News reaches me of the decline of a native species. Not the hedgehog or the bumblebee, but their hardier cousin, the Great British nudist. The number of naturists in this country has declined by half in the past decade, according to new research.
It isn’t clear why our collective urge to bare all is dwindling; maybe it’s down to global warming and the rising cost of sunscreen. But it strikes me as a terrible loss, far worse than morris dancers or Tom Jones.
There was something charming about old-fashioned nudists. Not the sexual kind, those who covered themselves in oil and lounged on yachts, but the non-sexual ones who looked like Jeremy Corbyn. When I was young they were everywhere. There was something almost heroic about the couple on the Suffolk coast playing naked volleyball under grey skies and drizzle, or the librarian with a bum bag (no pockets) furiously trying not to be sexy.
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I even have fond memories of the holiday in the Caribbean when my parents decided that the best coral reef was off a notorious nudist beach. Nothing sears itself on the retina like, ahem, “driftwood” floating past your snorkel.
Nudism began life as a radical political statement. It flourished in Germany after the First World War when a group of naked revolutionaries argued that the best way to eliminate social distinctions and economic slavery was to throw off your clothes. But then the French got involved and it all turned a bit Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
These days stripping off in public is the domain of elderly eccentrics and publicity-seekers. The author Mark Haskell Smith spent a “nakation” aboard the Big Nude Boat, a chartered nudist cruise, while he was researching a book on the subject and found himself among college professors with neatly trimmed beards and penises swinging “like fleshy metronomes” to the beat of Crocodile Rock.
I understand that the cricket match at the recent Wilderness festival in Oxfordshire was interrupted by not one streaker, but more than 20. But the truly committed — those who brave icy winds to try to kill the titillating (sorry) sight of naked flesh — are a dying breed.
Perhaps it’s because we’re already saturated. The internet is awash with boobs and bottoms, after all. So why do we panic the moment it leaves the screen?
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Stephen Gough, otherwise known as the Naked Rambler, has spent nine years in prison and been given a tailor-made Asbo for refusing to wear clothes.
Perhaps it isn’t nudity that we can’t stomach but imperfections. No one seems to notice the sculpted six-packs on billboards and vajazzles in magazines, but one glimpse of a muffin top and hysteria descends.
What is left for those who aren’t beach-body ready and want to let it all hang out anyway? For those who aren’t happy keeping it indoors or limited to a single-sex sauna?
Well, there is hope. Having returned from a holiday in the south of France, I can report that swimwear is still optional on the Côte d’Azur. Just remember to pack the factor 50. And a bum bag.