The Nude Life

In the 34+ years since I last strapped on a pair of roller skates, a few things have changed. Back in my high school days, when I was on the varsity swimming team, I was a 6-foot, 4-inch mass of sinewy muscle, proably about 4% body fat, and able to bury my fellow high school football player jock friends in endurance, upper-body and leg strength, and pretty much everything else. My friends and I roller skated almost every weekend at some of the many huge new roller rinks that sprouted up around the Chicago area in the early 1970’s, and of course, I was still more than two decades away from discovering nudism.

Today, I’m sorry to report that although I am still 6′ 4″, I am a typical doughy middle-aged white guy, whose chiseled musculature from high school is now just a memory on an atrophied, fleshy bodkin. But, that didn’t keep me and 25 other nudist friends from our first-ever nude roller skating party last night.

We had a blast. Most of us had, like me, not strapped on a pair of skates in at least a couple of decades. And amazingly, none of us made fools of ourselves (other than the very act of skating around in circles for two hours without a stitch of clothing on), and there were very, very few spills and no broken bones, split skulls, or compound fractures.

The rink owner was gracious and accommodating, too. He said it was the first time he’d ever hosted a nudist group in the 30 years he’s owned his rink. His DJ, however, said with a wink that, “unofficially,” there had been a nude skating party there in the past — and it seemed as though he had a set of keys to the place.

Everyone enjoyed the evening, and we are planning to make the nude skating night an annual event for the club. We also snapped some group photos, which we will submit to AANR for publication in The Bulletin in an upcoming issue.

This is the story of Skippy. A now 10-year-old shelter dog who ended up with my husband Steve as a puppy. I met Skippy shortly after meeting and falling in love with Steve. I am now his adoptive mother and have an ongoing love triangle with him and his father (Steve).

I really don’t know sometimes which one I love more (sorry Steve)!Skippy is our ever present companion at camp and Mazo Beach and all who know him have also fallen in love with him. I don’t know if nudists just tend to like animals, but we have found most or all are true animal lovers.

When the sand is hot the volleyball players let us know and we would try to run Skippy down the sand to the water as quickly as possible to avoid burns to his paws. We noticed that the volleyball players, albeit nude, wore socks to keep from burning their feet so we bought some baby socks for Skippy.

The first day Skippy donned his socks everyone on the beach oohed & ahhed and said what great animal parents we were, but we gave all of the credit to the volleyball players and their concern. We have even had people drop off little socks for us to use. What a great bunch of people!

With Skippy getting older we know that the mile trek to the beach may some day get to be too much for him so we have already decided we will get one of those bike trailers that people use for their children to let Skippy ride in style to the beach. Of course, we are getting older too so we may have to get someone to ride all three of us to the beach someday!

- Angie

It wasn’t bad, it was a great time! But we did have to wear clothes…

Angie and I went to Chicago to visit a couple of very good friends. I’ve known him most of my life, her for a long time. Angie has only met them a few times since she met me but has become a part of the ‘family’. Actually, he’s the clergy that married us. For the sake of their privacy let’s call him ‘E’, she ‘MP’.

They aren’t nudists, aren’t interested. Far from prude but not interested. I mean, we were going to go see a cross-dresser revue Friday night but didn’t because I was not feeling well. Not prude folks.

I’d like to think maybe someday, but realistically, it is rare for nudists to convert textiles to the lifestyle. It has to come from within. Now, Angie took the leap from never-having-thought-about-it to a can’t-stand-wearing-clothes-anytime died-in-the-wool nudist in the space of a few minutes. Happens!

In olden days, E and I, plus a lady of mutual acquaintance (his girlfriend, then) shared an apartment and ran around undressed all the time. No biggie. Of course, we were young and life can be quite flexible.

We went our separate ways, aged, and got used to the lives we lived. That’s cool.

Circumstances in my life eventually conspired to allow me to try something I’d been drawn to since, oh, when the doctor first spanked my butt. I was sold. Nudism/naturism is such a part of our lives now that it’s almost a religion. You know how it can be, I’m sure. Like someone who runs 5 miles a day feels deprived if they miss a day. Remember that, E? Yeah.

So, we spent a great weekend with these guys, talked about nudism/naturism a bit, but they’re far from sold. Like E said, “See these Jockey shorts? What difference can 3 ounces of fabric here or not here make?”

All I could say is, try it and if you still can’t tell the difference, don’t try it again.

Ahh, I hate to see those I love so hampered by ideas that have been sold to them by others that don’t have a clue as to what they are teaching. A natural state of being has been turned into an un-natural one.

How is it that someone raised in a conservative Republican family becomes a Democrat later in life? Or vice-versa? Through growth and experience and the willingness to try to understand new ideas, that’s how. It’s a shame that textiles can’t apply those same life-learning lessons to considering that our lifestyle might have some merit. Maybe something for them, maybe not. They’ll die without knowing if they won’t try. That was the position I found myself in, I tried it. It changed my life. I may live a long time, or a short time. Either way, that time is immeasurably better now.

The thing is, I know and love E and MP and are confident that they would love social nudity. They are very intelligent, involved in social issues, reject a lot of the bull which is thrown our way, yet have a blind spot here. Missing out on a new joy in life they could share, because it is so hard to shed the false impressions we have been raised with. They have a link to this site, may check it out, and may learn something that gives them food for thought. Maybe they’ll explore further (probably run across ‘nudist’ sites that are shills for porn) and see that a LOT of folks have something good to say. Those ‘nudist’ porn sites don’t help the image at all. Unfortunately, they get the most exposure (no pun intended) and the most hits. And folks believe that’s what it’s all about, when it couldn’t be further from the truth.

E and MP, I hope you understand what I’m saying here and are not offended. None intended. Thanks for the great weekend, maybe you’ll spend a weekend at the beach with us this summer!

Like John Lennon said, “…maybe someday you will join us…”

- Steve

After being nudists for over a decade, and living the nude life at home and with friends in an active nudist club for all of those years, it seems that one’s perception of what is ‘normal’ takes a dramatic twist.

For example, how many times have you been greeted warmly by a smiling nude woman, with a sincere hug and “air kiss,” the moment after walking into her house? When is the last time you stood inches away from a half-dozen naked folks of all ages, shapes and sizes, yakking away while you yourself and all of them are just as naked as can be, and having a great time with no sense of self-consciousness or discomfort? How much time do you spend sitting among a group of nude folks in a bubbly hot tub, with steam and warm water invigorating a chilly winter night, with no thought at all that anything is the slightest bit out of the ordinary? Have you spent a night playing BINGO at a nudist resort in a room filled with 100 other folks who couldn’t care less what you are or aren’t wearing? Have you stood in front of 1,200 strangers on the stage of a cruise ship, nude, performing in the passenger talent show during a nude cruise — and had a standing ovation?

Each of those situations, and many, many more, are part and parcel of the nude life for us, and have been for a long time. All our best friends are folks we see most often when they have not a stitch on, and we’re just as comfortable and at ease with them and with ourselves when we’re all nude as any other group of good friends would be sitting at a TGI Friday’s fully dressed.

Is this ‘normal?’

Is it sensible / rational / acceptable for adults to accept others as friends / fellow humans in their natural state, without the contrivances and artificiality that textiles confer upon us when we’re dressed?

Those of us who live and love the nude life would argue strongly that it is — if not “normal” in the common sense of the word — that it is something that humans are very adaptable to, and in fact, are more suited toward.

Standing among a group of good friends and discussing matters great and small, nude, is something that is very intoxicating about the nude life. Relaxing in summer’s heat in Nature’s own couture among your fellow skinnydippers, or spending a cool evening in a warm a steamy hot tub with a group of other carefree nudist friends — all of these are experiences that have become second-nature to us after all these years and which we would not like to live without in the future.

Well, we’ll soon be able to scratch another nude “to-do” off our list: nude roller skating!

Here in the depths of dreary winter, our club goes to great lengths to find fun things to do until summer beckons us back outdoors with her warmth and light. We use just about any excuse we can think of to hold indoor nude parties during the cooler months, including all the major and minor holidays: Mardi Gras, SuperBowl, Holiday, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Halloween and many others.

We also are constantly on the lookout for places we can rent out for a night for our exclusive use, and that has led us to some great events in the past. A nude New Year’s Eve in a rented party barn with a live DJ, disco ball and a huge pot-luck feast, for example, and even nude WhirlyBall — which you have to see to believe.

And now, we will soon be able to add to our list of kookie things we’ve done nude a night of nude roller skating. Our club has rented out a local roller rink for a Sunday night in early March, and we’re hoping for a big turnout from our own members as well as members of other clubs in the area.

It will certainly be the first time many, many of us have been up on skates in several decades (if not more) — nude or clothed! But it just sounds like too much fun to pass up, and besides, spending a chilly March night with our nudist friends is always better than the alternative, even when it doesn’t involve the likelihood of serious injury!