We recently interviewed Ismael Rodrigo, president of the Spanish Naturist Federation (FEN), which represents nudists’ interests in arguably the most nudist-friendly country in the world. Rodrigo has been president of FEN since 2004. The interview was conducted in Spanish.
According to Rodrigo, there’s about 2 million Spaniards that are practitioners of nudism, of which a half-million are regular practitioners of the lifestyle. He points-out that in surveys conducted within the general Spanish community, less than one percent of respondents reacted negatively to the concept of social nudism. That said, Rodrigo told us only 3000 people are members of the 14 associations affiliated with FEN, indicating that organized nudism isn’t popular in the country.
We asked Rodrigo how many legal nude beaches there are in Spain. He answered: “Truthfully, none! Some like to use the number to be around 400, which represents the number of beaches that were deemed nudist before the de-criminilization of public nudity. Those beaches and others as well are listed on the FEN website as being ‘recommended for’ or ‘habitually used by’ naturists. Since the de-criminilization of public nudity took place, a tribunal in Valencia rejected a petition to declare a beach as officially nudist, which confirmed that public spaces cannot be declared nudist and neither can they be legally non-nudist.” As for nudist clubs, there aren’t many, he says, again because the legal status of public nudity, not to mention the warm Spanish climate, don’t encourage the formation of clubs devoted exclusively to naturists. In other words, Spain is a country where you can neither discriminate against nudists, nor against textiles. May people are nude in their homes and gardens in plain view of their neighbors, he added.
We asked Rodrigo if it was true that the Spanish constitution legalizes public nudity. “That’s isn’t exactly true”, he answered. “The 1978 constitution says nothing about nudity…In a democracy, what isn’t prohibited is therefore permitted. What our constitution does say is that no moral must prevail over another, thus putting all moral values on an equal footing”, he explained. Recently, there have been attempts by some municipalities to limit the freedom to be nude publicly, via civic decrees, which are actively being challenged by FEN.
Back in 2002, FEN rolled-out a public awareness campaign nicknamed “Get Naked in Madrid”, designed to enlighten Spaniards as to the legality of public nudity. Rodrigo claims it was a success thanks to the wide media coverage it received, although nude participants were few. Soon, FEN will launch a similar campaign, this time located on various beaches, called “Swimsuit-less Day”, designed to inform the public of the complete futility of wearing a swimsuit. Other plans for the future include establishing ties with the Portuguese nudist association, participation in the INF world congress in Brazil in 2008, and expanding the bandwidth of FEN’s website, which Rodrigo claims gets over a million hits per month.
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