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07 February 2006
Inspired by this classicFray thread, where have you been naked? I figure well get interesting answers out of this bunch.
A 33-degree snow-melt stream in the Grand Tetons (I nearly passed out from that, jumping in very hot from hiking and superchilling my poor self). In the dunes in Provincetown. In many Pine Barrens rivers, skinny dipping. In the passenger seat of a tiny yellow Renault, being driven from a Connecticut lakeshore (skinny dipping again)through town to a house. And in an inipi (Lakota sweat lodge) many times.
Until I thought about this question, I never realized that skinny dipping had been such a big part of my life.
Camping, often, with friends and alone. In college I tromped around my neighborhood naked save for my combat boots; it was in the wee hours of the morning, I had been up all night, and I can only say I'm glad I didn't get arrested. Not much you can say in that situation.
Ummm, some public nudity in a few city parks, not solo though.
I've been naked a lot I guess. I used to get naked at parties all the time. Ahh youth!
Naked Parties? Where was I while this kind of stuff was happening, smoking a joint behind the dumpster?
Actually I missed out on the skinny dipping stuff since I'm not much of a beach guy-too skinny, too pale. And my college experiences were atypical and I flunked out, so I missed all the fun there, too, I guess. *sigh*
My "friends" knew that once inebriated I would get naked for just about anything. So they'd typically offer to buy me an LP if I took my clothes off and ran around, during which they would hide my clothes. Quite hilarious.
(reading threads like these are fun for all the obvious reasons, but they also make me realize that my post-dropout summer spent working nights probably shaped my worldview more than anything)
Nudity of any kind is a sin that can only be expunged from the soul after a thousand millenia of flensing, flaying and scourging at the hands of sulpher demons in a lake of hellfire. Bathe fully clothed or spend eternity buried head down in a frozen ocean of ordure!
Another nudie. Strip Jeopardy in a public restaurant. Oregon coast beach (not designated as nude, but not too many people). Redwood forest. Skinny dipping whenever I get the chance. I spend a lot of time at home naked.
I'm not a big naked person... Several nude beaches in Greece and a few private swimming pools in the U.S. That's about it (well, since I've been an adult, anyway).
Apparently I am an uptight square. Apart from one hot spring soak in the middle of a deserted valley in the Sierra, I cannot think of a time I have ever been naked in public.
I'm kind of like Triode in that regard. My public nudity is limited to Asian-style bathhouses (for soaking, not sexing) and one sweat lodge on the Green Tortoise land along the Seattle-San Francisco run.
I used to work with a Native American chick, who told me she occasionaly went to a sweat lodge. I said it sounded interesting. She said it was if you liked sitting around with naked octogenarians. She was later fired smoking crack.
I like "fired smoking crack" better, jonmc, for the sense of immediacy it lends. It's like her boss walked by her cubicle and saw her cooking base and was like, "What are you doing?" and she was like, "I've never seen one of these, how do you use it? Hffffphfffffft!" and she's holding it in and the boss is like, "You're fired!" and she's like, "Bitch set me up! Bitch set me up!"
The last sweat lodge I went to I got insulted by one of the hippies who felt that my less than pure sweat (I smoke and drink, so shoot me) was messing up the beautiful karma of the lodge. Creep. Actually I don't like them much, or hot tubs for that matter: I start getting dizzy and freaked out when I'm too hot.
However this leads me to an anecdote. My ex & his stepfather built a crazy log cabin in WV with no power tools - his mom & stepdad lived there for years. No electric, no running water, you know, back to the land, but a really cool stone sauna built in, stained glass, carved wood, art, etc. One time a whole bunch of us were staying there and decided to do a sauna. I'm in there with another naked woman on opposite benches and as I look over at her I realized there was a huge black snake uncoiling under her bench. Just as I go to say, pull your legs up very gently she looks at me and says, Felicity, there's a giant snake underneath you. There were about seven snakes in the sauna, so we ran naked and screaming outside, which led to jokes about the nekkid women and the snakes that have never yet died down, and this was about 12 years ago.
You guys' nakedness was far more interesting than mine. I've come to the inevitable conclusion that I am an utterly lost utter loser. But I'm cool with that.
I've never been naked in public and don't see it ever happening. I hate my body and would never inflict it on anyone. Well, except for the mister but he's obligated since we're married.
I'm with the less-inclined-to-be-naked-in-public people. While I sleep nude, I can only remember one time anyone but my sig. other saw me naked and that was at a sauna in The Netherlands.
Well, I'm naked in the locker room all the time, so there are about twenty girls out there who know how I look undressed better than how I look dressed. Lucky for all of us, we're pretty fine.
Other than that, the standard skinny-dipping, &c. I was once stopped by police on Mason's Island (off Mystic, Conn.) in nothing but a towel. They asked if we had ID and I began laughing so hard I couldn't stop for like five minutes.
I would probably be naked more often if I wasn't worried about making other people uncomfortable. I think I look hot, and I am comfy being naked, so there isn't much to stop me.
I dunno speck. I don't think I want to get to the point where seeing naked flesh isn't a big thrill. Hell, if I catch a glipse of cleavage (any cleavage, literally) on the subway, it makes my fuckin' day.
2005 was a pretty naked year for me. A couple skinny dips in Lake Michigan, some "Oh crap I'm late" on-field changing for football, plus I tend to drop trou the second I get home, come summertime. I just don't like pants.
I used to have a sleepwalking problem, so I've woken up naked in nearly every room of every house I've lived in for the last 10 years. It's pretty disconcerting to go to sleep fully clothed in your bedroom and wake up naked on the living room couch.
I make it a point to not be naked outside, since the world most certainly does not need to see more pale nerd flesh.
I wasn't okay with my body until after turning 30 (and now I think it's just fine, thank you), and have always been shy, so that has always ruled out the public nudity thing.
Plus, there's what dame said:
Well, I'm naked in the locker room all the time, so there are about twenty girls out there who know how I look undressed better than how I look dressed. Lucky for all of us, we're pretty fine.
See? There's the exact origin of my hesitation to be naked or to be around naked people. Growing up gay in a small Baptist town in Texas, even though you don't understand the whole thing, you know you're not supposed to get caught looking at the other 5th grade girls in the locker room. Some sort of built-in chivalry or guilt or fear of getting stomped was ingrained in me at a very early age.
Well, the "naked in the woods," I mentioned above? I was alone. and 14. I'm weird. And in high school and college the people who would've done cool sex and nudity stuff didn't like me. The people who did like me were mainly into booze, drugs and pointless stupidity. I'm not sure whether to feel cheated or grateful.
Well, I wouldn't presume to speak for pup, but I guess she's saying that as a straight girl raised in a fairly enlightened enviornment, you didn't have the strictures put upon nudity and looking at others of your same gender nude. When you do it, you're just another girl checking out another girl like a painting or a piece of furniture. For her, (esp. ina gay-hostile eviornment) she's internalized fears of being seen as a threat or weird. Just a theory.
Yeah, dame, jon pegged it. I meant no insult/criticism of you -- just pointing out that you're comfortable in that it's great that you're comfortable in that environment, as well as the reasons why I'm not.
Kids these days seem to have the whole sexploration thing a little easier than our generation did, at least in urban and suburban areas. In my day, any non-het tendencies were suspect, at least publicly, so you kept quiet. These days it seems to be taken for granted.
(no apologies necessary, pup. we're among friends here)
photo by splunge
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