Bare necessities

"But after the police and the media are gone, the naturists will come back. Local authorities turn a blind eye," he says. "The nude beach in Sanya was shut down in 2008 when it made headlines, but there's a lot of clothing-free activities there now."

He also visited the famous nudist park on Harbin's Sun Island. It turned out to be a very isolated patch inside the mammoth park that takes great effort to locate.

Fang says, to his knowledge, no one in China has ever been punished for naturist activities.

"The most the police would do is to banish a naturist from a public premise."

There have been several reported incidents involving artists, who use streaking or other forms of nudism for artistic creation, but these were officially banned. The online public tends to label them "strange", "crazy" or "perverse".

The biggest misconception about naturism, insists Fang Gang, who has written some 50 books on sexology, is sex.

While the public predominantly sees naturism as a precursor to sex, naturists contend that pure naturism is anything but sex.

Fang Gang argues that nude is a natural state. Except for the most physically attractive among us, he says, clothing enhances sexual appeal while total nudity would do the opposite.

Those who want to use social nudism for sexcapades are in for a rude awakening.

A Beijing naturist with the nickname Piggy has participated in a few clothing-optional outings. He says the kind of group atmosphere is not inductive to sexual fantasy.

"Everyone knows where the line is, and nobody wants to cross it. People may tell a few dirty jokes, but that’s not different from a regular group trip."

However, in online bulletin boards, one of the most frequent questions that pop up is about sexual arousal: "What if I have an erection in front of others, especially females?"

Naturists interviewed for Fang's book claim this is extremely rare. Most have never encountered it. For those few who have witnessed it, they say it's usually handled by temporarily covering oneself with a towel.

"It quickly goes away," they add.