A skin-deep survey on skinny-dipping around the world puts SA in the top 10 destinations, in seventh place, ahead of the UK, Italy and Greece.
The secluded Sandy Bay, in Hout Bay, Cape Town, is one of these spots, famous internationally for nude sunbathing and swimming.
Countries were ranked on the number of nudist beaches, clubs, naturist campsites, the water’s average annual temperature and legality, to get an overall “skinny-dipping score”.
SA has 17 unofficial “nudist” beaches and clubs, 25 naturist campsites and a mild average water temperature of 20º˚C, making it a popular destination even though public nudity is illegal.
France topped the charts, followed by the US and Spain, in the research by the online nature and wilderness resource, Outforia, on a topic which is typically taboo.
The source of the — uncorroborated — skinny-dipping data they analysed for their report was lingerie and swimwear company Poir Moi’s Global Guide to Topless and Nude Sunbathing.
SA is the only African country on the list, out of the 31 countries researched.
France has more than 600 nudist beaches and campsites combined, compared to SA’s 42, with the US close behind with 552.
The report states: “The US is the number one country in the world for naturist campsites with 253 across the country, including hotspots such as Florida and California.”
Public nudity is officially forbidden in all of the top 10 countries but three, where it is partially legal.
The drawcard nudity holds for people goes beyond frolicking in the waves, or sexual arousal, to rather engaging the brain according to a Finnish study.
Far from tropical beaches, in the cool and cerebral north — according to the unscientific climate theory of French philosopher Montesquieu — researchers found that the brain “processes pictures of nude bodies more efficiently than pictures of clothed bodies”.
They showed that people’s brains had the strongest responses to pictures of nude bodies (processed in less than 0.2 seconds), the second strongest to people in swimsuits and the weakest to fully clothed bodies.
Fully clothed humans were the only kind frequenting Sandy Bay last weekend, in icy midwinter conditions, while intrepid surfers were covered head to toe in wetsuits.
But when it warms up, masks may be the only cover-up in sight again.
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