Truly clothing optional

Confest in Australia is the biggest hippy festival is truly clothing optional.Most people keep their clothes on, but you have a choice.Some women go topless. Almost all women go bra-less.

 

Clothing optional allows someone visiting for the first time and who is uncertain about being nude in public to be partially or fully clothed for a period of time until they gain confidence to be nude.

 

Also it allows a group of friends to visit somewhere, and if one or more prefer to remain clothed, they are not excluded. I recall someone I knew about 15 years ago who went on holiday with three friends, one of whom remained in swimwear, the others happy to be nude or topless.

 

The first beach for me that allowed nudity was a C/O one in Jamaica. It was a tiny area on the resort. I thought it was great that it was C/O as it would allow me to be free and my wife (who had v conservative values), to keep her suit on. To my surprise she got naked immediately! Some people were nude. There was a person in a suit. A person topless. My favorite was a gal that got naked but managed to hide behind a towel or was belly down….never showed a thing!

By contrast at a different resort we experience a nude required beach. I think this type makes some people more comfortable stripping down.

so….yeah….people do sometimes stay clothed at c/o beaches

 

True. But whether it works out that way depends on the individual.
My wife didn't feel comfortable being openly naked at the nude beach - after several attempts. The first time we went to a nudist resort, by the time we got to the "nude-mandatory" pool area, she was walking around naked.
The difference was that everyone was naked in the pool area. Some people feel more comfortable knowing that everyone that's going to see them naked will also be naked. Blending in, so to speak.

 

A few years back my wife and went to a Jamaica resort that featured a clothing prohibited beach area and pool. What a great experience! No gawkers..Just a great community of like minded people soaking up the experience and some of the sun that was in the northern sky at noon that time of the year.

 

I couldn't agree more. Personally I find the Canary Islands very liberating, being part of Spain what you said about all Spanish beaches being nudist is true here as well.

Just when you think you are the only nude on the beach you will spot someone else, and nobody bats an eyelid no matter what they are or are not wearing

 

@OldTodger Completely agree with you too. Fuerteventura is my favourite, especially the Morro Jable and Jandia area, miles of golden sand, but plenty of other places too.

 

During my stay in lanzarote we visited papagayo beach, at one end it is mainly clothed people with kids enjoying holiday, to the other end or toward the back of the beach it is a mixture of clothed and unclothed.
Ive always had the mindset that it is what it is, we're all naked under our clothes. Last year was our first real trip to the beach and it was a bit of not knowing where to look and kind of straying away from those without clothes, this year however I had decided that was the part of the beach I wanted to walk along and explore. We walked along to a few different parts of the secluded beaches and ended up feeling out of place for having clothes on! After a swim in the sea and realising I'm getting changed from a set of clothes into another set of clothes I just left them off I was surprised how comfortable I felt and soon just forgot I was completely naked infront of a whole beach of people.
Which is completely new to me as I've always been very conscious of my body on display