Recently, I visited a foreign country where they have nude beaches.
I love the ocean, so I decided to go to the beach one day. However, being a somewhat modest American–and a Midwesterner to boot–I opted not to go to the nude beach. Instead, I went to one further down the coastthat was described to me as a “family” beach.
I wasn’t able to verify this in any foreign-language dictionary, but apparently “family” means “bathing suits optional” in some countries. At least that was the case at this particular beach.
It turned out to be a very educational experience for me. Among the things I learned about nude beaches that day:
• Most people who take off their bathing suits at nude beaches shouldn’t.
• The people you’d most like to see without bathing suits keep theirs on.
• From a distance, a lot of women look like Cindy Crawford.
• If you wear a Chicago Bulls World Championship t-shirt and carry a camera at a nude beach, people can tell right away that you speak English.
• Even if you take off your Chicago Bulls World Championship t-shirt and roll up your camera in it, people can still tell you’re from America. It has something to do with being sunburned from the neck up and from the biceps down and nowhere else. One woman was even able to tell that I was from Illinois, although she was way off on the city. She thought I was from Kewanee. We had a good laugh when I told her I was actually from DeKalb.
• And finally, I learned that if you ask a stranger at a nude beach to rub suntan lotion on you, they’ll probably say no. And yet there are some places that you can’t quite reach and you really don’t want to leave unprotected.
In the end, I guess that’s why they make bathing suits.
