Absence of beach nudity

This is a subject that's been raised on this message board before, far down in the "Things you learned from watching The Beach" thread, but I think it deserves a thread of its own.

The main reason I couldn't get mentally involved in the drama of this movie, which I saw in a theater when it first came out, is that the drama's fundamental premise, namely that the beach of the title is a tremendously attractive hedonistic paradise, is largely negated by the characters' wearing full American-style swimwear at all times. No full nudity, no partial nudity such as female toplessness, not even any pseudo-nudity such as thongs. The idea that a group of nonconformist types, many of them European, who've thrown all the cares of the conventional world away would use a secluded beach in that manner is just too preposterous for words. I realize part of the point of the story is that deep down the members and leaders of the community aren't all as free-spirited and accepting as you might assume them to be; but the universal wearing of full American-style swimwear largely eliminates even a surface appearance of hedonism. It casts doubt on whether the community is one that'd be worth anyone's taking a significant amount of trouble to escape to and join.

Of course I understand that the movie probably couldn't've been made in anything like the form it was made in if the screen had been almost constantly filled with unclothed actors and extras. It probably would've gotten an NC-17 rating in the United States, and similar ratings in many other countries, making it impossible for many of Leo's teenage-girl fans to go see it, giving even some adults pause about seeing it, and making some theater chains and owners reluctant to program it. I think the only artistically honest solution would've been to do it as a minor low-budget production, like Summer Lovers but with more nudity, or as a French or German production, like L'année des méduses (The Year of the Jellyfish) but with more nudity.