[Breeder] Open Forum Friday: Nudity & the Home

[TheBreeder]

To see Breeder's original blog post click here

A recent posting in the always-provocative Mr. Gloryholejunkie’s blog got me thinking over the weekend about nudity around the house. And it got me thinking, as Mr. Gloryholejunkie’s posts often do, about my own stance on the subject.

I’ve mentioned several times that my parents were proud liberals, politically, and pretty progressive sexually. My dad proved to be a pretty cool cat when faced with irrefutable evidence of my teenaged whoring, and a decade ago was the prime force in getting his mainstream protestant church officially to become one of those rebel congregations that dared to welcome gays and lesbians into its pews. My mother, when she was alive, was enormously popular with my college friends because of her frank advice about contraception. The day I walked into a female friend’s dorm room and found my mother there, surrounded by a gaggle of sophomore women, with a cervical cap in one hand and a contraceptive sponge in the other, is one that’s going to be difficult to erase from my memory.

Together my parents were kind of an unstoppable homespun Masters and Johnson who developed a Sunday school curriculum examining sexuality and the Bible. I remember sitting in the corner, wishing myself invisible, while they relentlessly examined everything from ancient circumcision rites to masturbation to homosexuality to prostitution. This was for a high school Sunday school class, mind you. Apparently no one in the church knew what was going on until toward the end of the year, when a minor scandal arose because my parents had refused to adopt a stance of The Bible says DON’T DO IT on all the good stuff. But by then, the class was almost over.

When it came to nudity, my parents’ approach reflected the sexual liberation of the late nineteen-sixties and early nineteen-seventies. Nudity around the house was pretty standard. It certainly wasn’t enforced, as in the nudist camp fantasies many men seem to have. It wasn’t really discussed as a lifestyle choice, or even recognized as one. It was simply casual and commonplace. If my parents had to change from around-the-house clothing into their work duds and I was talking to them in their bedroom, for example, they wouldn’t shoo me away. My mom frequently would take her early evening bath and then stroll around the house in the buff, cigarette in hand, as she tidied up or looked for where she’d left her murder mystery.

My dad would putter around naked after he’d gotten up in the mornings, moving from bedroom to his morning pee in the bathroom, down to the kitchen, where I’d find him munching on toast with his legs crossed and his balls dangling. My mother once scandalized some fourth-grade friends of mine by nonchalantly strolling through the living room wearing nothing but a skimpy yellow bikini bottom, a pair of Jackie O. sunglasses, and an open book pressed against her naked bosom, on her way to a topless sunbathing session on the patio. And the first time my spouse accompanied me for a visit home, twenty years ago, my father sat on the edge of the guest bed wearing nothing but a fishing cap talking endlessly about his recent appointment to a museum board.

They were innocents, really. Both my parents tended to assume that everyone else saw nudity as they did—simply as nudity and nothing more. They found no erotic context to it, no threat of sexualizing the home. Just something that, if it happened, simply was what it was, with no hidden meaning or intention.

I naturally went through a period of extreme modesty in my early adolescence, particularly in that awful stage in which boys experience spontaneous erections that won’t quit, at the slightest puff of wind. (You know, that awful stage that lasts from roughly eleven until the mid-forties.) But something of their philosophy stuck, because I tend to be of the same mindset as they were. If I’m nude around the house—and I often am—it’s simply because I took my clothes off for a shower, or have just risen from bed (I’ve slept nude all my life), and haven’t bothered to put anything on yet. In front of my loved ones I’ll walk upstairs and down in the buff, not really thinking about it. My household always used the hot tub in the nude. On hot days, inside the house with the fans on high, finding me or anyone else topless or bottomless or the combination of the two isn’t really that uncommon. For me, I’m more often bottomless than topless. I simply tend to get cold, otherwise.

Either way, it’s just nudity.

Nudity was fairly common when I was a kid at the YMCA, where I learned to swim. The sexes were strictly segregated using the swimming facilities in the nineteen-seventies, when I first was dragged there for lessons, everyone from the wrinkly old men to the youngest boys took their clothes off in the locker room and didn’t put anything back on until they left. (Was there anything else in the YMCA other than the pool? I certainly don’t remember anything.) We’d slap our feet across the wet tiles of the locker and shower rooms, down the half-circular stairs to the pool area, and splash around in the water like happy nude little otters. It was giggle-worthy and weird the first couple of times, but after that, none of us gave it a thought. A decade later when I was the instructor of some of the boys’ swimming classes, it was the same—though I heard the local Y changed their policies a year or two after I moved from Virginia.

A couple of months ago, in a group of men roughly the same age as I, I mentioned the nude swimming and was met with cries of incredulity. None of the other men had ever heard of such a thing. And if they had, it was weird. Worse than weird. It was depraved, and perverted.

And that’s when it occurred to me how far our culture has swung in the last two or three decades. We can’t separate nudity from sex, not even in the most innocent of contexts. A simple tale of swimming without trunks becomes, in these times, fraught with implications about who might have been looking at what, or thinking dirty thoughts, or planning terrible, nasty deeds. The mental associations I have with the concept of nudity are fairly sunny and innocent, but in these days people regard them as rimmed with dark shadows where lurk the perverted, with their even darker motivations.

So I ask my readers: issues of self-image aside, what were your experiences with nudity growing up? Did you see your parents nude often, or was it something so unimaginable that my tale of bohemian innocence seems utterly foreign to your sensibilities? Did it influence you as an adult? I’m curious to hear your responses.

More...

[Belfast-Bottom]

I grew up in a conventionally Christian family in Northern Ireland. Nudity was seen as shocking and inevitably linked to lust. I didn't see my father naked until I was twelve. I never saw my mother naked or topless. An English lover introduced me to nude beaches on the continent. It took me a couple of days to relax. My present flat has a heating system that is difficult to regulate. I err on the side of over heating it. As a consequence I am naked almost all the time at home. It's not sexual, just the most relaxing way of living.

[TheBreeder]

So does that mean I can come visit and stay nude?

[Belfast-Bottom]

The answer to that question is YES!!

[boycunt]

Nudity, like bare-backing and going commando, is not sexual at all -- merely natural; the way things should be. i am pretty much consistently naked at home (often to the discomfort of my roommates, who finally are getting used to it). It is a relatively simple to separate one's state of dress (or undress) from one's sexuality. Strikes me that nudity as a sexual expression is for the truly repressed.

[TheBreeder]

Boycunt, I'll agree with you that nudity and going commando aren't inherently sexual. Barebacking, however, is the essence of sexual. All three are natural, I agree!

[boycunt]

Breeder, of course You are correct -- barebacking is the essence of sexuality. But to me, it is no more sexual than it is natural. It is what Men do.

[evilqueerpig]

I gew up in a house where nudity was frowned upon, but once I was on my own I found it to be quite liberating. Aside from being natural, it also cuts down on laundry.

[Belfast-Bottom]

Good point about the laundry evilqueerpig! I have throws and towels that I use to cover seats - natural skin oils can discolour furniture over time. But throws and towels don't need to be ironed.

[AlwaysOpen]

I grew up in a small town upstate NY in the 60's and mid 70's and never saw any of my family naked. But my nudity experience kicked in just after high school when I discovered the mountaintop stream above New Paltz where the college aged and left over hippies used to hike the stream and lay out naked. Even the state park ranger was just a pair of shorts, collecting the 25 cent land use fee when it was convenient, smoking weed with the hippies most of the rest of the time. Once I saw how cool it all was, I made that my daily hang out in the summers. Since then, I try to stay as naked as I can whenever I can. Just have to remember to keep the garage door closed- the other day a bud came by and gave me a good fucking- I had the garage door up and the car pulled in, which I normally don't do- he wanted to see the yard and I took him out using the door in the kitchen that opens to the garage. I was about 5 steps out towards my side yard when I realized the garage door was up, and so a full view of us from the street- we had a good laugh on that one- and continued on to wander the yard and look at the vegetable gardens and how they were progressing

[rawhung]

I haven't really known anything else other than to be nude at home. Even when my mum and dad were together, nudity was natural and just the way that we were. It didn't phase any of us. When my mum and dad split up when I was about 9, my dad soon moved this guy into our house who I later learned was his bf who also had a young son. This was totally confusing for me at the time but I still saw my mum and she and dad both explained that dad was gay etc and I just got used to it. Living with a new man and his son however didn't stop me walking round nude in front of them, in fact I seem to remember making a point in doing it. I guess living in an all male open household was definately influenced by how I've turned out now, which I must say, I love my life!

[bobbie]

Unless you are really good looking and have a fantastic body, I think nudity is sort of gross!

I don't want people sitting on my sofa and chairs with no clothes on! I think wearing underwear or the minimum of clothing is very sexy...lets face it...some people look great nude, and some people look down right awful! Most people are kind of in the Middle at best! Of course...it's just my humble opinion!!!!

[AlwaysOpen]

I'll take a slightly overweight guy nude sitting on my sofa who can carry on a decent conversation anyday over some super muscled gym boy who is worried that there is a small red spot on his ripped abs that might form a pimple and mar his perfection . I am sure all he has on his mind at any given moment is himself- and frankly, after about 90 seconds of that- I would want to put lots of clothing back on him- specifically, pack his yap with his socks and underwear to shut him the fuck up

[TheBreeder]

Unless you are really good looking and have a fantastic body, I think nudity is sort of gross!

I don't want people sitting on my sofa and chairs with no clothes on! I think wearing underwear or the minimum of clothing is very sexy...lets face it...some people look great nude, and some people look down right awful! Most people are kind of in the Middle at best! Of course...it's just my humble opinion!!!!

I'm not saying you're wrong, bobbie, but that's pretty much the opinion of someone who probably was encouraged never to be nude around others when he was growing up--right?

I think when you grow up with relaxed assumptions about nudity—or acquire it later in life—you don't feel that you have to be a god to look good nude. Or more importantly, realize that being nude is just about being nude, not looking good, or trying to look appealing to someone for sexual purposes.

No one has to look like a magazine model in order to enjoy the sensations of sunshine against skin, or the enjoyment of a quiet evening at home without hampering clothing. Nudists, whether casual or devoted, are not generally looking at each other in that way. It's not the point.

As for your sofa and chairs, you do what Belfast-Bottom suggested above. Throw down a towel on your furniture.

[ptcumdump]

I think I must be about the same age as TheBreeder--I was born in '64 so I grew up in the age of naked swimming at the Y and had fairly liberal parents who, while not nudists, were not modest about nudity either. I also went through a modest stage in my early teens but was always kind of into nudity and started sleeping in the nude at around 14 or 15 I guess. In college, I was a dance so I was always semi naked and touching other sweaty semi naked guys and girls and it was totally not a big deal. When I was 19, I went to a nude beach for the first time--in Mykonos, Greece--and I loved the freedom of being naked outdoors with other people around, some nude, some not, but with no judgment or shame. Over the years, I had a string of roommates who were pretty uptight about nudity, as I find most Americans to be. Once I started living with lovers or by myself, I started spending most of my time at home in the nude. For the last several years I've lived alone and work out of my house, so I am typically naked all day unless I have to go out of the house or have to meet with clients. I'm always amazed at how much people get freaked out by nudity, especially men with other men. I'd love to chalk that up to homophobia but actually I find straight guys tend to be a less concerned about casual nudity among other men than gay guys do. It seems that gay men look at two men being naked together as a necessarily sexual situation and if they're not into you sexually, they don't want to "invite" contact by being naked. It's kind of sad. And I agree with AlwaysOpen--for me nudity has nothing to do with being "hot" or having a perfect body, it's just about being natural and not trying to impress anyone with your 6-pack abs.