobody you ever know would ever see pics of you au naturel. Ever.

But, yes, I agree this is the fundamental (even if I think irrational) fear.


> almost nobody you ever know would ever see pics

I have to imagine that we are not far from a popular public facial search engine. Send a picture from FB or LI and it will show you these pictures.

We have the technology, and it's a tool available to governments and large businesses already. It's not a leap to assume this will be a normal product that people use in the next 5 years.


Maybe, but use this product to do what? See if there's an off chance that someone had a nude pic from a beach or college party or something?

So I take a picture and run it through this public facial search engine, then what am I hoping to find?

Super-embarrassing pictures that I can use to destroy my archnemesis? Become more obsessed with the object of my unrequited love? Would people pay for this product?

I guess I still wonder at the risk level even in this hypothetical. What are the chances that I successfully find a nude beach pic of someone that I am looking for, or for someone intentionally to find one of me? I still suspect that the probability is incredibly small.

I mean, I don't care if there are nude beaches or not. People can do what they want. I just don't see the risk.


I don't know the timeframe but I wouldn't bet against databases that, given one or more tagged photos of someone, would be able to identify all sorts of online content.


Able to, for sure, but to what end? Will people be doing this a lot? Why?

Anyway, will there be no public outcry? Will these things not be shut down immediately by politicians who suddenly find they've been filmed at nude beaches and now all the world can see?


>Why?

Idle curiosity. Stalking. Digging up dirt.

>Will these things not be shut down immediately

Putting technological genies back in bottles is very difficult especially when there are very legitimate uses. Automated photo tagging is already a thing in something like Lightroom and some photo sharing sites and it's quite useful.


Judging from the online ads I've seen, seeing naked people from your area is quite popular.

I don't think it's likely anyone you're close to would see the pics, but it's not hard to imagine someone you kind of know from someplace like work seeing them.


We can go deeper, if we had not invented electricity, jee we wouldn't be able to transmit such data.


Everything is the fault of the Big Bang..


“In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”


To sleep, perchance to dream..


If we weren't alive, there wouldn't be crimes!


What's the problem with being caught nude at a nude beach? One has to realize that their own body is not in any way noteworthy compared to the rest of the population's naked body.


What's the problem with having a few drinks with friends, getting a little rowdy on the weekend? Well if you're a public figure, a lot. See the PM of Finland.

The problem isn't the act, the problem is being able to be judged for that act, for eternity, by people who will choose to shame and judge you for it to their benefit. This can cause stress and trouble whether we want it to or not.


Being a public figure is hardly commonplace, thus can't be an argument for how/why nude beaches may be dying.

The problem is not other people's judgement, it's one's own inability to cope with the idea that others may be judging. It's called insecurity.

For what it's worth I go to nude beaches and nudist resorts/campgrounds as often as I can. It took me only a few times to get over it. No one cares but yourself, really.


That, and the Coolpix p1000 taking good quality photos of you from 3 miles away.


In Spain there is a famous case were a judge ruled that filming and publishing videos of people while they pee in the forest is legal as it is a public space. The guy that was spying and filming on the back of concert in the forest won the case.

So, for now, the law, in Spain, does not help people to feel safe being nude in any public space. I think that it is important that citizens can record and have proof of things that happen in public spaces, but this case seems to push that boundary.


I think the "sexualization and commodification" explanation is insufficient. The advent of cameras connected to the Internet didn't really add anything in this regard. Someone could always go to a nude beach to gather material mentally, so to speak, and sexualize and commodify the people there. All that changed was how many people would be potentially able to look at the people at the beach. So to me that sounds like plain old shame.


Not exactly. The deal with nude beaches is typically that everyone is nude. Nude people are looking at other nude people. You can see my pubes and I can see your pubes. Clothes are banned. Phones should be too.


Last time I was at a beach I spent most of the time on my phone reading my book (kindle app), which seems a shame to ban.


Which would also have nothing to do with "sexualization and commodification".


And what about voyeurs hiding in the bushes?


> Phones should be too.

Why? In the not too distant future it's likely the majority of people will have cameras implanted in their eyes. Maybe you don't think that will happen but to me it seems inevitable.

So jump forward to then, everywhere that cameras are banned now will have to change (immigration at airports, bathrooms, secret rooms at companies, etc...) Sure maybe at first people will say "you can't come in this room unless you turn your eyes off" but it won't be long before that won't be an option or it will be such a large burden that no one will be able to be truly themselves without their enhancements.

Or, let's play another thought experiment. Some people are claimed to have photographic memories. What if we invent ML to generate images of those memories and what if they turn how to be close enough representations as to be photos. I'm not saying that would ever come true or even be possible. But as a thought experiment, if it was possible to pull photos out of your head for a few hours, days after you experienced something, what would have to change about any place that current says "no photos". It seems unlikely people would put up with having to quarantine until their memories decay enough to not remember. And, while we're dreaming up the future, there are already implantable memory chips so augmenting yourself in a way your memories don't degrade is certainly some not too distant possibility

I know the people who would hate these futures will downvote this comment but to, those are the same people who in the 80s thought at world where everyone has a cellphone and can be reached 24/7 and call anyone in the world was some kind of hell. And yet here we are.


> Why? In the not too distant future it's likely the majority of people will have cameras implanted in their eyes.

That's a problem for then. The problem we have now can be helped by banning phones.

Refusing to make things better today just because it might not be enough against a hypothetical future technology seems more than a little bit defeatist.


> Why? In the not too distant future it's likely the majority of people will have cameras implanted in their eyes.

We still can’t fix people with myopia and other eye disorders and you talk about not too distant future with cameras implanted in eyes? Seriously?


> In the not too distant future it's likely the majority of people will have cameras implanted in their eyes.

No complaints if my infrared LED suit blinds your vision.


The possibility of a world where current laws/norms are not sufficient is no reason not to try to enforce those norms today. How to deal with cybernetic eyes is a problem for future generations to contend with.

Or to put it another way YAGNI. Let's work to solve the problems that actually exist today and deal with changing requirements as they come.


I didn’t see Japan mentioned. I wonder how the popularity of onsens (gender-separated nude spas) compares with the declining popularity of European mixed-gender nude beaches.


Mixed nude beaches might be on the decline, but mixed nude spas certainly aren't. New ones are popping up in the Germany/Netherlands/Belgium region every day.

Japan is a bit different when it comes to baths. Traditionally many Japanese homes didn't have a bath, public baths remained popular far longer than they did in Europe. Having free hot (volcanic) water available also helps, which I guess is easier to exploit in a large onsen than it is at home. Also, they do have mixed onsen, but those are pretty rare (these days?).


> Also, they do have mixed onsen, but those are pretty rare (these days?)

My impression was that onsen had areas divided by gender, and mixed onsen weren't nude?


And european separated gender beaches too. Locally it looks like women-only beach is most popular of women/men/mixed.


I'm 38. Boys about 10 years older than me were required to swim nude in the school pool. I was required to use the communal shower nude after sports 3 times a week at school. Boys 10 years younger than me were not required to do so.

I've noticed at the gym etc that guys 10+ years younger than me are pretty sheepish about being nude. Even in the gym changing room they change behind a towel. I bare all and don't really care.

I've wondered if that experience in youth had equiped me well for later life where I don't really care...


I'm roughly the same age, though an immigrant from a part of the world where nudity wasn't common even at the gym locker room.

I do notice the same trend in the locker rooms here - younger men do get naked but turn away while they change, and almost only at the locker. Older men are much more likely to walk around naked, with none of the turning away business.


I think their hypothesis is plausible, but I also suspect another factor: the increasing number of overweight and obese people who would feel uncomfortable showing their bodies.


Also if the ratio went from more or less 50-50% M:F to now to 90%+ male and the male portion leans heavily older...

So women are not showing up and the men who show up are old geezers...

So no young woman would want to be looked and stared at especially by the old geezers who are the majority.

It's the old "why we can't have nice things". Selfish Bad apples exploiting convention and ruining it for "good citizens"


my understanding from Reddit is that most of the people on nude beaches are overweight and old (of course Reddit isn’t really a good source, but I believe them here)

It’s actually kind of the opposite: attractive women are less likely to be on nude beaches because they may get harassed by creepy men.


Only nude beach I've ever stumbled across, on a part of the Queensland Coast, was very much this way. Bunch of wrinkly older folks hanging out, very low body-consciousness in general I think, past caring and just having fun.


Must be the southern beaches ? Some of the northern beaches are definitely for younger australians and tourists.


Just North of the Sunshine Coast area, so for QLD definitely Southern!


Noosa? Of all the nude beaches in the world, the single one I know about and have been to is (at least presumably) referenced.


Ha, yes. It was about ten years ago I went for a walk around the coast of the national park area with a small group, on my way travelling up the east coast.


There is a great essay/story by David Sedaris on his experiences on a nude camp site.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4138.Naked?from_search=t...


What about swinger clubs? are they more or less popular? There's one around here that is very popular...


In my experience, the clubs cater to a niche. They’re effectively a kink in and of themselves and there’s a very explicit innuendo that sex is to be had on premise. Nude beaches on the other hand are a casual exploration of being clotheless. And while sexuality plays a part, it is not the focus of the experience and is often generally discouraged. I think nude beaches are cultural and thus more prone to the ebb and flow of said culture. Swingers clubs are a fetish and will exist regardless of culture as long as there are people with the kink.


Haven't seen stats but it sure feels like ENM and poly are cannibalizing the alternative sexuality world and reducing the popularity of swinging. Which IMO is for heterosexual couples at least a bit of a loss, as swinging seems to favor longer lasting and less self-imploding relationships.


Photography is usually explicitly forbidden in these spaces.


Perhaps it's more like "the pervasive bias and contempt towards the overweight and obese that have been body-shamed"


not to mention those of us uninterested in seeing their bodies.


"Ugh. Nude beaches are full of overweight, out-of-shape old bodies and I don't want to go there and realize I look exactly like that."

Bobs Burgers - s03e11


spot on. And that goes double for swingers clubs.


The primary purpose of a nude beach is not to look at other people naked, but to enjoy being naked yourself.


the primary purpose of sex is procreation. Doesn't mean it isn't more appealing to do it with some people than others.


Pleasure is the primary purpose of sex for the vast majority of sexual encounters, including the majority of living people who aren't able to create biological children (due to age, sexuality, medication, or medical issue).


Arguably the procreation part is WHY it's so much more appealing to do it with some people rather than others.

If you (especially as a woman) are going to get pregnant, better make sure the father either is likely to have good genes, social leverage or will help you raise the kid, or ideally all 3.

Similarly (but less strong) for men, better make sure the woman is likely to get pregnant (she's not too old), is healthy enough to take care of any baby born (she doesn't have obvious physical defects).


maybe with the adoption of remote work we can, in future, decouple our professional identities from our private ones. The idea is: your private life is too unpredictable to effectively protect data from leaking. You have hobbies, friends, family, you end up buying tons of stuff, going to places.

Professional life, on the other side, tends to be more organized. What if, in future, you can work online under a username, decoupled from your IRL self.

this is already the case for some folks who get tasks on freelance platforms and get paid in crypto. Maybe in future this could become more accepted, and more legal (as in paying taxes, but without compromising privacy too much)


I absolutely love this, but that's not the direction the world is headed.

If we're to make anything close to what you describe widespread, I think a minimum of two ingredients is needed-- 1, multiple collectives/co-ops of multiple semi-anonymous people who are willing to pool their reputations together (who need to trust each other somewhat so might need potentially identifying info to cement that initially), and 2, companies or investors willing to take a chance on such collectives by putting them to work and developing a rating system.

I think doing both at the same time would be difficult to say the least. Could be a challenge worth learning from for some brave folks, though.


In the U.S. Gunnison Beach in northern New Jersey is packed with naked sunbathers of all walks of life throughout the summer. If you are a bi, curious or gay then it's even more a place you'd enjoy.

Same goes for Miami's Haulover Beach, yet compared to Gunnison there's 65% nude sunbathers there vs. 95% at Gunnison. Though the water is a ton warmer and the sand is a ton softer stepping into the ocean at Haulover.

I hear there's another popular one in San Diego called Black's Beach where anything goes there. The other two beaches I mentioned are patrolled and sexual activity is prohibited!

If you wear a hat and sunglasses you are pretty much are an anonymous naked person amongst 100s of other naked people. If you havent tried it and enjoy being naked around other people and aren't self conscious you will really enjoy it. It's very freeing and it's 100% no judgement zone cause again all walks of life(30% older folks to 30% heavy folks to 40% people from 20 to 50 who are mostly in shape to average; males definitely outweigh females in numbers) are there naked to enjoy a unique/fun/freeing/no judgement experience.


* If you are a bi, curious or gay then it's even more a place you'd enjoy.*

I don't think you understand how very uncomfortable places like changing rooms are for this bisexual person and you are definitely overlooking the fact that in most places with shared nudity, it is extremely rude to stare. Additionally, what the actual heck - do you think queer folks are inherently more "horny" or lustful with their gaze than straight people? I guess I just don't understand the stereotypes you are working with.

And honestly, if I want to see naked people, I can find them on the internet. It wasn't really an issue before the internet either and I was a long way from any nude beaches.


I just thought he was implying there were more naked guys, and assumed gay or bi men enjoyed looking at naked guys more than straight ones.

That doesn't seem like a crazy assumption to me.


Indeed and that its a no judgement zone as you will see all walks of life enjoying being themselves .. naked and free.


Isn't this just American puritanism getting exported through American internet companies way more efficiently than ever before?

Why would I care (more) about my naked photo or video be online? It's because there are no naked people photos on the nice internet, only on the naughty internet.


The internet + cameras everywhere is making people much more guarded. In college before we used to get naked and run across the campus at night once a year. By senior year smartphones were ubiquitous and we stopped. Just one of thousands of examples like this.


American cultural imperialism and its in-built Christian puritanism are clearly to blame here. the internet is just one conduit of that


You summed up in one sentence what I struggled to convey in multiple paragraphs. Well put.


Camera phones killed it but generative AI models will revive it.

Who cares if someone takes a photo of you on the beach when they can just as well ask the AI to see you nude in any situation they can dream of... That, or the burka will become very popular


now that's an interesting perspective on how AI could push certain religions/fashions


Yeah, I could see the internet playing a role. At the same time, it shouldn't really be a big deal if someone took your picture at a nude beach since youre fine with the public seeing you that way... except for how some in society would use it against you (fired from a job, etc; ex pornstars appearently have similar issues). Perhaps we just need more protections from discrimination based on the activities one performs outside of work. Although that may be hard to enforce like most other non-discrimination laws, but a step in the right direction.


>it shouldn't really be a big deal if someone took your picture at a nude beach since youre fine with the public seeing you that way

You are just absolutely incorrect. There is a massive and appreciable difference between me being okay with a small group of like-minded individuals seeing me nude at an event or location specifically intended for this, and my nudes being published for literally billions of people to see whenever and wherever they want without my consent.

Do you not see that?


No, I don't. Can you elaborate?


A nude beach self-selects for people who think that public nudity is not a big deal. You are choosing to be nude around a bunch of people who probably won't care. If only they know about your nudity, no negative consequence is likely to befall you.

Outside of your time at a nude beach, you deal with all sorts of people who may think it is a big deal and judge you for that. It may be in your interest to keep such people out of the know of your time at the nude beach. Think neighbors, employers, other parents in your PTA.


And that was precisely the second half of my comment, dealing with that discrimination.


American here. In high school, a (male) student opened up a (female) teacher’s personal laptop while she was out of the class and found nudes from her early modeling career. The teacher was fired for it.

I still think about how unjust that was.


I generally agree with the sentiment, especially if the student were ro find them on their own.

It's possible she was fired because she had unsecured pictures that were inappropriate for students at school and the students gained access to them. For example, teachers generally aren't fired for cursing/insulting outside of the classroom at non-students, but they certainly could be if it were in the classroom at a student.


During the teacher for not securing her laptop seems reasonable


It seems like puritanical idiocy to me, but hey, what do I know.


She claerly has some personal information on there, it’s allow certain she has student information on there. Grievous data protection failure worthy of strong disciplinary action.


I have no real data on this, but I'd assume some of this is also due to fear of skin cancer. I assume less people sunbathe in general and and the less skin exposed, the better. My nether regions have never seen the sun and I aim to keep it that way. Who wants penis skin cancer or breast skin cancer?


I miss the days when it was considered polite to ask before taking someone's photo.



>"such as rising populations of people from cultures and religions that aren’t as tolerant of public nudity"


I haven’t been there since COVID but at the time, it didn’t seem to be affected.


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Somehow the Muslims always get the blame…

In the early 2000s (EU) I was in a high school and a sports team, both very white, and this was already a thing… We didn’t take showers after gym class, and we didn’t take showers after sports, which annoyed my dad to no end as he drove a car full of smelly teenagers back when we were the visiting team.

For me it makes much more sense to link it to a visual culture where the nude body is sexualised, together with the cultural hegemony of the prudish USA. Nipplegate was in 2004, and whereas nowhere in Europe you’ll find quite as hysterical reactions to nudity, these attitudes did get exported to an extent.


1) There is no "blame". I don't "blame" the muslims for the fact that every döner shop in Germany doesn't serve pork and that all meat is halal. It is just a matter of cultural values.

2) whynotboth.jpg? I said it was another simpler explanation. Not the only one. Reacting to oversexualized media is also another valid one. The fall of USSR and some practices that were linked to that culture as well. I just think that any of these are simples explanations for the phenomenon than "the internet". Like you said, the trend was already noticeable before the web was such an ubiquitous thing.


I agree with you on demographics, but disagree on your explanation.

(Although I'm curious what mechanism you posit between Islamic migrants and less nudism...)

I think the demographics explanation that really works is that nudism as a philosophy belongs to an older generation.

I was raised by nudists, and spent many an awkward holiday in various nudist clubs or camps as a child, and the customer base was already dominated by older people back then.

A lot of the for-profit nudist colonies have closed down or shifted to semi-nude, because there's so much less demand.

But don't worry, the dedicated nudists still get nude, they form clubs and rent out private camps.


The Muslim population isn't that large though; between 4.5% and 5% for both France and Denmark (roughly the same in the rest of Europe), and this is offset against the decline of Christian Danish and French people.


A vocal minority doesn't need to be very large to influence culture.


That doesn’t change anything. What a bigoted reach of a comment.


Doesn't change anything, really? You have a slice of your younger population comprised of people that heavily values modesty and simply do not accept public nudity. Even if you yourself are not muslim, some of your friends will be.

It is just a statement of logical facts. You are seeing bigotry where none was implied.


Your comment heavily implies said demographic implements or even enforce their belief on to their destination country. In reality, it is quite the opposite - and most often in drastic and involuntary terms.

It is telling that you chose to concentrate on the Islamic population


Are you familiar with the concept of "intolerant minority"? [0] much like you don't a majority of people to force most processed juice to be kosher, you don't need a majority of people to change (relatively low-stake) cultural practices of the host country.

[0]: https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...


They talk about muslim people being so influential but choose to forget the cultural imperialism and unnatural prudishness of the US of A. There's a documentary on Netflix, "Sex and Love around the world", the "Berlin" episode was mostly around how weird are Germans for going nude.


No, it is not implying that at all. They only need to keep their beliefs to affect the number of people going to nude beaches.


a big influx of people from countries and cultures way less open towards nudity and sexuality doesn't change anything? It would be the same if immigration came from the puritan regions of US.


What mechanism do you propose? Muslims arrived, then X, therefore less nudism.

What's X?


1. young muslims are way less inclined to get nude in public: more young muslims, less young nudists

2. locals felt safer before because they were nude among people with the same culture towards nudity, now they don't anymore because there's a bigger chance to be sexualized by people from different cultures


3. in a culturally diverse group, who would suggest something like a spontaneous nude dip? Nobody, to avoid embarrassing someone, just in case, even if in fact every9ne involved would be perfectly up to it. Things like that are far more likely to happen in a group where everybody comes from the same village.


In a group of any kind, why do you presume that "nudity at the beach is awesome" would be a value held by 100% of group members?

Drawing a really long bow there tbh.


Easy, go to Finland where the Fins expect to get nude with everyone in mix sex groups. So, imagine 10 fins. Someones says "let's sauna!" and likely all 10 will be like "yea!". Now replace 5 of them with 5 muslims (or other group who find public nudity offensive). Now propose the same activity "let's sauna!" You've just made 5 people uncomfortable as they now have to decline your invitation.


So what do Americans in Finland do?


What, all 8 of them?

They giggle, join the group, create wide expectations on their heads and then try to spend the whole time not embarrassing themselves.

Then they go back home to oversell the stories to their peers. Most of them stop talking about it after getting tired of the usual responses ranging from "where is Finland?" to "if all I wanted was to see naked women, I'd go to the nearest strip joint."


Why wouldn't young Finns with similar values stick together in social groups?


Because that is not something so important and polarizing to the point of creating tribes?


It doesn't need to be polarising, people don't form social groups with everyone they meet, mere common interests can cause people to gravitate to each other.


You are talking about young people in a real-world scenario involving physical interactions, not some internet forum or any other social setting where groups self-select.

I doubt that people will be basing their relationships based on such a secondary aspect of their cultural values. Where they live, their close family, where they go to school, what type of activities they do after school and what type of activities and relationships their parents have... all of that is a lot more relevant to determine their social circle than "strong affinity around the interest for skinny dipping"


> not some internet forum or any other social setting where groups self-select

IRL social groups also self select. Do you hang out with everyone you went to school with? No, there is selection.

> where they go to school, what type of activities they do after school and what type of activities and relationships their parents have..

all of which are effected by culture and religion.

> strong affinity around the interest for skinny dipping

Social interaction with the opposite sex, consumption of alcohol, and other social-meeting-place-determining are others. And if Finns have strong church community (I'm not sure they do) that might be another.

The original example suggested social groups would suddenly have 50% Muslim membership, enough to stop a bunch of people who wanted to do something from doing it because it would cause so much strife in their social group. This is unrealistic.

Is also the case that young Finning Muslim immigrant aren't necessarily going to influence their native (European/Finnish) counterparts as much as the other way around - maybe more Muslims will try skinny dipping.


> There is selection.

Of course, but the point is exactly that there are plenty of other things that are more important to determine the affinity between peers.

> all of which are effected by culture and religion.

In the US, maybe so. In Europe, not so much. My experience in Berlin is that even though you might notice some clustering in different demographics (e.g, parts of the city where you see more Turks, others with more Polish, Russian, Greeks, Vietnamese, etc...) this separation is not strict. It might be that in France this segregation is more explicit, but what I hear from my French friends is that their division goes on the lines of "French/Non-French".

> The original example suggested social groups would suddenly have 50% Muslim membership.

It doesn't have to be 50%. Consider a scenario where muslims are a minority and they are not segregated/ghettoised. So, for every group of 5-6 close friends, you could have one muslim. Whenever one of these groups has to choose for an activity, they would know that by choosing "skinny dipping" they would be excluding their nudity-averse friend. So all these groups would end up looking for something else to do.

> enough (...) to cause so much strife in their social group

No one is saying about "strife". This is not a polarizing issue! You have someone in your group of friends who has some type of restriction about the activities and there are other alternatives that can appreciated by all, there is no "problem" to be solved.

> maybe more Muslims will try skinny dipping.

This shows a complete disconnect to reality and/or wishful thinking. Do you know any Muslims? Do you understand how display of modesty is a central part of their beliefs?


> there are plenty of other things that are more important

I think you are not seeing the forest for the trees. skinny dipping aversion isn't a random quirk, it follows from general conservatism.

> effected by culture and religion

clustering of affinities.

> they would be excluding their nudity-averse friend. So all these groups would end up looking for something else to do.

or exclude their friend from the activity? The original post made the point: "You've just made 5 people uncomfortable"

> No one is saying about "strife". This is not a polarizing issue!

"You've just made 5 people uncomfortable".

> This shows a complete disconnect to reality and/or wishful thinking.

I think the same of you..

> Do you know any Muslims?

yep

> Do you understand how display of modesty is a central part of their beliefs?

I'm sure for some it is.


> it follows from general conservatism

Does it matter? What is your argument? That people can only be friends if they share a very similar outlook in life?

> "You've just made 5 people uncomfortable"

Aren't you reading a bit too much into this? "Making someone uncomfortable" is not something that needs to lead people distancing themselves from a friendly relationship.

> or exclude their friend from the activity?

So, in a group of friends who are looking for something to do together, you think that the the more natural course of action is to remove your friend from the circle, instead of finding another activity that can be inclusive. Is this your idea of friendship?


> That people can only be friends if they share a very similar outlook in life?

No, that they are more likely to, you are adding the hyperbole.

> remove your friend from the circle

No, you added the scenario "a group of friends who are looking for something to do together".

The scenario is "a group of friends want to go to the sauna".

I don't know what "remove your friend from the circle" means, but it means the friend who won't want to go, won't be asked.

> finding another activity that can be inclusive

The activity is exclusive if you're invited. That some don't want to go doesn't mean it isn't.


> a group of friends want to go to the sauna

You are looking at this as one specific instance of an event, like this is a static system. What I am talking about is if you look at a ongoing series of "Here is a group of friends that like to hangout together (i.e, there is established affinity) and want to find something to do."

Do you agree that all it takes is one member of the group to say "I will definitely not go to sauna, how about we go {to non-nudist lake/ out for an ice-cream / make a pic-nic at the park / outdoor cinema} instead?" to cause a substantial drop in overall "friends going to the sauna events"?

> The activity is exclusive if you're invited. That some don't want to go doesn't mean it isn't.

Of course it is exclusive. It's not about "does not want to go", it is inviting to do something that violates their core beliefs. It doesn't mean that the excluded person "needs to feel offended" or "take it as a micro-aggression" or any other woke BS like that... but it is undeniable that if part of the group (frequently) opts into an exclusionary activity instead of something that all can do, then these people should really evaluate if they are really close friends.


In a homogenous group discovering who is and who isn't could easily pass as a playful endeavor, whereas in a diverse group it's more likely to be seen as a shocking insensitivity. Not just by those affected (who might very well be perfectly absent) but also by those who think someone might be affected.


"Let's all go and get naked, Let's all go and get naked, Let's all go and get naked.... And lie in a great big pile"

Fat Freddy, i believe.


~8% of France identifies as Muslim, you're attributing a shit ton of influence to people who we know tend to be ghettoised in France.


I don't really believe that's the whole reason of nudity decline. I was just arguing against quickly jumping to judge this point as racist or bigot while it has some perfectly reasonable merits. As others have said if you are in a culturally diverse group even a little minority can drive everyone to be more careful about everyone's sensitivities.


Import of American puritanical culture stemming back to the mayflower and spreading via the internet?


[flagged]


Why would that make any difference?


I think the parent was alluding to the differences in culture and norms around nudity and sexuality among native Europeans vs recent immigrants, that sometimes leads to cases like this: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/austria-swim...


I had to double check that this wasn’t a satire website. Unbelievable.


What do you think they are that isn't French or Danish?


Is there a meme-term for this type of response, like concern-trolling but like naive-trolling?

I see it all the time, someone dares to say uncomfortable reality-based everyone-who-lives-outside-in-real-world heresies and some online person walks by acting like a child born yesterday yet wandering into adult topics and asking them to spell out the dangerous heresy in the most evidence-I-can-screenshot-and-share for manner?


“sealioning” maybe

> Sealioning refers to the disingenuous action by a commenter of making an ostensible effort to engage in sincere and serious civil debate, usually by asking persistent questions of the other commenter. These questions are phrased in a way that may come off as an effort to learn and engage with the subject at hand, but are really intended to erode the goodwill of the person to whom they are replying, to get them to appear impatient or to lash out, and therefore come off as unreasonable.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/sealioning-int...


As it happens, I genuinely didn't know what decremental had in mind. It seemed likely that it was something race-related (because why else be so coy?) but I wasn't going to not seek clarification just because it was possible that clarifying might be socially awkward.

And, for the avoidance of doubt, it was no part of my purpose to go trawling for "evidence I can screenshot and share", and I think that accusation is well out of order. Nor was I intending to be any sort of troll. I genuinely wanted to know.

It seems to me that your position is that it should be possible to nudge-nudge-wink-wink state potentially-racist-looking views, but not possible for anyone to ask exactly what's being stated. Which means it's also not possible for them to be examined or criticized. I don't think any views should be immune to examination and criticism, and it's not obvious to me that things like "gangs of North African / Middle Eastern immigrants are stalking the beaches of France and Denmark looking for women to assault" belong high on any list of candidates for such privileged treatment.

(Is that thing in quotation marks actually a fair representation of what decremental was hinting at? Well, there's the thing: I can't tell, because he only hinted at it, and you find it objectionable that I tried to find out more precisely what it was he was hinting at.)


> someone dares to say uncomfortable reality-based everyone-who-lives-outside-in-real-world heresies

How is that applicable here? The poster they responded to simply claims something they most likely cant prove (and neither can you), else they wouldn't have started their argument with "willing to bet" - which in turn means that their opinion is most likely based on bigotry, else they would have simply posted the source as an answer to the original article.


Additionally, if it really were a reality that we all observed, there would be no harm whatsoever in saying the quiet part out loud. This "trolling" is literally just interrogating the argument that's been presented. The only reason to fear it is that your conclusion won't hold up unless the reasoning that lead you to it is concealed.

Let's say that one really does have a point, that would stand on it's own if you were more explicit, and someone asks you to elaborate on why you came to that conclusion. What exactly do you lose by doing so? What rhetorical ground has your interlocutor gained? What is the proposed mechanism of this supposed bad faith tactic?

The only possible answer I can see is, "a moment of your time," which is pretty unconvincing. If you don't think the question is worth your time, fine, don't answer it. But there's no scenario where answering it harms your argument, but you still had a solid argument.

It's just that people disagree with you about what is supposedly self evident and real.


It's called asking people who hold despicable views to be honest about their views so they can be criticized instead of hiding them behind a thin layer of plausible deniability.

Speaking of which, what is exactly is the "reality-based" heresy you think GP "dared" to say? You seem to be agreeing with something but too sheepish to spell it out. HN is supposed to be a place for discussion, so please state your actual opinion if you want to participate in a discussion.

EDIT: You can hold "heretical" opinions and not be a coward, by the way. I'm neither a liberal nor a libertarian so my political opinions fall well outside the general consensus both online and offline and I've faced pushback in all kinds of spaces. But if you talk politics with me, I'll openly tell you my beliefs without sugarcoating them.


Only true when good faith can be assumed. In an internet of twitter hot-takes and pile-ons this is not the case.

Or do only despicable North Koreans criticise the leader?


Do you face the risk of being sent to forced labor camps if you say Black people are genetically inferior, that Jews coordinate a global conspiracy to suppress the white race through miscegenation or that queer people are child molesters?

As a leftists I would say "kinda", iff you manage to do so in a way that actually violates the law and gets you sent to prison as the US prison industrial complex in part exists to provide extremely cheap domestic labor. But even then I would argue that despite the negligence the prison system shows to the health and safety of its inmates the conditions are hardly comparable to what political prisoners face in North Korea.

You're right that morals are somewhat subjective (and, I'd argue, rarely consistent because nobody bothers thinking through all the implications of the absolute moral claims they make) but if you for example hold any of the positions I described in the first paragraph of this comment, I'd argue that the problem isn't "hot takes", the problem is a diametrically opposed idea of what "good" and "harmful" mean when making moral assessments.


Maybe pick better examples than racism, anti-Semitism or homophobia? Unless you think western society is perfect - the topic here is: pointing out (negative) cultural differences without being called a racist.

And no, there aren't forced labour camps, but that risk is never there for many westerners. what constitutes a risk is relative.


Okay, fine. You're not going to be put in a forced labor camp for saying Muslim grooming gangs are raping our women.

You are the one who brought up North Korea. I'm relieved to hear that you don't think you'll literally be thrown in a forced labor camp for having bad opinions but what's the point of bringing it up if it's not at all comparable? What threats to your life are you facing for being explicit about your opinions rather than hiding them behind euphemisms, ambiguity and plausible deniability?


For what it’s worth, I genuinely don’t know what the implicit claim is.


IANAEuropean. But, it has been observed that in Europe men of Middle Eastern extraction have subjected European women to sexual assault and harassment at much higher rates than men of a local background, causing women to feel unsafe in contexts that previously did not feel unsafe. The implicit claim, I think, was that this is the cause of the decline of nude beaches.

I have no knowledge of this being the case, although I do stand by the fact that a disparity in rates of sexual abuse by men of different ethnic groups exists.

This is, of course, the sort of topic that is unlikely to be discussed honestly without the protection of anonymity, and even then many people, particularly women, have ideological beliefs that deny or excuse the above and would prevent them from expressing agreement other than to blame "men" in general.


I'm european, and it's exactly this. Men from northern Africa go to beaches to stare at tits. I'm not even talking of sexual abuse, just sexually repressed men going to the nude beach surrounds fully dressed to see some skin.

Obviously you cannot say that in public, much less do anything about it. So women chose to go to less crowded beaches.

But I would say, as a nudist, that the biggest problem are the cell cams everywhere. A decade ago, someone could sneak a photo or a short video for his own pleasure, and at SD at best. Today the video is posted 4K on xvideos as it's being recorded. Not funny.


[flagged]


Seriously, no it isn't. This is just a racist talking point. In the US, they used to say this about African-Americans and I've heard the same about men from basically any country south of the US, though the folks that spurt this are generally lumped together as "Mexicans" regardless of nationality. I'd be unsurprised if this isn't pretty common throughout bigots of the world, merely changing out immigrant groups to fit the narrative.

And I'll assume this unless you can prove that this is at Most an isolated incident that racists use to prop up their propaganda.


So do you know this for a fact, or are you speculating that it's racism? Have you ever been to Europe?


I live in Europe, though I'm an immigrant, hence my talking about racism in the US more - that's where my familiarity lies.

But I'm guessing you did this as some sort of weird gotcha that doesn't make sense: One can get a feel for different sorts of racism in the world by communicating with folks different from yourself.


If you live in Europe, then be specific. Directly comparing the US to EU doesn't make sense.

> One can get a feel for different sorts of racism in the world by communicating with folks different from yourself.

Great, and who did you talk to, what did they say, and how did you determine their biases?


No True Frenchman would go to a nude beach


You have no idea.




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