Did you know there is an event where you walk outside in nature at night wearing nothing at all?
It’s called the Night Tourist Walk, and it’s sponsored by a nudist club. They’re already hosting their eighth event. It starts with a nude evening gathering at the club prior to the walk, and then the city provides everyone with transportation to the entrance to the forest preserve. The participants take only flashlights to light up their path, and when the walk is over they take showers at the park facilities.
I can’t imagine the purpose of walking around naked in the forest at night, but that aside, I was simply terrified thinking about being eaten alive by bugs when I first heard about it. Seriously though, isn’t a forest at night exactly the kind of situation where you’d want to cover up? I mean, bugs are going to bite you in places where you wouldn’t want to be caught scratching, right? Ugh! So awful. I have always been the worst when it comes to bugs.

Of course, this nudist group does other activities besides the night walks. They have meals, pool parties, camps—and apparently not all of them are done in the nude. Their philosophy of life is to ditch the taboos, opening up society to naturalism in the hopes of bringing people closer to nature.

There are nine public nudist beaches in Portugal, plus private ones that are more difficult to access. Some of them are geared towards the gay community, for example.
I wonder if they’re a bit like mixed-gender public baths in Japan.

It seems like nudity is very polarizing in the West—people are either completely comfortable with it or absolutely opposed. On one extreme, there are parents who won’t get into the shower with their kids, while others are completely comfortable walking around the house naked whether their kids are there or not.
It’s common to see topless women at regular beaches here too, though it’s sometimes embarrassing for the family members that are with them. There are (free) camping areas where you’ll see men and women nonchalantly showering next to each other in common bathing areas, while others won’t dare go near them.

In Japan, it’s completely normal to get in the bath with children, so we are at least naked around them when they’re young. It’s also normal to be naked in public baths or hot springs, though you’d almost never see a woman go topless at a beach or other public area.
Westerners, on the other hand, frequently avoid going naked into public baths or hot springs. Men, apparently, don’t like the idea of being naked around a bunch of other men—and if anything would probably be more comfortable in the women’s area.

There also seem to be some big differences between Japan and the West when it comes to showing skin. You’ll see Westerners of all ages wearing tight-fitting clothing or even see-through dresses that show their shape—and even older ladies with big bellies will go to the beach in bikinis.
During the middle of the last century in Japan, I seem to remember that older men would go out in short, pajama-like pants, while older women would think nothing of stopping by a neighbor’s house in what was essentially a slip. These days, you see women covered from head to toe during the summer—it seems like nobody is walking around with much skin showing at all.

So Westerners, who are taught that Adam and Eve became ashamed of their nakedness when they ate the forbidden fruit, seem relatively comfortable with nakedness and showing skin—while the Japanese, who learn about Ame-no-Uzume dancing naked in front of the Sun Goddess, tend to avoid exposure and nakedness. That’s my thought, anyway—though you probably can’t categorize people as cleanly as I have here, since attitudes towards nudity and showing skin transcend countries, cultures, religions, and environments.

Attitudes towards nakedness certainly change with the times, and being nude has different meanings in different contexts no matter what age we’re in. It’s probably the shared perspectives that give rise to general attitudes.

Nudists don’t feel any sense of shame around nudity, which is why they’ve created beaches and other places where people who share their perspectives can gather. If someone who thought nudity was something sexual showed up at one of those places, it would probably create an unpleasant vibe immediately.

One of my friends is completely nonchalant about being naked, often wearing clothes with huge openings in the front that show her chest. It’s so common that nobody even says anything about it. I’ve never asked her about her thoughts on nudity, but she has a solid sense of self and doesn’t care at all what people think, making her come off as a very strong person.
I guess I’m using attitudes towards nudity as a way to identify people’s personalities.