CMNF Beach

This world is an alternative take on the world we know, where history played out very much the same, yet was ever so slightly different enough for there to be one significant difference in the present day: every woman on the beach is naked.

In this alternate world, the typical social normalities of society are almost identical to ours, and the prohibition of public nudity generally still applies to both men and women, yet due to the ever-changing social attitudes towards nudity throughout the course of history, female nudity on the beach (and any other environment where women would typically wear a swimsuit in our universe) is the standard.

---HISTORY---

Classical Antiquity - The origin of such a peculiar difference arguably can be traced back to the classical era of history, although its origin is more of an "absence of origin". Namely, whilst in our world the bikini can be dated as far back as Ancient Egypt, this world never saw the creation of the bikini, so when it came to sports and exercise in the ancient world, women would perform such activities naked like the men. Bathing and swimming were also done in the nude by both sexes. However, this is not to say that male and female nudity was on the same level of respectability in the classical world. In Ancient Greece, for example, male nudity was honoured to a much higher degree, as it was associated with beauty and power like the gods. Women did not share the same freedom and privilege of nudity as equally, suggesting at their unfair status in society at the time. Though the lack of bikinis in the ancient world did not create any major distinctions with the ancient world of our history, it would allow for some notable variance later on.

Middle Ages - By the middle ages, the general outlook on nudity had reversed. Nudity was now considered obscene with men. Women, on the other hand, did not suffer from the same social judgement as harshly, and in many areas were not obligated to be fully clothed in public. Bathing and swimming still remained nude activities for both men and women, though. Towards the end of the medieval age, male swimwear had been developed, although it was not compulsory to wear, and the majority of men continued to bathe naked.

Modern Period - From the middle ages to the modern period, nudity as a whole grew more and more taboo, and by the Victorian era, laws had been officially established to ensure every man wore drawers when bathing or swimming. No laws were ever put in place that similarly affected women (largely because there was no swimsuit for women in the first place), so they were allowed to continue being naked whilst in bathing houses and swimming areas. Beyond those spaces, however, public nudity had been made illegal for both genders.

With the rise of beaches as a popular holiday resort, men and women began coming to the beach wearing the suitable attire for swimming. This meant that men came to beaches in swimming trunks, whilst women would just come in the nude.

By the time of the present, female nudity on the beach had endured for so long that it has become completely ingrained into modern society, and is now an irrevocable part of the world's culture.

---PRESENT---

In the current day, all women are naked on the beach. This is not perceived as embarrassing or shameful, but rather is considered a normal everyday thing that isn't questioned or thought on too deeply, albeit still sexually appealing to the males (it is the female body after all). In spite of this, some women actually experience a sense of pride in showing off their body on the beach, and find enjoyment in the attention they attract from all the guys. Other women may have no opinion at all on their nudity, and feel neither embarrassed nor excited. Few may find the constant attention they create moderately annoying at times, and those that do tend to ignore it, but seldom will one find a woman on the beach who genuinely feels humiliated by her nakedness, as it has been so normalized into society.

It could be said that the female equivalent of a swimsuit is her pubic hair - or rather the lack of it. On beaches in this world, it is almost an unspoken rule for a woman's vulva to be fully shaven, as pubic hair in public is predominantly regarded as socially indecent and signifies a lack of self-care (similar to how bad breath or any body hair on a woman is frowned upon). Because of this, the generality of women shave their pubic hair before making their way down to the seaside.

Despite what one may think, most men tend to actually be quite respectful and considerate to the women on the beach. Few may feel compelled to compliment a girl's "outfit", but do so in a respectful manner. Some men may crack jokes about women amongst their male peers and perhaps even to their female ones, but such comments usually are meant to be taken as just playful and teasing, and aren't intended to come across as offensive or objectifying by any means.

However, as gentlemanly as most men may be, one particular group of males, known for their wild and uncontrollable lustfulness, still end up gazing anyway. This group is of course the male teenagers, who are so overwhelmed by their raging hormones that they can't help but take pleasure in the women around them. Sometimes one might notice a few male teenagers peering at women from a distance (attempting to be secretive and nine times out of ten always failing to do so), but this is passed off as simple teenage mischief and nothing more.

Beyond the realms of the beach, the social norms regarding nudity in theory should be about identical to our actual reality. It is true that in this alternate world's present, public nudity remains illegal for both genders. Anyone, including women, exposing themselves in public is a criminal offence in most countries. But because of the allowance of female nudity in one public space, a slippery slope is introduced, and a whole range of complications and controversies arise.

---COMPLICATIONS---

The allowance of female nudity on the beach has meant it has always been difficult for society to distinguish an obvious border between the acceptable and unacceptable. For example, if nudity on beaches and swimming pools and so on is typical and ordinary, but nudity on TV is traditionally R-rated, then what happens to PG movies with beach settings and advertisements promoting holidays to seaside-related locations?

For films at least, beach nudity was permissible since the beginning of TV, although the age rating would be marginally affected. However, in regards to advertisements, until the beginning of the 21st century, female nudity was not allowed whatsoever, including any related to beaches. Because of this, beach adverts would often exclude women entirely, and it wasn't until the last two decades that this law had been changed due to the increasing backlash from the growing feminist movement calling it out as discrimination against women. Since then, female nudity has been allowed in advertisements in many advanced countries, but strictly for beach or swimming pool-related advertising only.

The recent introduction of social media apps has made this issue even more complex. Most social media, such as Facebook and Instagram, do not tolerate nudity being posted to their site, but backlash had inevitably reached these apps as well, and people began pressuring them to change their regulations so women could share the freedom men hold of posting pictures of themselves on the beach without unwanted hassle. The complication here is this: if social media apps were to allow female nudity on their sites for appropriate posts only, then how could any app possibly distinguish a beach post from an image simply of a naked woman with no relation to a beach whatsoever, which would be breaking the applications terms of service? For this problem specifically, most social media apps have yet to modify their rules.

This is not to say it is impossible for people to post pictures of themselves or pictures of girls at beaches or swimming areas online. Since the rise of social media, one usually would overcome the nudity rules by censoring the girl's private parts in the image prior to posting. Around 2017-18, many apps had also added an inbuilt design for this specific purpose, making the censoring of girls a official genuine feature, and also making such a task easier to accomplish. These additional censoring features likely have also been added to compensate for the apps' refusal to change their rules regarding female nudity.

The normalisation of female nudity on the beach has also led to seemingly confusing public attitudes towards female nudity as a whole. If a girl had her nudes leaked, for example, she would be terribly distressed, but an image of her on the beach with her mates is perfectly normal and nothing that she would be concerned about.

So due to it being allowable in one location, female nudity will always remain slightly more tolerable than male nudity. A woman's naked body will always be less taboo than a man's naked body. This is clearly evident in movies, social media, and the industries' constant usage of the sexual appeal of the female form as a method of advertisement (a rather successful one too), and is apparent even in places located near beaches or swimming pools, where the constant influx of naked women from swimming areas into the general public has led to the normalisation of nude women beyond the places they're supposed to stay confined in.

Because of this fact, guys have had to learn to control themselves when on the beach and tend to try their best to respect the women there and their female peers, but ultimately, the sexual allure of women on the beach is inescapable. All women acknowledge this and simply have to accept it as a reality of life. Some women occasionally even join in on the fun with the guys and appreciate all the naked female bodies surrounding them - after all, who doesn't love breasts?

With the rise of globalisation, many non-western countries have also adopted these ideas - although multiple Asian countries were on a similar path anyway in regards to female nudity. Many eastern civilisations had embraced female nudity a lot more than the west did historically.

---IMPACT OF 3ʳᵈ WAVE FEMINISM---

The recent emergence of third-wave feminists has contributed a lot in attempting to change the socially acceptable and unacceptable. Beginning in the mid-90s, the movement sought to challenge social constructs surrounding women that they viewed as problematic, such as the expectation for a woman to shave all her body hair, and the expectation for a woman to shave her pubic hair for the beach. Modern feminists have argued that this social belief exists only to objectify women, as it implies that for a woman to be considered clean, she must have her vagina on full display for all men to ogle at. Many followers of the movement have opposed this unfair notion by going to the beach with fully grown pubic bushes, not bothered about whether people from older generations and those with more conservative views may find it distasteful or not.

Furthermore, modern feminists have started to protest for the right for all women to be naked in all public areas and not just have the laws be restricted to beaches and likewise locations, alongside demanding the ability to post themselves nude on social media without having to censor themselves. A very minor range of states in the USA have given in to the movements' constant insistence for change and have rewritten nudity laws for full female nudity to be permitted everywhere. Despite this, not many women living in those states have used their newfound freedom to their advantage and ventured outside naked - at least not yet anyway.

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Some people in the present-day predict that at some point in the foreseeable future, the rules on nudity will return to something akin to that in the past, where female nudity will be permissible everywhere, and perhaps may even be encouraged and celebrated, allowing for a "CMNF world" of sorts.