In the heyday of the sexual revolution in the sixties and seventies, the first ‘legal’ nudist beach in the Netherlands was created in Callantsoog in 1973. The fiftieth anniversary is being celebrated, but is there still enthusiasm for the nude beaches of North Holland half a century later? “Do what you like,” is the free and happy motto of Johan Heijboer of naturist association De ALB in Amsterdam.
After Callantsoog, eleven other coastal towns in North Holland were given a nudist beach. Inland there are also five beaches where nude recreation is possible in the public space.
“In the eighties and nineties we had about four hundred members,” says Heijboer. “But that has since fallen to two hundred. But now it has been stable for years and the number of members even seems to be increasing again.”
Mobile phones and social media
The Amsterdam association has its own site in Ankeveen. Many members also regularly visit Zandvoort’s nudist beach, which is one of the largest in Europe. Heijboer: “But it is mainly the elderly with us who recreate naked. That has always been the case, but nowadays young people seem even more careful when it comes to nude beaches. That has to do with mobile phones and social media.”
“If our telephones are suspiciously upright and seem to be filming, then there are immediately five people around them,” says the manager of the Vrije Vogels in Midwoud. Members of this association also go to the beach in Callantsoog and to nudist beach Groote Keeten near Julianadorp. But most of them are on their own camping grounds where they also have an outdoor swimming pool.
‘A lot of security’
That formula of a private enclosed area for nudist recreation seems to work well. They have grown in recent years and have seven hundred members. “We have even had a membership stop for two years because otherwise the space would be too small,” says the spokesman for the Free Birds. “We offer a lot of security. Everyone has to go through a barrier and we see everyone who enters. People like that. And children are not obliged to go naked here. That also makes it easier.”
It benefits accessibility, according to Heijboer, if you are not too strict in your teachings: “In the past, nakedness was a requirement, now it is increasingly an option. We have members who like to swim in their bare butt, but then don’t like to walk the all the time completely naked. They then put on something. Do what you like and have a little understanding for each other.”
According to interest group NFN Open & Bloot, the number of people who engage in nude recreation has been stable for years. They conduct research into this once every three to four years. “One in eight Dutch people sometimes recreates naked,” says Bernd Huijser, advisor to the organization. “About forty percent of that also goes to the nude beach. It originated in the 1960s and 1970s from a need for freedom and that is still the case.”
Nowadays, the public space must be shared more with other target groups such as horse riders, walkers and athletes. As a result, the pressure on the beaches is increasing. NFN mainly tries to maintain the space that is now available for nude recreation and to expand it where possible. According to Huijser, the space for nude recreation in North Holland is quite decent anyway: “There are enough nude beaches on the coast and there is also enough space for nude recreation inland, more than in many other provinces.”