I was fortunate enough to inherit the old family summer place on one of the thousands of lakes in northern Ontario. Perhaps Canadians are a little less inhibited than our neighbours to the south. However its sort of a tradition practiced by many of the cottages that you don't wear a swim suit. The cottages are placed far apart. It would be hard to really see anything. Some more modest neighbours do wear swim suits, many of us don't. I notice my guests rarely feel they need to cover up.
Its pleasant, and sensible too, since on never needs to hang a swim suit on the line, or ever have the unpleasant experience of dragging a still wet one back on, if going back in to swim before it has dried out.
Actually, I think skinny dipping is okay, provided certain reasonable conditions are met.
Not all that many decades ago, skinny dipping was a lot more common. I hear stories from my Dad, how guys swam naked all the time, at the YMCA.
I think it could have been largely because society was a lot more moral, and we had a lot less runaway laws and rules. Perhaps nobody then thought to make any rule against skinny dipping? If one doesn't have handy swimwear, the seemingly obvious solution is to just take off all clothes and swim naked, and then put back on clothes afterward. So what happened that we can't do that so much anymore?
For one thing, world population has grown quite a lot larger and denser since then. So has it become harder to be enough alone to swim naked? But I seriously doubt that that is really the main factor. The shift from swimming in the old countryside river or pond, to coed crowded urban swimming pools, would likely make a far bigger difference.
Due to immorality, and less healthy childhood upbringing, more people seem excessively ashamed to ever be seen in any semi-public place naked, such as locker rooms and communal showers. We have shifted away from leisure time and play, to TV watching and academic studies.
Community standards are also a factor. In countries where skinny dipping is allowed, or in some laid back country area, perhaps it may still be no big deal. Or if the nearest cottage or home is some distance away, perhaps nobody cares if skinny dipping occurs.
I am no fan of nude beaches. They sound immoral to me. But the old-time innocent skinny dipping, seems like it must have been okay, so it must then still be okay, provided certain reasonable conditions are met. Probably then no co-ed swimming, well except obviously for husband and wife in a reasonably secluded private swimming pool or back yard hot tub.
Babies probably could be helped by parents to swim naked. What's the use of swimwear they will outgrow before a use or two? And baby diapers just swell up in the water, so what's the use? Babies are innocent anyway, so maybe that's a different category?