The Nude Life

Since joining and being active in our local nudist club, we’ve made more friends among them than we ever made outside of nudist ‘circles.’ It is very true that it’s easier to make friends out of nudists than make nudists out of friends, as one of our (nudist) friends often remarks. And since we spend so much of our leisure time, especially during the long summer, relaxing and partying with our nudist club friends, we feel that our best and closest friends are all nudists.

So when we are chatting with our non-nudist friends (all of whom have no idea of our other, ’secret life’ of nudism), they are always astonished by both the vitality other activities we are always busy doing (pool parties, vacation trips, out-of-town outings to visit friends, etc.), as well as with the number of friends we refer to in conversation. It was quite evident, for example, that our non-nudist friends and co-workers were astonished when we said we were going on a group trip to Cancun with 20 other friends…they simply cannot imagine how people can have so many good friends and feel so comfortable with them to spend a week’s vacation together with them.

Friendships among nudists are true, deep and genuine, I think, because as nudists, we see all of each other, with all our blemishes and imperfections, and relate to each other as people, not because of social status, possessions, and other outward materialistic markings. Being nude together with others in a purely social setting is really a great equalizer, and has brought us (and everyone we know who has tried it) many great friendships because of the barriers and artificiality that disappear when we see ourselves and each other in the natural state.

How has being a nudist changed your circle of friends — and what effect has your nudist participation had on your non-nudist social life? Discuss it in The Nude Life Forum!

Yesterday’s post about the nude workweek made reference to the lowered laundry load that remaining unclad for most of the week affords. And although our laundry for the week is significantly less when we spend most of our time nude than when weather or other factors require more frequent textile use, we do wind up with a lot of towels around the house that need laundering each week.

Towels, of course, are the one thing a nudist needs with them at all times. Sitting on your own towel is one of the few “hard-and-fast” rules of proper nudist etiquette. Indeed, it’s one of the few things that newcomers to the nude life have to remind themselves of before it becomes second-nature. And during the warm and clothes-free summer months here at our house, we do seem to go through a lot of towels.

Our practice is to “stage” our own towels on the chairs and couches we favor, so that I have a towel always in place in the chairs and the section of the sofa I regularly use; my wife does the same. Before long, we have a half-dozen large beach towels spread around the house. And we use those towels day after day for most of a week, since they remain very clean thanks to proper personal hygiene.

Yet we wind up with a pretty full load of towels in the wash each week. Does the amount of laundry we eliminate by living nude wind up being offset by an equal or larger amount of towels to be laundered? It would be an interesting experiment to run if such an exact measure can be made of it.

But it’s at least worth considering that the number of beach towels used by a practicing nudist might be in the same neighborhood of square footage of textiles as the clothes they would wind up wearing if they didn’t spend most of their time nude.

North Texas is enjoying the warm weather we are used to having in June and July here in early October. What that means for telecommuting nudists and those of us with home-based jobs is that we can look forward to more warm days of clothesfree life, both working and relaxing nude throughout the day.

Spending a quiet afternoon Sunday outdoors around and in the swimming pool was refreshing and delightful for both of us, even though the pool water was a little too chilly for swimming for one of us, with the warm sun tickling the skin under crystal-blue skies. The evening time indoors was also spent nude, just relaxing and watching a DVD movie. Sleeping nude goes without saying, and the only interruption to the day’s clothesfreedom is the minute that it takes to wrap a pareo around the waist long enough to retrieve the newspaper from the front walk.

Aside from a quick couple of errands out of the house at lunchtime, the “workday” here on the first of October will be spent in the most comfortable way possible — lightening the load both on the psyche (of having to go to “work”) and on the laundry basket.

In all, we expect to earn a living this week in blissful nudity, helping keep the air conditioning bill lower and making every moment of each workday more enjoyable and less stressful.

Do you have the luxury of working nude, from home or elsewhere? Share your experiences in the brand-new Nude Life Forum.