On page 19 of this months H&E (April 2024) is a plea from the author to protect Studland beach from bad behaviour in the dunes. The author quotes an earlier H&E article from myself about the misuse of naturism and this abuse doing damage to naturism by people who cannot really call themselves naturists. It is placed in the magazine just before my own most recent article encouraging people  to respectful use naturist beaches as an active and positive way to promote naturism to the general public. 

I thought it would be interesting to revisit this topic for this weeks Forum Friday. 

Firstly I believe people should stay out of the dunes - it can be environmentally damaging anyway, but why do we need to hide - it encourages mistrust of naturism even if we are not misbehaving, at best it makes naturists seem ashamed and embarrassed to be seen. Get in the open and show people the idea of real naturism and also show our numbers and give great examples. If you need some shelter from wind there are alternatives like windbreakers or beach tents. 

But what about the bad behaviour. 

Anyone who is hiding in the dunes for sexual reasons is not a naturist, and it is very sad that naturism gets blamed for their illegal behaviour. If it was happening behind a non-naturist beach would non-naturist beach users, families, couples and individuals get blamed? Of course not. Do dog walkers and ramblers get punished when a car park near a wood turns into a den for sexual sharers. 

Do these people only use the dunes off naturist beaches to misbehave - I doubt that, but maybe they use naturist beaches because there is a ready excuse to be undressed if they are caught. 

I am reminded of our articles on dune use https://anaturistworld.com/article/45569 and also on bad behaviour on beaches https://anaturistworld.com/article/45576

We are considering a new article as part of our Get Real campaign. We would love to hear your thoughts about what we can do about this behaviour, how we can help ensure that non-naturists do not tar us with the same brush and how we can help report and police any law breakers. 

Should we take photos of the people who do this and send them to the local police? Are we legally allowed to do that? Are we brave enough to do that? How can we ensure such people are not on ANW, joining national and local clubs and turning up at events?  

I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas.....

We do not know Studland, but it is on our list of beaches to visit at some point. Looking at the BN forum, there is a feed on this where it states that there is representation and ongoing dialogues from two BN members as part of the SBUAG, although we are not sure what that is, we assume it is a local naturist beach group run in coordination with beach goers and BN.

From what we have read, the police have been working with the National Trust, and have employed drone surveillance, and the Trust has increased its beach patrols to reduce the problems of not just lurkers, but also sexual behaviour.

This is a difficult subject. Swinging behaviour has somehow become intertwined with naturism, as many of the swinging fraternity also share a love of naturism. Thinking about it, it may not be a bad idea to put up signs with useful numbers to contact Trust wardens and the police. Making it easier to report would be a good step forward for all naturist beaches, and that would have the positive of naturists making the complaints, which to a degree shows that it is naturism defending decency at the beaches.

Taking pictures of people to a degree is not a crime in a public space, however taking a picture of people engaging in sexual behaviour is very difficult terrain, and could lead to the sexual partners suing, using the obscenity laws, which is sort of ironic really. It may be better to just blow a very loud whistle and make a lot of noise, lets be honest, nothing kills a romantic intimate moment quicker than a load of people staring at you and creating a fuss. Not sure about other guys, but I think that would kill my mood dead on the spot. (Giggle)

From what we have learned talking to other naturists, a lot of naturists on beaches tend to keep to themselves and interact very little, and maybe that is part of the problem. We do think that in cases like this, naturists need to decide if they want to keep and maintain their spaces, and if they do, then the answer has to be to stand together and defend them. We would imagine that having a group of angry naked people shouting at you and causing a scene would be a big deterrent, and it could prove to be very effective. We do think naturists need to unite more often in aid of our cause, and ultimately, that may be the only solution.

Personally, we would grab Windmill Girls sandcastle buckets, fill them with sea water and toss it at them mid coitus, it would sure as hell shock them and cool them off.

Bad behaviour is exactly that, we would not stay silent if it was our own club space, so we should act the same at beaches and protect them as if they were clubs, after all, the alternative is to lose them, and no one wants that.

There are a percentage of people that like to have an audience - and maybe that is part of it - wanting to offend or shock or be watched. But the average person would not, yet the average person would not consider damaging a reputation of a beach and possibly offending (and maybe scaring) other people - do they not care about children or maybe victims of abuse or just generally people who are using the beach for proper reasons. 

The National Trust can encourage more policing and organise drones etc - but that all comes at a cost - and they may decide that they do not need to do it to allow naturists their time in the sun. Why should they have to? Yet these people are not naturists and lose their right to be considered naturists. What ever their sexual kicks may be in private should be kept away from naturism, because if they actually care for naturism they would respect naturism and the law, and if they want to still break the law they should do it away from naturism to ensure they do not damage naturism. For if they ruin naturism for others and possibly have naturism banned on a beach then they do not care about naturism or the future of naturism, and so should not imagine that they can ever call themselves naturists. 

It would be like me going to a vegetarian event and then hiding in a corner chewing on a chicken leg. The two things do not go hand in hand and do not make sense. But maybe it is worse than that.

Steve and I have drawn this comparison before. It is like a bird spotter who lovingly take photos of birds and jots them in his book, then climbing a cliff side a taking away the eggs of a rare species to put in a display case at home. Damaging to bird spotters everywhere, illegal and showing no respect for the future of birds or bird spotting. In deed such behaviour could result in the bird becoming extinct, as so the person own greed and selfish and thoughtless behaviour ruins it for everyone. And the behaviour of the bird spotter is not even going to leave people traumatised as sexual sharing in the dunes might, so lets add one more angle. the bird spotter also grabs the rare species of bird by the wing and bashes it to death on the ground in front of various people and families enjoying a pleasant stroll. This is no bird spotter, just as the people in the dunes of Studland are not naturists, they are something else entirely. 

This behaviour is ruining the reputation of naturist beaches, the reputation of naturism and the future of naturism. How can naturism ever grow, be respected, be accepted and be appreciate when people abuse the idea of naturism for their own sexual gratification? Their selfishness is a cruel attack at the very fabric of naturism and it will destroy naturism. Genuine naturists will walk away from naturism and naturists opportunities, future naturists will not consider being naturists, new generations from families will not exist naturism will not be considered suitable for families, and non-naturists will demand an end to naturist opportunities and naturism.   

We need to take a stand and expect naturists to act like naturists in naturist circumstances and environments, it isn't about saying that some naturists cannot have other strings to their bow, but to insist that everyone presents naturism as genuine naturists to encourage naturism, to be understood and grow, and if they have other sides to their personalities that are not suitable to naturism they learn to separate the two things entirely. Anyone who cares the slightest about naturism should want to do that. They should consider the bigger picture of the damage and harm they can do and how they are basically shooting themselves in the foot, because once naturism is gone what excuse will they have for being naked there? 

Though I must say that many of the badly behaved people on these beaches and dunes would never consider being simply naked on the beach. Which is why I believe we should stay clear of the beaches, present open and honest naturism on the beach and allow naturism to be viewed by the non-naturists on the beach - and anyone in the dunes is not a naturist, or a non naturist beach user but there for another purpose.

I feel that we need to show our connections  to the non-naturist beach users and not the dune dwellers and work with them to remove any confusion about our own intentions and stamp out illegal behaviour in the dunes or at least keep naturism at a far distance from it. Organisations like the National Trust need to know that naturists do not use dunes, and we do not want to be connected with those that do and our national bodies, local clubs,  websites, magazines and communities like ANW should all encourage naturists to get out in the open and out of the dunes.  

Oh and one more thing - we are talking about beaches on the next Virtual Meet https://anaturistworld.com/pages/virtual-meets 

11am GMT Wednesday 27 March - so do join us to talk about this issue and beach use in general.  

We will add here just in case we are misunderstood, we do not condone swinger behaviour, it is something we do not want our children to witness, and we think they should stay well away from beaches and public places, and stick only to indoor venues if they wish to conduct their affairs as such.

We agree Anna, naturist beaches should only contain true naturist behaviour, and as people who believe in protecting nature, we also feel people should stay off the dunes, as it is destroying a lot of natural habitats.