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Fewer Spanish women are going to the beach topless over fresh fears of unwanted images being taken and spread online, new research suggests.

A YouGov survey last year found that 37 per cent of Spanish women said they often sunbathed topless, 13 per cent did so occasionally, 9 per cent had done it only once or twice, while 40 per cent said they never did.

That represents a drop from an Ifop survey in 2017, when Spain topped eight countries surveyed, as 49 per cent of women said they went topless regularly or occasionally.

The drop comes as a surprise for several Spaniards, with toplessness and nudity on the country's beaches being generally viewed as a normal practice and an act of self expression.

However, a recent report by Spanish newspaper El Pais suggests the reason for this decline is because women feel less safe going topless.

One of the study's respondents, Maria, 44, said: 'It's a vicious circle. There are fewer women doing it because they feel less safe, and when others see fewer women doing it, they feel less inclined to do it themselves.'

While the Spanish interior ministry says there is no evidence of a widespread problem on beaches, El Pais received dozens of accounts from women who said they had been photographed while sunbathing between 2008 and 2025, with pictures later being shared online or among friends.

Experts say the phenomenon of 'sex-spreading' - the non-consensual sharing of sexual images on the internet - has become an increasing concern in recent years.

Less Spanish women are going to the beach topless over fresh fears of unwanted images being taken and spread online

Sociologist Silvia Semenzin agrees with the idea that women feel more unsafe than they did in the 80s, when public decency laws were first abolished in Spain.

'Back then, going topless was seen as an act of rebellion and sexual freedom,' she says.

'Today you have no control over your body, the gaze doesn't stay on the beach, and that sexual freedom doesn't go hand in hand with the security that the internet doesn't offer us.'

Participant Monica, 58, said she no longer takes off her top at the beach.

'At most, I'll wear a towel, but I don't walk around or go swimming topless. My friends don't either. Times have changed, and there's an awareness of the dangers of social media,' she says.

However, women interviewed also described feeling more self-conscious due to unrealistic beauty standards, with participants saying they increasingly encounter judgemental stares.

One young participant said: 'I don't think men or the photos they might take of our breasts have anything to do with it. I think it's something we've imposed on ourselves because we're generally ashamed of our bodies.'

In Spain, toplessness and even nudity on beaches has been a common occurrence for several decades, with the act being legally protected and culturally viewed as a non-sexual, natural expression of personal freedom.

Following the end of Francisco Franco's conservative dictatorship in 1975, Spain underwent a period of rapid social liberation.

During this transitional period, public decency laws were abolished, making both toplessness and full nudity entirely legal on all public beaches