Naked At Lunch

The Adventures of a Reluctant Nudist

Mark Haskell Smith

• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9781782397151
• eBook ISBN:
  9781782397168
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

In the great wandering tradition of Bill Bryson, Louis Theroux and Jon Ronson, journalist Mark Haskell Smith strips down the world of social nudism in a hilarious, wildly entertaining and profoundly enlightening book about those who renounce clothing and embrace what lies beneath. Naked at Lunch is one man's cracklingly witty, compellingly odd and oddly life-affirming journey into the subculture of nudism. Celebrated journalist Mark Haskell Smith meets, and indeed joins, those shucking off social conventions by shucking off their clothes - he hikes bareback in the Alps with a naked rambler's society, he buys baguettes in the buff in a French resort and he meets the marginally dressed mayor of a Spanish clothes-optional municipality. But this is not just a book of naked adventures and sun-ripened genitals. It is a study of 20th-century Western cultural and social mores; a record of radical history and politics practised by those made radical by their refusal to get dressed; a heartfelt celebration of the simple joys of being alive; and a full-blooded war cry for reclaiming pride in our bodies and rejecting those who would make us ashamed.

Contents

I’m on a Boat

Interview with a Nudist

Skin in the Game

Gymnophobia

A Very Brief History of Early Nonsexual Social Nudism

I Left My Cock Ring in San Francisco

The Rise of Nudist Clubs in America

Vera Playa

The Man in the Fishnet Diaper

The Naked European Walking Tour

Sex and the Single Nudist

Trends in Genital Topiary

There’s a Reason Florida Is Shaped Like a Penis

Free Beaches

The Dark Secrets of Lisa Lutz

The Fall of Nudist Clubs

World Naked Whatever Day

Funwreckers

Fashionista

Brave Nude World

Caribbean Nakation

Naked at Lunch

Acknowledgments

Selected Bibliography

Notes

I’m on a Boat

“We are safely away and you can now enjoy a …”

There was a pause, as if the cruise director was having trouble choosing what, exactly, he should call what was about to happen. Finally he said, “… a carefree environment.”

The announcement was still reverberating through the ship when the scrotum airing began in earnest; shorts and shirts dropped to the ground and penises dangled in the South Florida sun. Permission had been granted. Now buttocks could swing from side to side without restriction, and breasts—finally released from the prison of blouse and brassiere—burst into the open, to be caressed by soft tropical breezes. We were on a boat. One thousand eight hundred and sixty-six nudists living the “anti-textile” dream.

Not that some of them weren’t almost nude before the cruise director gave the all clear. Many were in various states of undress, itching to toss their clothes aside. A skeletal man in his eighties wandered around the ship wearing only a fluorescent thong, his loose skin draped around his bones in cascades that looked like freckled frosting, and a gigantic, barrel-chested man—he looked like he’d eaten an actual barrel—lumbered around the lido deck on an industrial-strength cane wearing only a loincloth. A few people soaked in Jacuzzis, surreptitiously slipping out of their swimsuits, while the less rebellious sat by the pool, looking somewhat forlorn, waiting for the green light. These were nudists, after all. And they had paid big bucks to frolic in the buff. When the all clear was sounded, they didn’t hesitate.

I had never been on a cruise ship before—I’d never even been interested in being on a cruise ship—but this wasn’t just any cruise, this was the Big Nude Boat, a special charter offered by Bare Necessities, the premier “nakation”^I travel agency. Not only that, the cruise was on board the Nieuw Amsterdam, one of the Holland America Line’s more luxurious ships, which meant this wasn’t a backwoods RV-park nudist resort or Hippie Hollow down by the lake; this was the deluxe version of nonsexual social nude recreation. Meaning nudism. Or naturism. Depending on who you ask. There are several theories floating around about which word means what— historically speaking there are some actual distinctions—but the reality was that I was on a boat with almost two thousand people who weren’t wearing clothes.

I am fascinated by subcultures: the Dead Heads and Juggalos who’ve built unique cultures out of following their favorite bands as they tour the country, the amateur mechanical engineers who build robots in their garages, the home brewers who experiment with beer in their kitchens, and the foodies who eat at illegal restaurants in people’s homes. People do strange things. They collect stamps and watch trains, they dress their pets to look like famous characters from movies, they dress themselves to look like anime characters, they go to conventions in woodland animal costumes and have group sex in “plushie piles.” All of these activities have their own culture, a network of people who speak a specific kind of lingo that outsiders don’t understand. I’m especially fascinated by subcultures that are deemed morally suspect or quasi-legal: the people who pursue their passion even if it means possible imprisonment or stigmatization by society. I can’t help it. I like the true believers. The fanatics.

My first nonfiction book was about the culture of cannabis connoisseurs and the underground botanists who source heirloom varietals of marijuana from all over the world. Cannabis culture has a rich history filled with colorful characters. These are men and women who defy oppressive antidrug laws and good-naturedly don’t give a fuck about societal norms. It wasn’t much of a leap for me to become intrigued by the world of nudism. Or as my wife said, “First you’re stoned all the time and now you’re going to be naked? Why can’t you write a book about cheese? You like cheese.”

The loudspeaker on the ship crackled to life and the cruise director added a caveat: “I would like to remind you that you must wear a cover-up in the dining areas.”

Which didn’t really keep anyone from being naked in the dining areas. Or in the bars. Or anywhere for that matter. They were naked on deck and in the screening room, the library, the casino, and the buffet line. Nudists crowded around the piano bar and requested songs by Elton John and Billy Joel. The large theater where stage shows were presented was filled with naked men and women. They were in the elevators, walking down the corridors, playing Ping-Pong, lifting weights in the gym, and guzzling cocktails by the pool.

In the fitness center someone asked the ship’s in-house yoga teacher if people had to wear clothes in the yoga classes. The teacher gave her a curious look and then, as the true reality of the question sunk in—what I can only imagine was the image of a roomful of naked people doing down dog flashing through her head—her face bloomed in panic and she said, “Oh yeah. In the class. Clothes. You have to wear clothes.”

But other than the yoga class, everywhere you looked, testicles and breasts hung low and pendulous, swaying side to side as the boat rocked in the open ocean; billows of bulbous flesh spilling off torsos, flowing earthward like the goop inside a lava lamp. The entire human body presented in all its natural nature was unavoidably on display.

I was sitting at what was called the Ocean Bar that first evening when I overheard a man, a silver-haired smoothy, complain loudly that there were too many old people on the cruise.^II “I’m guessing the median age is sixty-five,” he said. He was sixty-two.

When old people complain that there are too many old people, then you really know there are too many old people.

Most of the passengers were retirees and most of them were American. Which is to say that there were a lot of overweight people strutting around in their birthday suits. That they did so unself-consciously, without any hint of the neurotic body obsession that has created generations of diet-obsessed, bulimic, anorexic, or just plain miserable people, was something that I found almost inspirational. They weren’t ashamed of their bodies, they seemed to accept themselves and one another for who they are and what they were, and, best of all, they had fun doing it.

Not all of them were retired. I met a Harvard professor, a radiologist, a tool salesman, and a couple of people serving in the armed forces. There were pharmaceutical sales reps, retail clerks, photographers, scientists, doctors, corporate executives, teachers, lawyers, paralegals, and people who really didn’t want to talk about work while they were on vacation.

And of course not everyone was fat and saggy. There was a large LGBT contingent who were on the healthy end of the body mass index, and there were some actual bona fide young people, trim and tattooed men and women in their twenties who clung together as if the naked retirees were harbingers of some sort of terrifying apocalypse. The naked twentysomethings gazed at the naked seventysomethings as if they could suddenly see the future, like a portal had opened in the time-space continuum and revealed a dystopian world where gravity and a sedentary lifestyle conspired to make everyone expand and sag. It was heartbreakingly inevitable. Perhaps this glimpse into the abyss explained some of the uninhibited alcohol consumption among the younger set.

The guests on the nude cruise were predominantly Caucasian, although there were a few South Asians, East Asians, and African Americans in the clothes-free contingent. They came from all over. Some were trying to escape the polar vortex that was bringing freezing wind and record snowfalls to cities like Chicago, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and Boston; others were from warm climates like Tampa, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and San Diego; nudists from Kansas, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas represented the heartland. There were foreign nudists too: Canadians from Toronto and Quebec, and real outliers, people from far-flung countries like Finland, Australia, Germany, and the Netherlands. All these people, coming all this way, for the express purpose of standing around on the lido deck of a cruise ship and letting it all hang out.

Some clutched their daily drink specials in fluorescent plastic cocktail glasses, some relaxed in chairs, others danced to the thumping sound system, a few cavorted in the hot tub, but most of them were just talking and laughing and being extremely friendly with one another.

And no one wore clothes.

What would make seemingly ordinary people spend thousands of dollars for the opportunity to waggle their penises around other waggling penises? What were they thinking? What’s the appeal? Were they getting some kind of exhibitionistic thrill? Or were they voyeurs? Did the topless women playing blackjack feel empowered? What was happening?

That’s what I was here to find out. The idea of eating a slice of pizza and drinking a beer naked on the deck of a cruise ship with hundreds of other naked people seemed bizarre to me. At the very least it made me uncomfortable; and I really like pizza and beer. But if I wanted to experience the culture of nudism, if I wanted to understand what made someone risk their job or their freedom or even their reputation to do this, well, I had to get naked like everybody else.

^I “Nakation” is a portmanteau of “naked” and “vacation,” but you probably figured that out on your own.

^II He had an alarming obsession with photographing women’s vulvas. To his credit, he always asked for permission.

Interview with a Nudist

Apparently, there are rules for being a nudist. It’s not enough to drop trou and waggle your genitals in the sunshine. That might be fun—or, depending where you are, get you arrested—but it’s not nudism. You can take off your clothes and run across a football field, but that’s not nudism, that’s streaking. Jump in a lake and frolic naked with several of your friends? That’s skinny-dipping. Fun, but not nudism. Even bathing in a Japanese onsen isn’t nudism. Sure you’re naked and with a bunch of other naked people in a hot spring, but after you’ve cleaned and soaked and refreshed in the cold plunge, you get dressed and go out for ramen. A nudist would eat noodles naked, with other naked people.

I am not a nudist. Except for a few occasions of teenage skinny-dipping, I have mostly kept my genitals covered. At least when I’m in public. I don’t practice “social nudism” or “backyard naturism” or any kind of nudism, really, but that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy being naked. I sleep in the nude, I take baths and showers in the nude, and I happily cavort au naturel in the privacy of my own bedroom. I’m not a prude; I just don’t hang around with other people without wearing some kind of clothing. Except for with my wife, but she’s used to me.

I have never felt an impulse to shed my clothes in public. In fact, I feel a strong compulsion to keep my clothes on and to be around other people who also keep their clothes on. I even try to wear a combination of clothing that approximates something I think of as style. You can blame it on social conditioning, but I know I’m not alone in this. The body image issues that advertising and media inoculated me with from an early age—those feelings of inadequacy, the fears of being ridiculed for being pudgy or hairy or circumcised or just, you know, uncool—are deeply embedded in my consciousness and shared by most of the people I know.

So what is a nudist? In his eccentric omnibus The Nudist Idea, historian Cec Cinder provides a kind of kitchen sink definition: “the nudist idea is the foundation of a distinct, entire and wholesome philosophy, one much, much larger in scope than simple collective nakedness, one that embraces sexual sanity, anti-militarism, good health, robust conditioning, inter-gender respect, political libertarianism, religious tolerance, animal rights, First Amendment political freedoms, population reduction and shrinking government and bureaucracies.”¹

I’m not sure that nudism is about animal rights or population reduction or shrinking the size of the government— those sound like an author tacking on some political talking points—but then again, I’m just getting started looking at nudism; maybe it is all those things.

Social nudism came to the United States from Germany in 1929, and since that time various nudists and nudist groups have struggled to define what constitutes nudism. For some it’s a lifestyle choice that includes healthy eating habits, exercise, and an appreciation of nature. Others take a more philosophical view and look at nudism as a political stance against a repressive “textile-centric” society that promotes consumerism and rapacious capitalist growth at the expense of our environment and mental health. Some nudists like the fact that their bodies are accepted for how they really are and not what fashion and advertising say they should look like. Some folks just like the way it feels to relax in the sun without any clothes on.

But while various groups have different agendas and interpretations, they all pretty much agree that nudism is a social activity. If you’re alone without any clothes on, you’re just naked, but if you are in a mixed group of men and women engaged in the conscious practice of standing around in the buff, then you are a nudist practicing nudism.²

So why do some people like to get naked and hang out with other naked people? What’s the attraction? Is it some kind of primal urge? If society didn’t tell us we had to wear clothes, would we all just strip down and frolic in the fields?

My son Jules, when he was a toddler, used to race around the house wearing nothing but a small superhero cape made out of a counterfeit Hermès scarf. I would tie it around his neck and it seemed to propel him, like it gave him actual superpowers. He’d splutter rocket sounds as he ran, trying to go fast enough to make the scarf billow in his slipstream like a proper superhero’s cape. Sometimes he would turn his head to admire his cape as he ran, which was not always sensible, but the occasional collisions with furniture or walls or trees only seemed to make him more determined.

Naturally the cape was the only thing he wore and he refused to wear clothes when he was home. No shoes, no diaper, no T...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents