Yarns Without Threads 

Bruno was also in the seconde at Meaux, though not in Michel's class. He knew that his mother had had a son by a different father, but no more than that. He saw little of his mother. Twice, he had spent his holidays in the villa in Cassis where she now lived. She regularly entertained hitchhikers and sundry young men passing through. The popular press would have characterised these young men as hippies. It was true that they were unemployed and Janine - who had by now changed her name to Jane - provided for them while they stayed. They lived off the profits of the plastic surgery clinic her ex-husband had set up - in other words, off the desire of well-to-do women to fight the ravages of time, or correct certain natural imperfections. They would swim naked in the creeks. Bruno always refused to take off his trunks. He felt small, pale, fat and repulsive.

The Lieu was not a commune, but had the more modest aim of providing a place where like-minded people could spend the summer months living according to the principles they espoused. It was intended that this haven of humanist and democratic feeling would create synergies, facilitate the meeting of minds and, in particular, as one of the founding members put it, provide an opportunity to 'get your rocks off'.

Just before Cholet Sud, Bruno took the slip road off the motorway and drove for 15 kilometres along country roads. The map was not very clear, and he felt hot. It was pure chance, he thought, that he finally saw the sign. In large, multicoloured letters it read 'Lieu du Changement', and, underneath: 'I am properly free when all the men and women about me are equally free' (Mikhail Bakunin). ...

He parked the 305 and walked over to a small wooden hut with a WELCOME sign. Inside, a woman of about 60 sat in the lotus position. Her thin, wrinkled breasts hung over her thin cotton tunic; Bruno felt sorry for her. She gave him a big, somewhat stilted smile. 'Welcome to the Lieu du Changement,' she said at last. She smiled broadly again; was she demented? 'Have you got your reservation form?' Bruno took his papers out of his leather pocketbook. 'Perfect!' muttered the hag, still smiling like an idiot.

It was forbidden to drive cars within the grounds of the camp site so he decided to work in stages: first he would find a place to pitch his tent, then he would get his things from the car. He had bought a tent from La Samaritaine before setting off ('Made in the People's Republic of China, 2/3 persons, 449FF').

The first thing Bruno noticed when he arrived in the clearing was the pyramid. It was 20 metres high and 20 metres along the base: exactly equilateral. The sides were constructed of glass panes in heavy wood frames. The dying sun glinted on some of them, while through others it was possible to see the internal framework of stairs and shutters, also constructed of dark wood. It was intended to symbolise a tree - in the centre, a large cylinder housed the central staircase. A stream of people - some alone, others in small groups; some dressed, others naked - was leaving the building. The sunset flared through the long grass, as if in a film trailer. Bruno observed the scene for two or three minutes, then took his tent under his arm and started up the first hill.

He arrived at the showerblock, 'Body Space 8'. He had more or less resigned himself to the women being old and decrepit and was taken aback to see the teenagers. There were four of them near the showers, all between 15 and 17, opposite the wash basins. Two of them wore swimsuits and waited as the other two played under the shower like otters, chatting and laughing and splashing one another: they were completely naked. The scene was indescribably graceful and erotic. He did not deserve such a thing. ...

One of the girls, graceful and dark-haired stepped out of the shower, grabbed a towel and began to pat her young breasts dry contentedly. A little redhead slipped off her swimsuit and took her place under the shower - her pussy hair was golden blonde. Bruno moaned a little, he was beginning to feel dizzy.

Dedicated exclusively to sexual liberation and desire, the Lieu du Changement naturally became a place of depression and bitterness. Farewell to limbs entwined in a clearing under the full moon! Farewell to the quasi-Dionysian spectacle of oiled bodies glistening under the midday sun. That, at least, is how the forty-somethings mourned as they looked at their flaccid pricks and fleshy tits.

In 1987 the first quasi-religious workshops appeared at the Lieu. ... In a matter of years, the Lieu - like many centres throughout France and Western Europe - became a New Age institution, while maintaining a reputation as a hedonist's paradise, which became its unique selling point.

'I know what we should do,' she said after a long silence. 'We should go and have an orgy on the nudist beach at the Cap d'Agde. You get a lot of Dutch nurses and German businessmen there, all very correct, very middle-class - very northern European. Why don't we go fuck around with some policemen from Luxembourg.'

They arrived at the station at Agde on Monday morning and took a taxi to the nudist colony. ...

It was September, so they found a spot easily. The nudist colony at Cap d'Agde was divided into five blocks built in the late Seventies and early Eighties with a capacity of 10,000 beds - the largest in the world. Their apartment was 22 square metres: a living room with a sofa-bed, a kitchenette, two bunk beds, a bathroom, separate toilet and a balcony. It had a maximum occupancy of four people - usually a family with two children. They felt at home immediately. The balcony was west-facing, with a view over the port, and so they could drink their apéritifs while watching the sun set.

Though it boasted three shopping centres, a mini-golf course and bicycle rental, the primary attractions for holidaymakers at the Cap d'Agde colony were sex and sunbathing. It was an archetype of a particular sociological concept, which was all the more surprising in that it was not the result of some pre-established plan, but the convergence of individual desires.

That, at least, was how Bruno portrayed it in his article, 'THE DUNES OF MARSEILLAN BEACH: TOWARDS AN AESTHETIC OF GOODWILL', a distillation of his two-week holiday. The article was rightly rejected by Esprit.

'What first strikes the visitor to Cap d'Agde,' wrote Bruno, 'is the juxtaposition of the consumer outlets typical of any European seaside resort with shops openly selling erotica and sex. It is surprising to see a bakery or a supermarket cheek by jowl with a shop selling transparent mini-skirts, latex underwear and dresses cut away to reveal breasts and buttocks. It is equally surprising to see women, and couples, some with their children, moving casually from shop to shop, aisle to aisle. At the station, the newsagents offer the usual array of papers and magazines alongside a motley assortment of porn mags, sex toys and wife-swapping personal magazines without raising so much as an eyebrow.

'Holiday clubs usually run the gamut from "family" concerns (Mini Clubs, Kids' Clubs - bottle warmers and sun-loungers) to more trendy establishments (body boarding, night clubs for ravers, "not recommended for under 12s"). The nudist colony at Cap d'Agde - with its high proportion of families and the focus on sexual activity divorced from traditional pick-up rituals - ignored this standard dichotomy. What is most surprising is how different it is from traditional nudist colonies, which tend to stress the "healthy" aspects of naturism, avoiding any allusion to sexuality. They are big on macrobiotic food and smoking is usually forbidden. Their outlook is very "new age": holidaymakers study yoga, painting on silk and oriental exercise and are satisfied with rough-and-ready accommodation in a wilderness environment. The apartments on the Cap d'Agde, on the other hand, are luxurious even by the standards of other holiday resorts. The only allusion to nature is the manicured lawns and lavish flowerbeds. The food is standard fare, pizzerias jostling with seafood restaurants, French fries and ice-cream parlours. Even nudity seems to take on a different aspect. In traditional nudist colonies, nudity is obligatory whenever the weather permits; this is strictly monitored and all behaviour deemed to be voyeuristic is severely reprimanded. At Cap d'Agde, on the other hand, there is no dress code and, from the supermarkets to the bars, dress ranges from fully dressed to full nudity by way of overtly fetishistic clothing (PVC mini-skirts, lingerie, thigh-length boots). Voyeurism is tacitly condoned: it is commonplace to see men on the beach stop to admire the female genitalia on show; some women shave to make it easier to see the vulva and sometimes the clitoris. Even if one does not take part in the activities of the centre, all this makes for a singular atmosphere, as far removed from the erotic, narcissistic ambience of an Italian disco, as from the sleazy ambience of the red-light districts of major cities. What we have here is a traditional, rather genial, seaside resort with the single distinction that sexual pleasure is recognised as an important commodity. It is tempting to suggest that this is a sexual "social democracy", especially as foreign visitors to the resort are principally German, Dutch and Scandinavian.'

The nudist beach at Cap d'Agde is about three kilometres long on a gentle slope, which makes it very safe for swimming even for young children. Most of its length is reserved for family bathing and beach activities (windsurfing, badminton, kite-flying). It is tacitly accepted that couples looking for adventure meet on the eastern part of the beach, just past the bar. The dunes, shored up at the sides, create a slight hill. From the top of the hill, one can see the beach to one side sloping gently to the sea; to the other side the dunes enclose flat expanses of sand dotted with clumps of holly oak. They settled themselves on the beach just below the dunes, looking from side to side.