Naked at Lunch (33 page)

“For me, that was the first time I was, like, really interested in how people clothe themselves. Because you know underneath there was something completely different.”

“What do you mean?”

“One day I was with four women and we were in the changing room and I looked. I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ They wore amazing heels and the most beautiful lingerie. So growing up there I was always fascinated with what was underneath.”

And of course skin is what’s underneath clothing.

“For me, like, less is more. I don’t show a lot. So for me, it’s the opposite again. I play with really sensual fabrics, like really soft fabrics, but I’ll kind of cover the body a lot. For me, it’s like when I see too much skin it kind of repulses me. It doesn’t give me the feeling of sexiness.”

Which is funny because you typically think of clothing that shows a lot of skin as sexy. It reminded me of Italian philosopher Mario Perniola’s theory about the “transit” between being clothed and being naked and believing the erotic urge comes out of that. Wouldn’t a fashion designer want to play with that transit? Wouldn’t you want people wearing your clothes to show some skin?

“I think the new generations are becoming not so comfortable with being naked. And I don’t know, I think it’s kind of sad. You know, I love going to the Korean spa. I think it’s something beautiful when you see a human body that’s all different shapes and forms. It’s not that I need to see it, it just makes you feel more . . . I need the rawness. Whereas I’ll take a lot of friends there and they’re so uncomfortable. It’s interesting to see a generation of women who don’t want to be naked in front of other women. It’s so bizarre for me.” She continued, growing more and more animated. “Women have changed. It’s very interesting. They’re becoming a little bit more uptight.”

Which is something I’ve heard over and over. Kids in high school don’t shower after gym class, people don’t use changing rooms at public pools, people wear swimsuits in the private Jacuzzis at health clubs; no one wants to be naked anymore.

I asked Erica if she had any thoughts about this change in how people interact.

She nodded and flipped a strand of hair behind her ear. “I think there’s so much advertising to be a certain way and I think that’s a big, big problem.”

I had been expecting her to deflect, to say that there were many factors involved in this cultural gymnophobia that’s taking over. Because isn’t that what fashion does? It creates a fear, it makes people afraid to look like they really look so they try to look like some ideal that sprang from a fashion designer’s head. Isn’t that why we’re all neurotic body-obsessed eating-disordered weirdos? Isn’t it all her fault?

Erica shrugged. “To me, seeing bodies is very freeing. If you want to clothe it, you clothe it. And if you want to be open or let it walk around, then that’s what it is. When I’m on a beach, I hate having stuff on. I mean, to come to California and you can’t go topless. It’s crazy.”

********
Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London, England.

Brave Nude World

N
onsexual social nudism has a rich past, one that stretches all the way back to the earliest human civilizations; but with the current state of anti-textileness in flux, what does the future of nudism and naturism look like?

I guess that depends on whom you ask. On his website, Nick Alimonos, a writer and naturist blogger in Florida, takes an upbeat and optimistic approach when he writes, “Someday in the near future, no later than 2040, you will go to the beach and see more than a few people not wearing a bathing suit, or anything else for that matter. People will be able to get their mail in the buff, sunbathe their bare butts in their own backyard or skinny dip in their own pool, without fear of harassment, jail time, or offending anyone except hardcore church goers, who by that time will represent only a fringe minority.”
⁹⁷

How does Alimonos think this change will occur? “Attitudes toward sex and nudity have been skewing left for hundreds of years, and like Moore’s Law
********
of accelerating computer power, these changes are also accelerating. I mention computer power because history has shown, time and again, that the greatest catalyst for change is technology.”

Somehow, through these super-powerful computers or maybe through some new kind of body image–enhancing app, he believes that “by 2100, bathing suits will seem as silly as the beachwear of the 1800’s.”

If you need a reminder, let’s just say that the bathing costumes of the 1800s looked a lot like a prom dress with stockings.

Mark Storey doesn’t take such a techno-optimistic view. He sees it differently. “California is becoming more and more Hispanic, and that’s going to have an impact on cultural values. It’s going to be a struggle for naturism because it just isn’t a part of the Latin American culture.”

I can see his point. Historically, religious groups and groups with more traditional values have been the adversaries of nudists. And the legal system often reflects those values. I wanted to get a broader perspective on the legal challenges nudists are facing nowadays, so I reached out to Bob Morton, chairman and executive director of the Naturist Action Committee, to see what he thought about the current, and future, state of nudism in America.

Morton is a big, burly Texan with a bushy gray beard and a look that indicates he doesn’t suffer fools. He’s got what they call gravitas
.
He is the man the NAC sends to testify to state legislative committees and city councils when it wants to bring some rational thought to the nudism debate. He’s kept busy in his home state, as Texas has enacted “home rule” allowing counties to pass their own laws banning nudism.

I asked Morton if he’d always been a nudist.

He said, “I was born into a family that could never have been called ‘nudist.’ But unlike many other children, I was never indoctrinated to have body shame. As a youngster, I had heard vaguely of people called nudists. Despite my puzzlement that they should be forced to live in ‘colonies,’ my young mind was intrigued.”

True to form for almost every nudist I’ve ever met, it was skinny-dipping that pulled him into the world of nonsexual social nudism. Or, as he said, “While I was in college, I was a regular at a local river bottom that was unofficially clothing optional, although I didn’t know that term then either. It was there that I learned about the social part of social nudity.”

I asked Morton if there were any typical or unifying reasons for the beach closures and nudism bans across the country. He responded, “Common threads exist among the various excuses for closures and bans, though few rise to a level of thoughtfulness that deserves the word ‘reason.’ There’s no advantage to oversimplification, but in many recent instances, the problem has arisen when a public land manager attempts to impose his or her own personal prejudices and biases on the development and administration of policies and the conventions of enforcement. Contrast that to the persistent notion that ‘public pressure’ is responsible for clothing-optional beach closures. In fact, the general public is often on our side. For example, an opinion survey of California adults, commissioned in 2009 by the Naturist Education Foundation and administered by the prestigious Zogby polling organization, determined that 62 percent of Californians believe that the California Department of Parks and Recreation [DPR] should exercise the legal authority it already has to designate clothing-optional areas in state parks. Yet, Tony Perez, the DPR deputy supervisor for operations, decreed an end to clothing-optional areas in parks across the state, claiming there were large numbers of complaints about nudity at San Onofre State Beach, the state park unit he initially targeted for his nudity ban. When legally required to produce those complaints, DPR came up with just
one
. And that single complaint was from a woman who noted that her surprise concerning nudity at the beach could have been avoided if the department had simply put an advisory sign in place.”

Seeing that nudists are stigmatized by society, Morton had an interesting idea about how to keep beaches clothing optional. “Perhaps we need to separate the activity from the labels we attempt to apply to it. Clothing-optional beaches are more popular than ever, but those on the beaches seldom call themselves naturists or nudists. In a 2006 Roper poll commissioned by the Naturist Education Foundation, 74 percent of American adults agreed that people should be able to enjoy skinny-dipping or nude sunbathing on beaches set aside for that purpose, without interference from local authorities.
Seventy-four percent.
We don’t elect presidents with that sort of margin!”

Morton believes that some of the “problems” of nudism are overblown by politicians looking to curry favor. He had a pointed critique of San Francisco’s ban on nudity.

“Anyone who examines the recent restrictions on nudity in San Francisco will recognize it as a power play by an ambitious local politician.” Scott Wiener, Morton argues, “used his position to consolidate personal power, and he has used that power to strong-arm and persuade other local lawmakers.”

But while there’s a disconnect between politicians and the populace here in the United States, that’s not necessarily the case in Europe. In April 2014, local authorities in Munich, Germany, approved six designated “urban naked zones” for nude sunbathing. These nude-friendly enclaves are located in several parks that run along the Isar River, which cuts through the heart of the city. While the naked zones are somewhat secluded, they are still in the middle of the city, not closed off from residents, and not a treacherous goat trail descent away from civilization. It’s an enlightened view, to be sure, and not really surprising when you think of the popularity nudism has had in Germany since Richard Ungewitter wrote his book. I’m more surprised that it took this long.

I asked Morton to compare the new laws in Munich with San Francisco’s ban and he did not hold back. “Scott Wiener is an opportunist, and it’s fair to say that his success was not entirely of his own doing. Too many who were opposed to his heavy-handedness toward public nudity were also opposed to restrictions on lascivious behavior in public places, and that gift allowed Wiener to leverage the issue. Perhaps
die Münchner
on both sides of the matter are less likely to confuse nudity with lewdness. That’s not to suggest, of course, that Germany is immune to ambitious and charismatic would-be leaders who ascend by repressing minorities.”
********

If Morton’s polling numbers are correct, then a solid majority of American citizens believe that skinny-dipping should be allowed in appropriate and designated places. Maybe not in the middle of the city like the urban naked zones in Munich, but somewhere we ought to be able to carve out some land for skinny-dippers. It reminds me of the debate over marijuana legalization. More than half of all Americans want cannabis to be legalized for recreational use and, typically, the politicians are behind the curve. Marijuana laws and public policy toward cannabis are slowly changing, but will public opinion about nudity change? It’s complicated and in so many ways more deeply connected to our own insecurities, our body image issues, and our fears of pleasure and sexuality. We take our nudity personally.

********
Moore’s Law is named after Gordon Moore, one of the founders of Intel, who observed that transistors were getting more powerful at an exponential rate.

********
Yeah. He went there.

Caribbean Nakation

A
naked octogenarian strolled past the omelet station as if coming to breakfast without a stitch of clothing was just how she rolled. In any other situation you might be tempted to think that an Alzheimer’s patient at a fancy nursing home forgot to get dressed for breakfast, but then this wasn’t any other situation, this was the Big Nude Boat, a luxurious cruise ship filled with nudists. Like the cruise director said when we left port, we were welcome to enjoy a carefree environment. But while the little old lady without any clothes might feel carefree, I felt confused. Like I didn’t know what was going on. Maybe it’s because I hadn’t had enough coffee yet.

The naked octogenarian walked back past the omelet station carrying a cup of coffee and a Danish—she was apparently taking her breakfast out by the pool—and the young Indonesian chef making the omelets looked up and couldn’t help herself, she burst out laughing. It was a natural, unguarded reaction and it’s not like the granny cared. She was oblivious to the stares. I laughed too and my wife—whom I had convinced to join me, promising that she didn’t have to be naked in public if she didn’t want to—gave me a nudge with her elbow. “We’ll all look like that someday,” she said.

It’s a buzzkill, for sure, but she was right; we will all grow old and saggy, but I don’t think we’ll all grow old and saggy and strut our old and saggy stuff in the buffet line. And on the lido deck there was a lot of strutting going on, and the crew—predominantly Filipino and Indonesian men and women—needed some time to wrap their heads around what was happening. For them, the atmosphere had shifted. This was not a business-as-usual kind of a cruise. Everywhere you looked there were naked people in places where there weren’t usually naked people. Aside from the lanyard with the key card that dangled from everyone’s neck and the occasional pair of sunglasses or footwear, they were totally clothing free. There were naked people in the library, scattered around the pool, in the mini-mall, in the bars. It was not unusual to get on an elevator and find yourself squeezing in with six or seven or eight totally naked people. I will admit that it caused me moments of disassociation from reality.