The day after my Double Dog Dare foray out into the World and the next morning I was contemplating my stupidity, but laughing because of how ridiculous it was. I was no 20 year old anymore, but being nude and outside was pretty freeing, it just felt good.
This was quite a departure from my normal self. My entire adult life I hid my body. I was ashamed of it. I hated myself. I had a food addiction. I Loved food especially carbohydrates. I ballooned in size but it was so gradual that I took it for granted. I kept buying bigger clothes so I would fit into the World. I was addicted to sugar. You would think that sugar couldn’t be a drug. But when I ate it, it gave me a peace and escape of my mind from a childhood trauma, from shame. It was my attempt to cover up my shame. The fatter I got, the more I ate. It seems ridiculous now. Yet I still battle it in my life. It’s always there in my reflection. When you are heavier people look at you and think you are stupid. They treat you differently, they don’t see who you are, they see WHAT you are. You are classified as a thing. I felt the stares. I felt the disapproval of people. I felt it all, but I looked away. I felt the hurt. I pushed my shame inside. I was convinced that emotions were not to be felt. So I never dealt with it. They were to be pushed inside. People with emotions are weak, is what I use to tell myself. In the textile world, everything is covered, and if it’s not covered it is exposed for an affect to promote the body as a sexual object or at the very least an object of desire. An objectification, an object of Pride. What I have and you can’t have. A social status, I was this intelligent professional who was very good at what I did. I had a passion for it, yet my life was out of control. Body size defines you. I started not to fit into a normal sized world. Chairs were tight, so I didn’t put myself into situations where I would go out and socialize. I wouldn’t do the normal things that normal people would do because I didn’t fit into a normal size World. I pushed the World away. I became a loner. I pushed people away, because I was damaged. It was easier to push the World away then change. In the textile World everything is how you look, it’s what you present to the World as a façade. I have commented before that Women compare themselves to fashion magazines. It becomes second nature. Pride of Self, and how and what you are because of your social status and your looks is what drives people to be more beautiful. Vanity. It is poison. People do it all the time. We don’t even think about it. I think as a Man, I used the “stuff” I owned and what I did for a Job to define me. It is all a lie. My stuff and my job don’t define me, yet that is what I presented to the World. Every New Year especially in the United States people constantly ask you what your New Year’s Resolution is. For a majority it’s to get healthy. But I think that is a lie we tell ourselves, to try to fit into a World that is driven by beauty. That New Year’s Resolution is really just a way that we push ourselves to change so we fit into a new social positioning. I fell into that trap. Lose weight so I can look alright on the outside and fit into clothes that define me for who I projected into my mind that I wanted to be. Instead of just loving me and taking care of my body and being secure and loving others and putting them first and letting go of the things in my past that were damaging me in my present. The World is Vanity. The body is the vehicle by which the object of Vanity is created.
Nudity equals Sex in the Textile World. It is a standard in the World. We are bombarded with it every day. Television, Magazines, Advertising, Porn. It’s everywhere. It’s the things that you never question. It’s just how it is. It’s even worse now that the internet and social media is such a “norma”l thing now. Being just naturally nude in the United States is equal to in many minds as crazy and perverse. You are a pervert and people ostracize you. Yet the opposite it true. It is perverse to take something that God created and called Good, and turn it into something it is not. It is the biggest lie that people buy into the world over because of Pride. A clothed world, where what you put on and how much money you make defines your status in society. It’s been a lie even to beginning of time. What you wore was your social standing. Rich over the poor. Textiles define you. It made me feel like a prisoner.
I started to think that I wanted to get over the hatred of myself. I wanted to get away from the social status effect of the World. I liked how nude felt. It was a release and letting go of a faulty belief system. It let me leave behind the feeling of being confined in clothing that told me I was a thing.
For most of my adult life I would not let myself be seen by others. We would be on a vacation and be at the beach and everybody would be in their swimsuit and I would make up any excuse not to go. I would be in shorts and a t shirt. I knew inside I was not beautiful. I was fat. I was disgusting. I hid my shame.
The only reason I felt comfortable when I was nude in my backyard that night before was because I was hidden by darkness. I was revealed to the World and nude, but covered in darkness so even with alcohol I felt released from guilt and hatred. I felt free. It’s addictive to feel free. You just want more and more. But drowning my shame in alcohol to feel free is just another self imposed prison.
For the next week I when I took the dogs outside before going to bed at midnight. I would let them out to do their business, and then lock them in the bedroom. I would go back to the sliding glass door and slip off all my clothes and with the lights off in the house, I would go stand on my patio. Nude, but clothed in darkness. It was something that I craved. To be clothes free. It was like a release. I even walked around my yard. It felt wonderful. When you have been clothed your whole life, and feel the restraint of clothing, taking that clothing off, it feels so nice.
I knew the week before I had lost my nerve to go to a Naturist resort. Not only was it being nude, it was being nude in front of others. Terrifying to think about. Nothing to hide behind. No social status, just all my imperfections out in the open for everyone to see and judge me. All the club advertisements Frequently Asked Questions highlighted “What if you get an erection”. I think the mentioning of it, made me think I would. What that term really defines is the general idea that being Nude is equal to a sexual connotation. The two were intertwined. Society’s long standing definition of nudity is a sexual connotation. This foray into an unclothed paradigm I had to force myself to shed that belief system.
So I checked the weather the night before and called the camp 2 days before to check the protocol for showing up. I asked my wife one more time if she had changed her mind. Nope. You are brave, but you are crazy. Auggie sounded very normal. Told me to ring the bell at the gate. I remember packing my stuff in the car. Towel, cooler, beer, a nice healthy salad & SPF50. I felt like a kid heading off to my first day of school. Nervous Butterflies, but open to a new experience. Maybe I would walk in and everyone would look at me and crack up. Maybe nobody would be there. Maybe there would be 100 people there. Maybe I would walk in and it would be like that famous E.F. Hutton Commercial, where everybody stops what they are doing and they turn around all at once and just stare.
My mind raced at the possibilities. I quit thinking about it and just concentrated on the road. It was 25 files to the camp. http://www.sunrayhills.com/
As I got closer and closer I felt nervous relief. The unknown is always scarier that it actually is in real life. You get to a point in your life and you just realize that.
A winding highway, I could see the sign in the distance. Well here goes. My right blinker came on in an act of determination. I was committed. The driveway was over a mile long. Beautifully paved. Through green farmer’s fields and beautiful meadows, around corners and shaded tree shadows I had arrived at THE GATE. A gated community. What was so secret that they had to have a big giant blocked view gate like Mad Max and Thunderdome? How dangerous was this place that it was separated by the World by a giant gate? I rang the bell, and the giant gate started to open. I drove in and parked in the visitor spot. Just as I turned off my car an elderly couple drove by in a golf cart. They were completely nude. That was just odd to see. I had never seen anyone ever on a golf cart in the nude. It just took me by surprise. When had I ever seen nude people on a golf cart in my life… yeah never. They were friendly and waved. I chuckled to myself. I really wished at this point that my wife was there so we could have just laughed our asses off. Nudist camps are social and I had no one to share my experience with.
I signed in with Auggie and he did my background check. Looks like you cleared Greg. He gave me my day pass and showed me where to park my car. I remember parking my car. I opened a beer, and guzzled it down. I was hoping it would calm my nerves a bit. I got out of my car. The pool was about 150 feet up the hill. It was a hot day. Sunny and blue skies. Hardly any wind. It was absolutely beautiful. I open my back door and took out my cooler, and started to take off my clothes. What a weird feeling that was. When have I ever stripped off all my clothes in daylight in a parking lot in broad daylight ? NEVER !! I was completely nude. Other than being nude and free, was the feeling of the warm sun on my ass and back. It felt better than I could have ever imagined. Why did I wait 47 years to experience this? I will remember the awkwardness of walking up the hill completely nude in my sandals pulling my cooler with my towel over my shoulder, and feeling the warm wind and sun. It was amazing. I approached the gate. There was a couple by the pool. They were unclothed. This is the point I felt the most naked. They didn’t bat an eye, but instead just said hello and went back to reading their paper. After a little while, the wife introduced herself and I mentioned it was my first time. They were the nicest people I have ever met. They didn’t see me for who I was on the outside, they just talked and treated me like what could best be described as family but not in a family judgmental way.. I was there at the pool for about 9 hours. In that time I met others who were singles and couples, and everybody was so nice and gracious. I have never met people and been so welcomed in all my life. The love that emanated from these Nudists was nothing that I have ever experienced anywhere in all my life. They made me feel like I was part of their family. They saw me as I truly was. Who I was on the inside and not who I was when I wore my textiles. The most difficult thing for me that first day was being nude and breaking the belief system that nudity doesn’t equal a sexual encounter. The World teaches you that by making you stay covered. By staying covered the World makes you define nudity as a sexual experience, because you are nude when you bathe or when you have a sexual experience. Other than than that your brain in never taught to comprehend that nudity is anything else. So when seeing Naturism, your first thought of people being nude in a social context is just a sexual reference. All my friends when I told them thought I had lost my scruples because they only have one reference for nudity. SEX.
I am so very glad that I pushed myself to discover Naturism. The more I go, I feel as though I do not want to live in the Textile World anymore. It is full of filth. In my heart I am now a Naturist.
My next blog will detail my entrance into the world of Naturism and my Lifestyle choice of being a Christian.
End. Thanks for reading.
