Nicholas Farrell Nicholas Farrell

Attack of the nudist lawyers

My favourite beach has been invaded. But perhaps a little bird can stop them…

Photo by BIPS/Getty Images

Carla, my Italian wife, has a small house in a little town on the Adriatic near Ravenna called Lido di Dante, right next to one of the last unspoilt beaches in Italy.

But we cannot go to this spectacular beach because even though it is una spiaggia libera (open to all and free) and therefore di tutti (everyone’s) it is infested with nudists and their related sub-species: guardoni (voyeurs), scambisti (wife-swappers), group-sex freaks, transsexuals, bisexuals — plus several other creatures yet to be classified by scientists.

Needless to say Dante’s Beach, which is named after the poet who died in Ravenna in 1321, has got a bit of a reputation and is very popular with a certain type of German and Swiss.

Even if we did not have five small children, and even if the nudists were just nudists, we would not be able to use the beach because we find the sight of other people’s naked bodies in a public place frankly obscene and disturbingly insane. A nudist would not shop in the high street, or turn up for work stark naked, would he? (They are nearly all men.) So why on a beach?

Like us, the silent majority finds such mass nudity obscene, so it cannot use the beach either. The silent majority, unlike the obscene minority, therefore has no rights in this infernal paradise: Lido di Dante is thus a perfect metaphor for modern Europe.

I am a libertarian and have nothing against nudism on nudist beaches, just as I have nothing against lunatics in lunatic asylums. But here’s the funny thing: Dante’s Beach is not a nudist beach. In fact, nudism is a criminal offence, as the signs clearly state: ‘Naturism is not allowed on this beach. Indecent exposure is punishable under the Penal Code (art.

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