RIO DE JANEIRO—In Brazil, home to sensual carnival parades and the world’s skimpiest bikinis, the country’s nudists are facing an unexpected predicament: Brazilians won’t take their clothes off in public.
With social conservatism prevalent across parts of Brazil, the country’s naturist federation has hired naked guards to try to keep clothed bathers off Abricó beach, a secluded stretch of sand in Rio de Janeiro and one of the nation’s last remaining nudist beaches.
“Hey man, take ‘em off!” shouts Anderson de Oliveira, a 46-year-old Uber driver who moonlights as one of Abricó’s watchmen every weekend. Technically, bathers have a constitutional right to wear whatever they want, but the nudists strive to maintain a certain vibe.
Dressed in nothing but a baseball cap, a walkie-talkie dangling from his neck, he gestures energetically at a new arrival and the offending trunks.
“What’s the problem?” says de Oliveira, known as Jesus because of the expansive Jesus tattoo across his chest. “God made us this way!”
Getting naked in Brazil is harder than it looks. Topless sunbathing is generally banned (though allowed at Abricó, the nude beach) and punishable with up to a year in jail under a 1940s law prohibiting “acts of public obscenity.” Police enforcement varies wildly.
Danish gymnasts made headlines in 2013 when they went topless on Rio’s Copacabana beach, unaware that a common European practice was outlawed in Brazil. They got away with an apology.
But when a 36-year-old woman went topless in Santa Catarina last year while walking her dogs on the beach, police handcuffed and arrested her.
In 2010, a university was ordered to pay $7,200 in compensation after expelling a student for wearing a dress it deemed too short.
“Brazil can be utterly contradictory—on one hand, seemingly liberal but also totally conservative,” said Pedro Ribeiro, 66, a schoolteacher and naturist who battled protesters and the courts for decades to establish Abricó as a nudist beach.
His students now fondly refer to him as Mr. Big Naked Guy, he explained, perched on a rock overlooking the paradisal enclave.
City Hall in Rio first gave naturists the right to use Abricó in 1994 but an injunction two weeks later banned the practice until 2003. Police detained Ribeiro several times.
Despite a 2014 law permanently establishing Abricó as a nudist beach, Ribeiro said members of the naturist federation show up every weekend to keep away protesters and “curious onlookers.”
“Some people treat it like a zoo, they come in to get a good look,” said Ribeiro.
The sight of Abricó’s naked guards is often enough to prompt clothed sunbathers to retreat hastily past giant boulders to the neighboring beach. Others venture forth, stripping down before joining the naturists frolicking in the waves.
The beach lies relatively empty these days. It is winter in the Southern Hemisphere, and Brazilians consider 75-degrees Fahrenheit too cold to venture into the water.
But during peak summer—December and January—up to 350 naturists pack the 250-meter-long stretch of silky white sand.
Douglas Coimbra, 38, a construction worker, said nude sunbathing helped him accept his fuller figure.
“It doesn’t matter what your body looks like here—you can be fat, thin, attractive or not. It is just a body,” said Coimbra, vacationing from São Paulo with his wife.
Others said they found it liberating to be communing with nature without worrying about tan lines.
Ribeiro noted it is also among Rio’s safest beaches, since concealing a weapon or stolen item proves nearly impossible when naked.
Brazil has thousands of beaches along its 4,600 miles of coastline, yet only eight are reserved for naturists.
The Catholic Church has long championed socially conservative values in Brazil, and the recent rise of evangelical Christians has further hardened views on many social issues, said Laura Carneiro, a congresswoman who supports socially liberal policies.
For six years, Carneiro has pushed for a national law granting local governments more say over designating nude beaches, though she’s had little luck in a Congress where evangelicals now make up almost 40% of members, she said.
“Most of the time I have to explain what naturism is as people don’t even know,” she said.
Naturists also lobby local governments, with mixed results, to cordon off stretches of sand. São Paulo’s naturists say they have been looking to buy a secluded farm instead.
As sunset approaches at Abricó, the naturists don their clothes and head to the parking lot, often facing disdainful looks from beachgoers on the other side.
“Our private parts should remain private,” said Antonia Cassia, 68, sitting on the sand.
On warmer days, she happily strips down to a string bikini, but would never consider naturism. “Sure, it’s a tiny bit of fabric, but it’s a very important bit of fabric!”
Foreigners wrongly assume Brazilians are happy to get naked, she said, blaming the famous carnival parade where scantily clad samba dancers writhe through the crowds.
“Carnival is not everyday life, it’s the exception,” she said. “Even people who don’t like to dance dance during carnival!”
It often comes down to Diogo Pacheco, the local lifeguard, to keep the peace.
“The naked people sometimes get lost and come over the rocks and I have to politely guide them back before anyone sees,” he says from his wooden hut, perched up the mountain with a birds’ eye-view of both beaches. It is a hard job but the view makes up for it, he said.
Jonatan de Souza uniquely straddles both worlds. An ice cream seller, he enjoys a monopoly over Abricó as the only person willing to get naked to peddle Popsicles to nudists, he said.
“I was a bit nervous at first but then I checked out the other guys and I realized I had nothing to worry about,” he added, chuckling. “My wife nearly broke up with me, but business has been great.”
Write to Samantha Pearson at samantha.pearson@wsj.com
