I transformed into a nudist in the sixth decade of my little life. It was not a sudden thing. It was a slow-moving freight train that built up momentum for a long, long time, and was basically unstoppable as it reached the wall of decision. I plowed through that and now find myself attached to a writers group who write nudist novels.
My Twitter nudist friends have now actually discovered my novel with the nudist Cobble Sisters in it, Recipes for Gingerbread Children. And they liked it. They invited me to become a “writer of stories without clothes” and take part in their nudist literature group. I accepted. Somebody is actually reading and reviewing my novel, even if it is a review posted on Amazon.uk. I have had memberships for a while now with nudist websites that are very artist and story-teller friendly. Here is a link to a couple of them to tempt and horrify you.
https://www.clothesfreelife.com
I have long been interested in nudism/naturism. The feeling of being naked in the great sunshiny outdoors has always appealed to me. I have practiced it every chance I was given from the time I was a boy skinny-dipping in Duffy’s Creek or playing jungle boy in Bingham Park Woods. I always did that alone and in secret though. I was always thoroughly terrified of being caught in the act by the older boy who abused me. I imagined him being everywhere. But that never happened again after that one horrible day. And it became a carefully guarded secret. I loved certain books like Kipling’s First Jungle Book where Mowgli is naked and unafraid in the deadly jungle where a tiger stalked him, or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn where Huck and Jim spend time nude on the raft in the Mississippi leaving their considerable cares and clothing aside, or Golding’s Lord of the Flies where nearly naked Ralph must run to keep from literally losing his head to the naked savages all the other boys have become.
And in many ways that has always been the theme of my flirtations with nudism. The attraction to it was nothing sexual. Rather, it was always about facing a dangerous world without any kind of armor.
And I can honestly say that is a large part of what makes me a writer, too. When you write fiction that actually tells the truth about life as you see it, you are facing a dangerous world of critical readers with no emotional armor on. Your soul is opened up to a world of people you will never actually meet who will judge your naked self without mercy.
But, I have not as yet actually revealed myself as a nudist with evidence to back that up. I have shown you a drawing of me as a boy in Iowa, nude, but only a drawing. I have shown you an artfully cropped picture of me partially nude in which I was actually wearing pants. Am I not a hypocrite and a coward if I don’t show you the real thing? (If the idea frightens you too much, you don’t have to look.) But here is the real nudism thing, actually nude, warts and sores and all.
