Our Precarious Personal Freedoms

 

I passed a couple walking along the shoreline; hand in hand, relaxed and cheerfully chatting about who knows what – exactly what you'd expect on a day at the beach. The slightly less usual aspect of the sight was that they were both men and they were both naked. Nothing especially out of the ordinary about that nowadays either, but even so, not exactly what you'd call "commonplace" in this country (and far less so in many others).

I saw a family of three generations—granny, mum and kids—all as naked as a Sphynx cat, and of course other families (of a mere two generations), couples, single men, single women, groups of friends and plenty of children. All these people were enjoying a carefree day at the beach and happily coexisting side-by-side. Exactly how it should be.

Scenes like this do not abound across the whole country—this was after all Vera Playa, Spain's largest nudist resort—but in the same breath they're not that uncommon either, and can be observed in several places along the country's 5,000 km coastline. I am only too pleased to be living in a place where this freedom of expression is not only possible, but positively embraced.

Of course it hasn't always been like this. 50 years ago, when the old fascist dictator had finally passed his last fetid exhalation, there was an explosion of "freedom"; a sharp reaction to the preceding 40 years of dark, authoritarian oppression.

In the cinema, what quickly became known as the "cine de destape" (cinema of uncovering, i.e. bare skin) began before the old dictator was even cold. Toplessness gave way to full, gratuitous nudity within a mere handful of productions, and in 1976, a whopping 50% of all films produced in Spain featured some "destape" of one kind or another.

The "destape" was not limited to the cinema; it also made its mark on the TV and in magazines. On the beaches of the costas the Northern European visitors were only too pleased to participate in their own real-life "destape" without the stern intervention of the Guardia Civil, and to the delight and horror, in equal measure, of the local population. The pendulum had begun its swing in the opposite direction.

Toplessness was soon accompanied by full nudity on some beaches, and by 1978, the new, democratic constitution came into force, making no mention of either the legality or illegality of public nudity. Public nudity was therefore no longer  explicitly considered to be unequivocally illegal. The old, conflicting laws that dealt with vatious forms of "public outrage" were finally scrapped in 1989, consolidating the legal freedom to be naked that is still enjoyed today.

This "destape", or uncovering, was of course not only of the flesh, but also of the very soul of the Spanish people, that had been buried for so long and was now yearning for freedom again. A population may appear to conform for years, or even decades, while it is being squeezed by the fist of cruel oppression (in some cases, literally under pain of death), but the spirit of freedom never dies and will always manifest itself again just as soon as it is able.

At some point in the last few years, however, the pendulum reached its turning point and began its return journey; and the spirit of openness does not feel quite the same now as it did in the 90s, 00s and 10s. 

Toplessness, while still prevalent, is not ubiquitous, and recent experience has proven to me that it's not quite as easy to go to any old semi-remote beach for some naked bathing and expect to find some like-minded nudies there already or some that will join you in naked solidarity.

While nudity is still normal and widespread enough for this not to be a issue, it is still sad to note the decline in its prevasiveness.

While I don't expect the pendulum to swing all the way back to full military dictatorship in Spain any time soon (although who knows; they did have a go at it in 1981, and the far right have a steadily growing and increasingly vociferous following across the country), we undoubtedly find ourselves living in less liberal times than we were a mere handful of years ago.

I don't believe it is a turn towards greater moral austerity exactly, but rather the result of outside factors, such as powerful mobile phone cameras, the power and reach of social media, the concept of body shaming and a plethora of other present-day issues that plague late-Millennials and subsequent generations as we head into the second quarter of the 21st century.

Just as it has always been, it is of fundamental importance to guard and hold on to our hard-earned freedoms, including our own body freedom; not only so that same-sex couples or three generations of the same family can continue to enjoy themselves on a nudist beach freely and without fear of recrimination, but so that we are not gradually relieved of these freedoms by stealth before we even realise and it's too late to do anything about it.