At first I’m shocked: not everybody is naked, nudity is not andatory! I’m 

fascinated to see stark naked guys hand-in hand with girls wearing their bikinis, or just the bottoms. Then I encounter a problem: if I don’t wear any clothes where do I put  my wallet and my keys? So I decide to disregard the spirit of the place and keep my shorts and shirt on. My first stop: the lobby of a charming brand new hotel, Oz’Inn. Relaxing in a comfortable armchair and enjoying the air conditioning, I inspect the highly erotic painting of ladies in suggestive positions.

After a rest in this sumptuous inn I go for a walk in the town – which welcomes 40 000 visitors in July and August - where there is amarina, shopping areas, a campground, villas, hotels and multi-storey apartment complexes, which are in general slightly more expensive than outside - definitely not a place for the underprivileged.

 

The nudist town has its own daily, La Une, and a glossy weekly magazine, The Village, with articles of interest such as The 10 fantasies of women. Inside, the shops in the shopping arcade have enticing names, such as Sexy Land which sells clothes as provocative as you can imagine. If you are in need of any kind of sex toy or fetish, it’s the place to do your shopping. And if you arelooking for a libertine club, they are plentiful. Remarkably, there was a bakery selling pastries shaped as male private parts!

According to one young seller in a sexy clothes shop, “It’s nice here, the atmosphere is great, it’s special, no tension withcustomers, unlike in normal places outside.” 

 

The atmosphere is best described as laid back with a total lack of inhibition. 

Naturists and libertines in Le Cap d’Agde come from all over Europe and sometimes further. Not many teenagers around, but anumber of families with young children and some really gorgeous-looking people, male and female, in their twenties. Nevertheless,most people are middle-aged, some not the most graceful; as well as a lot of surprisingly elderly ladies and gentlemen. I spot someone with a walker and a disabled man in a wheel chair. I feel a sense of admiration for those who stick to the naturist way of life and the spirituality, which I imagine goes with it...

The Bay of the PigsI venture on to the nudist beach, probably the biggest in Europe, if not in the world – it is more than 2 kilometers long. It looks just like a regular beach if were not for the stark naked sunbathers. I go to the eastern side of the beach, the area which gives Cap d’Agde its sulfurous reputation known as the “Bay of the Pigs”. It’s not a chaste place. Here and there snogging couples lie on the sand,and in all likelihood sex fiends lurk on the dunes, but everything looks quiet.

 

Not for long… All of a sudden, around 6 pm, some sunbathers get up hurriedly and gather in a circle. Has somebody drowned or fallen ill? However, the lifeguards don’t rush over, so I guess not.

I try to see what is going on. I hardly dare tell the respectable readers of the Herault Times what I saw: a couple are engaged in anintimate relationship surrounded by a crowd of peeping Toms. Later on a friend of mine tells me, “I expected everything but this, it’sincredible, it’s like cattle mating”. It seems that along the shores of the Bay of Pigs public sex is a ritual!

At sunset the flock returns to the town and I go with the flow. “At night, the entire place is turned into a sexual extravaganza”, writes an American lover of Cap d’Agde who identifies himself or herself as Play4fun on a forum. 

 

Not much of an exaggeration.

In restaurants, some customers dress outrageously or wearincredibly provocative attire. Inside the shopping center near Port Ambone the atmosphere becomes electric. There are people wearing eye masks or strange disguises; some flaunt a more sinister look. A whip in his hand, an elderly man appears tobe waiting for somebody to flog. I carefully pass him. I feel lucky, he doesn’t flog me. I’m told later that his “victims” are volunteers.

The naturist capital of the world is a temple for hedonism. It’s also a hotspot for peeping and showing (its unofficial motto: see andbe seen). You may hate it and call it a place for perverts. But the crime rate (any incident is much advertised when it happens) is nothigher than outside. It’s altogether a place where orthodox naturists mix harmoniously with libertines and swingers; truly a place of genuine tolerance.

 

Play4fun, the nudist blogger concludes, “The part I will remembermore than anything else is that we got to go grocery shopping in the nude! That was a truly unique experience that you just can’t doanywhere in the US, or probably anywhere else in the world!

 

 

* http://www.truenudists.com/forum/viewthread.php?id=2020

How to get there: At the main entrance you have to pay 6 euros as a pedestrian or 15 euros for two people with a car. If you are on a shoestring budget or if you don’t mind walking, you can go for free, starting from Marseillan beach and strolling along the seashorefor about 30 minutes.

 

 

Words and Images: Patrice Victor

Journalistes sans Frontières