It isn’t easy being a nudist these days—with the algorithm associating all nudity, innocent or otherwise, with porn—and living the lifestyle can be daunting when it comes to friends and family. Few of us are lucky enough to live in a clothing-optional home, and many people I see on Reddit lament having to hide their way of life, or the lifestyle they wish they could have, from parents, friends, and spouses.
I spent much of my childhood, from 12 years and up, afraid I would be locked up in an asylum for stripping down to my skin whenever the family went away. I didn’t know nudism was even a thing. Google hadn’t been invented yet, and the best I could do was look up the word in the phone book and the microfiche machine at our public library. Today, at least, young people can discuss their proclivities with like-minded nudies online. There’s also the extremely rare opposite end of the spectrum—families where casual nudity isn’t just accepted but entirely normal. This is the kind of family I wish I’d been raised in. It would have saved me from a lot of confusion and anxiety, never having to worry about who was coming home and when, never having to worry about my mental health, and never having to bother with all those stuffy pajamas. But I was fortunate to have been left on my own quite a bit, and years later, when I finally came out to my family, most everyone was accepting. I’ve been naked around my sisters, cousins, and friends, and it never ceased to surprise me how quickly they became accustomed to the sight of me, penis, balls, and all. Most kids, however, are not so lucky. They fret over telling their parents, and lock themselves in their rooms to doff their underwear. They dream of a day they can be free, but that day never manifests.
Of course, some people discover nudism later in life. While I’ve hated wearing clothes since I was a kid, many Redditors admit to visiting a nude beach in their thirties or forties only to realize, “This is great! Why haven’t I tried this before?” However it happens, it’s right around middle age when wannabe nudies encounter their biggest obstacle, that obstacle being their spouses. For people like myself, this can be especially heartbreaking—dreaming of the nude life only to realize your wife or husband finds it abhorrent. For those of us coming late to the party, this can be even worse. Women, especially, find it suspicious when their husbands suddenly “discover” an interest in hanging out naked with naked women. I predicted this possibility when I met my wife, so I made sure to confide in her before things got too serious. Her openness and her free-spiritedness amazed me. But had she been dead set against it, I can’t say whether I would have continued the relationship.
This got me thinking about the differing relationships people have in the community, and the varying attitudes spouses hold toward nudity and nudism. So I made a list, based on the nudist couples I’ve met over the years and the stories I’ve read on Reddit.
- The Moral Objector: If you are married to someone like this, your best bet is to quit the lifestyle altogether or find another spouse. For this type, nudity is for showering and sex ONLY. Public nudity is morally repugnant and often a challenge to their religious beliefs. They complain about the prevalence of skin on TV and movies, fear their kids might “see that,” are clueless in regard to Renaissance art in museums, and advocate for the banning of books. They even object to you walking freely about in the privacy of your bedroom.
- The Private Spouse: Nudity is OK for movies and TV, and they might even enjoy the occasional painting by Frazetta or Michelangelo, but that’s as far as it goes. For them, exposing your body is akin to sex — a private thing to be shared between two loving people and nobody else.
- The Adventurous Spouse: Getting naked can be fun! This type enjoys showering together and traipsing around the bedroom in skimpy attire or nothing at all, but it’s all about SEX. For them, visiting a clothing-optional venue has to be a sex thing, because what else is the point? Like the Private Spouse, exposing oneself to anyone but a doctor is tantamount to cheating.
- The Embarrassed Spouse: This type is open-minded and accepting of the lifestyle, believing people should be free to do whatever makes them happy. They don’t mind your visiting a nude beach or resort, except they’ll never join you. This is more often a confidence issue. They either hate their body or can’t get over feelings of shame they developed from early childhood.
- The Vacation-Only Spouse: For this type, vacation is a magical time when social taboos go out the window. Maybe they feel more comfortable where no one will know them. But whatever the reason, here they feel daring enough to slip out of their bathing suits. At home, however, clothing becomes mandatory. More importantly, nudist activity must be kept hidden from the family, especially around the kids.
- The Accepting Spouse: This is where I am with my wife. She has no trouble visiting resorts, is shameless around other nudists, and is happy to let me be as I am 24/7, even around the family. And yet she’ll never call herself a nudist. She simply prefers pajamas over bare skin and would rather not advertise what we do to the world.
- The Companion: This is the best arrangement a nudist can ask for. This type loves nudity as much as you do, preferring not to wear a stitch unless society demands it or it’s cold out. They embrace the nudist label and are excited to make clothing-optional vacation plans with you. This is where I’m at currently.
- The Advocate: This type believes the world is better off without clothes. They love to tell friends and family about their lifestyle, raise their kids as nudists, and might even refuse to put on clothes when guests come over. They join nudist clubs and resorts, subscribe to nudist magazines, and they might even buy a house at a place like Lake Como or La Jenny.
- The Naked and Proud/*The Unicorn: For women, this is the rarest of the rare. If this person could live 24/7 without clothes, they would. Shame is an emotion they simply do not possess. They post shameless selfies and videos of themselves online, and are comfortable enough in nothing but their skin to remain undressed even when everyone else is clothed. So long as it’s legal, they’ll wander the streets in the buff, participating in free body events like the World Naked Bike Ride. These are among my Heroes of Naturism. Hector Martinez, nudist club founder in Mexico, is maybe the luckiest and most brazen guy I know, sharing full-frontal videos of himself with his unicorn girlfriend on Patreon. This is where I’d like to be someday. Naked and proud!
This is by no means an exhaustive list, and I am sure people will say their significant others sit somewhere in the middle. Felicity Jones, an unabashed unicorn girl and pro-nudist advocate, admitted to me in an interview she prefers wearing something around the house. Human beings are flexible, and someone on one level may become enlightened enough to move into another. Or, as society becomes more prudish (a worrying trend I am noticing), people may fall back to a more conservative outlook. Body taboos are a social construct, after all, and we are only ashamed so far as other people make us feel that way. If you woke up tomorrow to find the entire world had gone nudist, you would have no trouble shedding your clothes also.
The sad fact is this: if you are married to a #1 or a #2, there is little chance things will ever change for you. People are stubborn and remain set in their beliefs, especially as they get older. Even if you could convince your partner of the benefits of a clothes-free life, you will never make them feel the way you do. It all boils down to brain chemistry, how we are wired, and how we are raised. My wife is convinced of the basic tenets of nudism, but she is a realist and a pragmatist, and does not want to risk social ostracism, and I don’t blame her. Admittedly, choosing between your identity and a loved one can be intractable, and I don’t pretend to have the answers. But I can say this: nudism is much more than discarding your clothes, and people who expose themselves are not necessarily nudists. Like any good marriage, true nudism requires openness, honesty, and respect for others’ feelings.
*By “unicorn,” I mean something or someone rare, special, and magical. I have been using this term since I wrote my memoir, Least Likely to Become a Nudist, wherein I spotted a girl on a Greek beach brazenly showering herself, without an inkling of shame or a stitch of bathing suit, in front of thousands of people. Her courage inspired me to overcome my shame. To me, this girl was a creature of myth: a unicorn. Sadly, it has come to my attention that this term has been hijacked to mean something far from flattering. I take offense on behalf of real unicorns everywhere and Peter S. Beagle, author of “The Last Unicorn.”
Being and Nakedness 
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