My wife and I have just got back from two weeks in the French naturist resort of Cap d'Agde.
We've been several times, but this year we had way more sex with other people than on previous visits. We're not good at walking up to strangers and introducing ourselves, so this time we went prepared: I contacted two other couples online beforehand. I'm glad I did, because we took to them instantly. And much to our pleasure, two friends of friends were there at the same time as us: by the end, they were much more than casual acquaintances.
The highlight was the outdoor couples-only foam party at Le Glamour swingers' club, held every afternoon during the season. This was quite simply the most erotic experience of my life.
Ever have dreams where you walk into a room full of naked people and they're all really friendly and loving, and you bonk one another's brains out? Well, that's what the foam party is like.
We went with a group, so we could play among ourselves. This takes away the hesitation about whether to approach that sultry blonde half your age and start fondling her breasts, though in practice people rarely spurn your advances.
The party takes place in a bar surrounded by high walls, with a small pool and a separate foam area. Every few minutes, the foam comes cascading down onto the crowd to a depth of about six feet, transforming rational, intelligent adults into giggling, lust-crazed idiots.
We're no spring chickens - we're in our fifties - but we were kissed passionately by naked strangers and near strangers. We stood in a ring of seven or eight people with our arms around one another. At one stage I had two women sliding their soft hands up and down my hard dick, and if I could have died and gone to heaven then, I would. One introduced herself, and it turned out she used to live near me. We started talking about places we knew as I massaged cool foam into her hot pussy, and then I said: "This is stupid, we didn't come here for conversation," and she just laughed and gripped my penis even harder. I caught my wife's eye, and she winked back at me.
I had sex with a gorgeous woman from Leicestershire as her husband fucked a hausfrau from Hanover a foot away from my head. And as the afternoon heated up, people began having sex everywhere: by the pool, in the bar, around the edges of the foam.
For a few torrid hours, solicitors from Surrey, librarians from Lille and builders from Berlin became participants in a Roman orgy fuelled by French wine, conversing in the international language of sex.
I thought this is a microcosm of all that's best about Europe, and wondered why on earth Britons had turned their backs on it.