An Englishman on a Nude Beach
I don’t know what it is that makes English people stick out like a sore thumb whenever we go abroad. I went to the Cannes film festival this year, and every time I queued up to buy food or a coffee, the server was speaking in French to customers before me in the queue, then they got to me and instinctively started speaking in English. (For the record, I was wearing a plain T-shirt and shorts with no logos anywhere. I also don’t have a tattoo on my forehead that says “HELLO, I AM ENGLISH”.) Maybe it was because it was Cannes during festival season and the place was also full of Americans, but it still felt odd that people seemed to know I was English before I’d even opened my mouth.
I remember posting a picture of me stood next to the pyramids just after my Egypt trip. In the picture I was wearing a blue floral-print t-shirt, and one of my European followers commented “that t-shirt says ‘English’ from a mile off”. I will admit I did look particularly English there.
That said, none of this compares to the time I ended up on a nude beach by accident.
I was on one of the Canary islands driving round the sandy patches of the map to see what I could see, and I ended up in a town with sign featuring a naked man and a naked woman looking out over a beautiful view with their arse cracks mooning me. I found it funny, so I parked up and obviously took a picture.
I then saw some naked people down on the beach and wondered if I was brave enough to do it. I was under-travelled at the time and was having a lot of first times on this trip. I’d just been scuba-diving for the first time the day before. That was pretty daring for me.
I’ve always been overly conscious about my body. Not for any real reason. I’ve always had a bit of belly fat, but pretty much anyone would describe my build as ‘average’. I think its just linked to my neurotic nature. I used to never even be naked in the house on my own because I felt so uncomfortable. This improved as I kept pushing myself out of the depressed stupor that I’d spent most of my early 20’s in. Around 2017 I cut my hair and started going to the gym, went to therapy, I then finally worked myself up to going abroad on my own for the first time in 2019. One night in 2018 I randomly decided to try sleeping naked and it turned out I slept better, so I kept doing it. I don’t know why.
This was new territory for me though.
Anyway, so I dared myself, I went over to a clifftop well out of the way of everybody, stripped off, nestled a camera on a rock and did a self timer. I did the ‘I am Ozymandias’ pose from Watchmen. I did ask my twitter followers before posting a picture, and I put a content filter on it, so, y’know, I wasn’t technically mooning people unprompted.
I then looked down to the beach and thought to myself, “okay, so I’ve stripped off outside on my own. Next step: am I going to be comfortable with other people seeing me?”
With my clothes and car key in my rucksack, I started heading down to the beach. No one looked up at any point. The naked people were either lying on flat rocks or sand, soaking up the sun, or swimming in this natural basin area underneath some rock formations. I tried not to draw attention to myself, but I was surprised by just how ‘not weird’ it was. It was basically a beach like any other, except people didn’t have swimming costumes on, myself included.
After sitting for a while and trying to mentally adjust myself to this new experience, still trying not to draw attention to myself, I got up and went over to the basin to go for a swim.
Immediately, when my bare feet hit the patch of smooth rock in front of the water, I slipped, fell backwards and my bare arse hit the rock with a loud wet smack, and suddenly every single person on the beach was looking at me.
After a moment of awkward silence that was probably only a second but felt like it hung there for an age as dozens of pairs of eyes targeted themselves at my naked body, I then heard several voices in different accents, Spanish, German and French, all asking in English, “Are you okay?”
No one needed to check which language they needed. Maybe it was the pasty skin, but I still find it funny that they immediately saw the guy who’d just fallen on his bare arse and knew without even asking “yes, English is the correct language to speak to this man in.”
I waved them all away and said I was fine. A nice German man with a bright red tan and grey chest hair (and matching pubes) asked me “are you sure?” and he kept a concerned look up, but I smiled and shook my head.
Everyone went back to their days. I was embarrassed, but that didn’t stop me from hanging around for a while. I went for a swim and sat and read a chapter of my book before heading back up to the car and putting my clothes back on.
As much as that story sounds like an anxious person’s nightmare, I actually recommend trying a nude beach, at least once in your life. I know people are going to say “oh yeah that’s easy for you to say, average-build Stuart” (yes that is another nickname of mine that I will permit) but the people at the beach were all different shapes and sizes. I didn’t notice anyone looking lecherously at anyone else or judging anyone else’s body. As said: it was just a beach. Minus the clothing. In many ways, it was better than a regular beach. There was this respectful atmosphere that was different to regular beaches that I can’t quite put my finger on.
It actually made me feel kind of invincible for a week afterwards. It was as if I’d broken this barrier and I didn’t need to be ashamed of anything anymore because a bunch of strangers had seen me naked now and they didn’t laugh. Even when I landed on my arse.
