Red Alert: Nude Sunbathing!

"Mommy, what's nude sunbathing?"

Um, yeah. Call me naive but I had no idea there's a nudist beach in Los Angeles. OK, technically it's on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, but it's in LA County and it's surrounded by Los Angeles, so it might as well be in Los Angeles.

If you head to Abalone Cove, you see these signs prohibiting getting nekkid - and no dogs either, just in case you wanted to run around in the buff with your Labradoodle.

Turns out that on the other side of Portuguese Point (a big cliff that juts out into the Pacific Ocean), there's a nudist beach and, well, sometimes folks get a little confused about whether or not they're on the "let it all hang out" beach or not.

My kids thought the idea of a nudist beach seemed a little strange. Ever practical, my eldest son theorized that being naked would be pretty stupid on this beach's terrain. "All the rocks would hurt my butt and cut me!"

Sorry nudists, my sons and I agreed we don't want to see somebody's breasts or penis flopping around when we're out in public - yes, I use correct anatomical terminology and I encourage my son's to do the same. I don't teach them to be ashamed of their bodies or use cheesy names for their body parts. But still, I'm thankful this was the only view we saw:

If you walk right over to the where the cliff juts into the ocean, you can climb up and sit on a little ledge right at the tip of the cliff... unless it's high tide when there's nothing to stand on or there's so little to sit on, you get washed away by the powerful Pacific Ocean pounding on the rocks.

I can't help but wonder how many unsuspecting nature lovers have wandered onto the nude beach and gotten an eyeful of another kind of "natural" view!