Travel: Tales Of The Naked City

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Which is not to say differences are not appreciated. During activities that range from beach volleyball and Ping-Pong to yoga, one notices a wide array of physiques--the good, the bad, the ugly and the very ugly. But that's O.K. "The whole resort is geared to living completely in the nude without embarrassment," an Irishman explains to me. "The experience is much more sensual than sexual."

Does that mean no sex? I ask a German woman as we dance at Cleopatre, a nightclub "reserved for anticonformists."

"I think you've been misinformed," she replies with a knowing wink.

The atmosphere is decidedly laid-back in the nude world. A billboard urges visitors to PROTECT OUR NATURIST VILLAGE, asserting that "it is unique and a privilege" to be here. But most naturists don't talk much about the virtues of their lifestyle. And the clothed employees at the various shops and restaurants take their constant encounters with the unclothed in stride. Delphine, the receptionist at the Hotel Eve, even tells me that "naturists are more cool and less stressed than people in the textile world."

To test this, I don clothes one day and head into the textile part of town, which is one of the most lively, entertaining and congested ports on the Mediterranean. Curious as to why everyone else around here is not a naturist, I approach a topless twentysomething woman on the Richelieu Beach who is attired--if that is the correct word--in a microscopic string monokini. Why, I ask her, isn't she over in the naturist colony to "see and be seen"?

"Mon Dieu, not me!" she says. "I'm much too self-conscious for that."