The Nude Life

Our local nudist club has themed parties and events throughout the year, with nearly every weekend offering another opportunity for nude relaxation and fun with lots of great nudist friends. During the cooler winter months when necessity forces us indoors for the season, we often schedule themed parties that have a potential for “costume nudity” where we can add to the fun by “dressing up” to fit the theme of the party. Halloween is the obvious example, but we also have themed parties for Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Christmas, and several others, where quite a few folks go out of their way to put on more (or more often, quite a bit less!) of a costume to fit the theme.

As has been mentioned earlier, nobody knows how to dress up more than nudists. But even at our annual Halloween “Un-Costume” party, which features some of the most inventive and hilarious Halloween costumes you can imagine, several attendees decided not to bother with any costume at all, and simply enjoyed the evening nude. Nude is always in fashion and always acceptable at our club’s parties, and dispensing with a costume no matter what the theme of the party is an excellent — and often-employed — option.

It is such a pleasure to not have to worry about not only what to wear, but that you needn’t wear anything at all to be perfectly in style among your fellow nudists. Non-nudists will never know the sublime comfort that comes from simply disrobing and being among friends, nude and unashamed, enjoying life and friendship without the pretension and complications and artificiality that is part of the textile world.

Nude is always an option among nudists. We found the same thing on all of the many great nude cruises we have enjoyed over the years. We’d spend the evenings at sea enjoying the ship, the casino, the shows in the show lounge, the cocktail lounges and dance clubs, in whatever state of dress or undress suited our mood — with hundreds of other nude cruisers alongside us — and no one paying the slightest mind to what, if anything, anyone was wearing. Naturally, nude was always in style aboard the nude cruises, and we along many of our shipmates took full advantage of that luxury by being nude as much as possible during the cruise.

This weekend offers another themed party in our club, and we are probably going to go “the nude route” this time since we haven’t had the time to gather and organize a proper “costume” for the theme. We expect to have a wonderful time — and that all of our fellow guests will quickly join us by ditching their costumes as the party goes on. Although nude is always an option at the start of the party, we’ve yet to attend one where everyone didn’t wind up nude by the end of the party! That is, after all, the one great advantage of attending a nudist party!

What’s your preference for a nudist party with friends? Nude, costumed or clothed? Discuss and share your experiences with other nudists from around the world in The Nude Life Forum!

The average working stiff slaves away for months at a time, eagerly awaiting those precious few days of vacation that are so eagerly anticipated. For us, the vast majority of those vacation weeks over the past 14 years (since we ‘officially’ became nudists) have been spent on nude vacations. Looking back over the years, it’s easier now to count up the non-nude vacations we’ve had in that time — they have indeed been the exception and not the rule.

Each of those weeks or days of nude vacationing were special, each one memorable, each one the ‘trip of a lifetime,’ as we have often said to ourselves during each of them. We have been very fortunate to have had so many wonderful experiences on so many nude vacations, and now it’s always our first thought when planning a getaway: can we go somewhere nude?

And what strikes us during each one, is that there are a few moments or a few hours that are so exquisite, so luxurious, so memorable, that they are the highlight of the trip and comprise the single most vibrant memory we’ll cherish of that particular journey:

• Dangling our feet in the surf at Half Moon Cay while enjoying that spectacular private island nude with our 1,200 shipmates on the M/S Maasdam
• Dancing and partying on the nude catamaran ‘booze cruise’ during a spectacular sunset in Cozumel
• SCUBA diving nude for a week in the sparkling Bahamas during a chartered “Buff Divers” group trip on a liveaboard dive ship
• Playing volleyball nude on deck with a dozen other happy nudists while at sea during a nude cruise, with the endless blue Caribbean all around

All of those and so many more incredible moments are the moments that make a whole year’s work worth the trouble, to be able to enjoy such freedom in beautiful surroundings and with lots of other fun-loving folks.

There really is nothing else like it.

Read the full 10-part report from the 1,200 passenger nude cruise on the M/S Maasdam in February, 2007 — and share your nude vacation memories — in The Nude Life Forum.

This story on today’s All Things Considered from NPR news struck a chord when I heard it. One of the women quoted in the story about women motorcycle enthusiasts said, “You just get addicted to it.” Another said, “Whoever thought that after 50 you could have a totally different life — a lifestyle?” And the reporter offered the most relavant quote: “The ladies of Harley say they ride because of the sense of freedom and independence they feel on a bike.”

Substitute social nudism for motorcycles, and women of Harley with most of the women nudists we’ve met, and the story would be the same.Nudism brings a freedom, an independence, a self-confidence, a camaraderie not unlike what many people find in motorcycle clubs — but nudism doesn’t require a $10,000 machine or special leather clothing to start enjoying the benefits. No need to dress exactly like everyone else on a Harley, either — all those “rugged individualists” all seem to favor dressing exactly alike in the same black t-shirts, blue jeans and red bandannas.

I love motorcycling and rode a motorcycle for many years. The feeling of freedom they offer is wonderful. But it’s nothing to compare to the simple, perfect pleasure of nudism. And there’s a lot less maintenance required when all you have to do to enjoy it is remove your clothes.

What are your thoughts on the similarities or differences between nudism and motorcycling, or other “freedom” hobbies? Discuss and learn 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!