The Nude Life

We see our nudist friends nearly every weekend, all year long. Our local nudist club has something on the calendar almost every Saturday, and we try to make it to as many of the club parties as we can, so we wind up spending many sunny Saturdays with our friends in the club, relaxing and enjoying life as it was meant to be lived: nude and free in the glorious Texas sunshine.

Since, by the time we greet them as they arrive poolside at each week’s party, they are already nude and heading into the pool or sun to join us, we rarely see many of them dressed. In fact, we have gone for years with some of our most active friends in the club without ever seeing them dressed for more than a few minutes. Contrast that to the hours and hours we spend with them all in the altogether, and it soon becomes downright “weird” in a funny way, to see them dressed.

There’s somewhat of a running joke in our club when we do catch sight of some members coming or going from a party fully dressed, along the lines of, “Who’s that funny-looking guy/gal over there? The face seems familiar, but the body is just all wrong!”

That just shows how easy it is for nudity to become the norm, and how simple it seems for avid nudists to become so totally comfortable with being nude all the time and especially when together with our nudist friends, that being clothed seems odd and out-of-place.

What unexpected shifts-in-perception have you found during your nudist experiences? Share your story or read the comments of others in The Nude Life Forum!

So many people wait — years, quite often — before giving nudism a try, that when they finally do ‘take the plunge,’ their usual reaction is that it is so pleasurable, so natural and so not-a-big-deal that they wonder why on earth they ever waited so long.

We have heard exactly that from many, many nudist friends. They spent months, years, even decades thinking up reasons why they shouldn’t / couldn’t / can’t / won’t give the nude life a try — and then they found out, only much later than they should have, how much fun and freedom they have been missing.

Really, what’s the worst that could happen by giving the nude life a try? If you make your first experience at a local nudist resort or nude beach, the people you meet there will be friendly and easy-going, and just like you, they also, at one time, had to make the first big decision to take off their clothes ‘in public.’ Yet they made it, and are much happier for it, and will be there to ease your introduction into the nude life — much the same way others probably helped them when they were in the same situation. In all likelihood, you will have a wonderful time and will regret the moment when you have to get dressed again and go back to the textile world.

And if by some incredible chance, you don’t love the liberation and fun that comes from running around in the costume Nature gave you, look at it this way: you won’t see any of those people ever again! And even if you did, by some weird coincidence, they most likely won’t remember you
and most certainly won’t recognize you with your clothes on!

So there’s really very, very little actual risk to giving the nude life a try. You have a whole world of new, nude experiences awaiting you if you try it and like it (which nearly everyone does), and if you’re the one person in a million or so who doesn’t love it, what have you really lost? Nothing. But at least you’ll know.

Did you put off trying the nude life longer than you should have? Are you yet to give it a try? Discuss your experiences in The Nude Life Forum!

K. Bacher’s excellent and extensive 205 Arguments for Naturism (204k PDF file) is a must-read for anyone starting out in the nude life, wondering about it, or trying to get participation by their spouse / spice / significant other. I would give more complete credit to the author if I knew it; please write me if you know more about the original source.

With all of those arguments for the nude life and acceptance of simple nudity, it’s a wonder more people don’t discover nudism. After all, aren’t most folks nude at least a few minutes every day during their morning bath or shower? Why don’t more of them just extend their nudity a few more minutes — or hours! — and luxuriate in the freedom and comfort that even private in-home nudism brings?

It’s often said that nudism is the one pastime that every person on the earth is equally qualified to participate in — and with exceptions for unfortunate persons such as convicts and those in other restrictive or repressive societies, it seems true enough. Certainly so to the extent that every person alive was born nude, and thus had at least a brief exposure to the natural state of being.

Read over the 205 Arguments document if you haven’t before, and then add your own comments / observations on the subject in The Nude Life Forum!

A colleague at work was recounting a cruise they recently completed — a two-week Alaska itinerary as part of a ship repositioning for the winter months. They went on and on about how much better this cruise was than any other they had taken, because for the year prior to the cruise, they had ‘met’ other shipmates via Internet bulletin boards, and so by the time the embarked, they already felt like they had a dozen or more ‘friends’ on board with them.

She regaled us with tales of all the fun they had together with their new-found friends, who had been introduced to each other only online prior to boarding, but who felt like “old chums” since they had been in touch with each other for many months in advance. They had a ball, she told us, enjoying cocktail parties, shore excursions, dinner parties and more together — even a semi-risqué “pajama party” one night.

It was all we could do to appear envious. “Welcome to our world,” we thought. If she only knew…

In fact, she has no idea what we’re used to from our 10 nude cruise vacations. Each one seems better than the one before, because in fact many hundreds of the same friendly, fun-loving people are on the nude cruises year after year, and so we have literally spent weeks and weeks at sea with many of our nude cruising shipmates. Soon after embarking (or even while standing in the terminal house before embarkation), faces from cruises past are recognized and names and warm welcomes are exchanged…hugs aren’t hard to come by, either. We have spent so many wonderful times with so many of those nudist cruisers over the years that it really is like cruising with a shipload of your best friends.

My 10-part blog about our latest nude cruise in February of this year is online here (scroll to the middle of the listing for February, 2007) — and here’s one of our group photos from that cruise, taken at the bow of the ship with a few hundred of our nude cruising friends.

It really is true that once you try a nude cruise, you’ll never go back to textile cruises if you can help it. Literally everything is better about nude cruises. More on this subject in future posts — but for now, we’re glad our work friend got a taste of some of the fun that nudism brings to cruising — without even knowing it — and perhaps, if she’s lucky, someday she’ll know the full story!

Do you have a story about how nude recreation or the nude life has changed your perception of how the “other folks” live? Share it in The Nude Life Forum!

Among the many obvious and not-so obvious benefits of the nude life is that nudity makes most everyday chores much less bothersome and certainly much more comfortable. Projects around the house and yard, from vacuuming and tidying up to weeding, painting, cleaning and small-scale construction projects, are all much less burdensome without the bother of clingy, sweat-soaked clothes getting in the way.

Having the freedom of spending the past six years as a nude telecommuter, and thus enjoying most days nude while at work here at home, and much of the rest of the day and night as well year-round, I’ve managed to accomplish the full range of home chores nude. From arranging and cleaning the home office to attending long, boring conference calls, to everyday work, research and reading, it’s all done more comfortably and more enjoyably nude. My office window faces east to the the strett outside, so I have a clear view from the second floor to any delivery trucks or door-to-door solicitors, and nice bright sunlight for all of the morning hours year-round. By noontime, the east side of the house is in shade and so the even illumination through the window balances out the otherwise ordinary fluorescent lights and computer displays of the office interior.

Household chores are performed nude whenever possible, which is most of the time. Cleaning the house is almost not a chore at all when it is done wearing the most comfortable uniform of all. Assembling furniture, painting and re-painting rooms, vacuuming and washing, and household repairs and maintenance all seem less of a job as well when the freedom of being nude is part of the assignment.

Very close to 100% of the outdoor chores in our backyard pool area are done without the bother of clothing. Routine pool maintenance, washing and maintaining the outdoor furniture and pool equipment, raking and shredding leaves in the fall, as well as more substantial projects like fence power-washing, sealcoating and repairs have all been completed without wearing a stitch, which now seems to be so natural and normal that I doubt I’d ever want to take on any of them again if they had to be done clothed.

Nudity brings pleasure to everyday life in unexpected ways, and in cases like those above, actually adds to what would otherwise be unpleasant.