The US and Asia, for their part, have never truly caught the nakedness bug, and show few signs of doing so (with the honourable exception of Joe Biden, the vice-president who, according to reports from secret-service agents, has a penchant for skinny dipping). Only a handful of public beaches in America permit topless, let alone nude, bathing. Meanwhile, a survey by the travel company Expedia, published last month, suggests that a mere 2 per cent of Japanese women and 3 per cent of South Koreans have gone nude (compared with 28 per cent of Germans). In China, a stern tradition of Confucian rectitude makes public nudity unacceptable, and even in the few naturist centres that exist, the sexes tend to be segregated.