The Story About That Time I Went to a Nudist Resort

There's nothing quite like a polar vortex for making me wax nostalgic about....public nudity?

Yup.  Public nudity.

It's time to tell the story about that time I went to a nudist resort with some of my friends back in my college days.

How It All Started:


I think I can safely blame this one on Mummy Dearest.  You may or may not remember that I am a hippie love-child from the 70's.  This means that I grew up listening to Mummy's hippie adventures including that magical summer she met Stu, my hippie-bio-dad, while they were living in a treehouse on a nudist commune.

One afternoon in my early 20's I was sitting with my college friends telling them one of Mummy's hippie-nudist-commune adventure stories and it completely captured the imagination of one of my guy-friends.  We'll call him Pedro.

Anyway, Pedro was instantly all, "We MUST go to there!" and started bombarding me with questions.  Where exactly did this place exist?  Does it still exist?  How do we get in?

At the time it was most likely exactly what you're thinking: Pedro loved the idea of maybe getting to see all of us naked.  He was also in incredibly great shape and probably liked the idea of us getting to see him naked.

At first we didn't really take him seriously.  Sure, Pedro.  Yeah.  Let's all go have a naked picnic and laugh our asses off while we eat hotdogs.

But by the end of the week he had definite plans on going to a nudist resort he found about a half hour's drive out of town.  He tried and tried to talk the rest of us into going (I think there may have been a fair bit of begging as well) but there were no takers other than his girlfriend....

....and myself.

At first I wasn't going to go because my boyfriend at the time was not down with the idea.  He kept telling me he was worried that he would get an erection seeing a lot of naked ta-tas all over the place.  But when I tried explaining this to Pedro he practically dared me to go anyway.

"Nobody else will go, and I was counting on you!  You're the reason I got the idea in the first place!  Come on, it'll be fun!  You're not going to chicken out on me, are you?"

Nobody calls me chicken!

(Why yes, I am an idiot.)

The thing is, Mummy had all these amazing stories to tell about her hippie days and I felt it was high time to go out and make my own stories.  Pedro was handing me this golden opportunity to be publicly naked without getting arrested and I would be stupid to pass that up!

How It Went Down:

So one beautiful summery afternoon I packed a towel and two bottles of high SPF sunscreen and waited for Pedro and his girlfriend Jen to pick me up for our trip to the Ponderosa Nature Resort.  The ride there was fun.  Other than nudity we had no idea what to expect.  Pedro informed us of all the information he had got from the resort.  We had to sit on towels everywhere.  Nudity wasn't absolutely enforced unless you wanted to swim.  And if you show up to this place single, you're going to get the third degree.

Actually we didn't know about that last part until we got there.  I mean we could have figured it out by the pricing.  If you show up as a couple or a family then admission prices were significantly reduced.

When we got to the registration desk there seemed to be some confusion about me.  I was the third wheel.  The guy signing us in was clearly trying to find a polite way to ask me just what the hell my business there was until a naked guy at the bar nearby turned around and said:

"Don't you get it, Dave?  They're a threesome!"

And then everyone laughed and he put my name on the guest list.

And yes, the guy at the bar and the guy registering us were naked.  Everybody there was naked except for us and some guy who was their to repair the plumbing.  

OMG.  This plumber.

There were naked people all over the place; comfortable, relaxed and having a good time.  But that plumber dude was obviously not any of those things.  He worked very hard, intensely focused on the task at hand and diligently not looking anywhere else.  

I found this incredibly amusing.  I wondered if he understood just what he was getting into before he responded to this particular call.  Rarely have I ever seen anyone quite so absorbed in their work like this plumber.

Also?  Nary an inch of plumber's crack to be seen.

After paying our admission fees we went outside, took off our clothes, slathered on our sunscreen, making jokes about the horror of sunburnt genitals, and then made our way to the pool.  The resort was beautiful: two huge in-ground pools, hot tub, tennis and volleyball facilities (they LOVE naked volleyball) and wooded nature trails.  We ran into a few people who seemed to be going on a nature hike (they had shoes, fanny packs and water bottles).

I was surprised at how much of a family environment the place was.  There were little kids running all over the place while their parents and grandparents sunbathed.  I don't know why I was expecting some kind of swinging party to be happening but it was definitely the opposite of that.  Through conversation with people we learned that one of the reasons they screen people and set up the rates the way they do is to discourage gawkers and people coming in for inappropriate reasons.

Which, BTW, in no way discouraged us from being totally immature and giggling amongst ourselves at funny looking old man junk.  

I was also surprised at how super friendly everyone was.  Not that I was expecting anyone to be rude.  It's just that usually when you go to a resort/beach/public pool everyone just keeps to themselves.  Here, if someone happens by they greet you.  If you are sitting close by they will strike up a friendly conversation.  It was clearly a tight knit community because everyone knew that we were new to the place.  They all universally asked us if it was our first time.

That mystery was solved for us by an eight year old boy.  We were sitting in a hot tub when someone had asked us, yet again, if it was our first time.  I was in the middle of commenting on how uncanny it was that everyone seemed to know when the boy piped up:

"That's because you're cottontails!"

We had no idea what this meant so he went on to explain that a "cottontail" is someone whose butt is still white from lack of sun exposure.  The sight of a white butt is unusual to see here so it naturally attracts a lot of attention.  And since people bring their kids here they like to get to know the newbies and put their minds at ease.  But also, yes they're just very friendly people.

Stuff I Learned:

1.  Naked is a state of mind.  The only time that day that I felt naked was when we were at the registration desk.  I didn't stop feeling naked until I had taken off my clothes.  It was the weirdest thing.  I mentioned it to Pedro and Jen and they agreed.  I wondered if that plumber would have felt better if he were naked, too.  Probably not.

2.  Nudity does not automatically mean sexy times.  I already knew this to be true but my boyfriend refused to join us that day out of fear of being aroused in public.  This fear was baseless.  In reality it is one of the least sexy environments I can think of.  When you are surrounded by people of all ages, some of whom make up families, and they are universally naked it's just...it's just NOT a sexy environment.

Also they have VERY strict rules about behaviour and etiquette at nudist/naturist (I forget what the preferred term is) resorts/events.

I have since noticed that partial nudity is way more arousing than full nudity.  There was very little in the way of partial nudity here.  Unless you consider middle-aged men wearing nothing but Birkenstocks and a fanny pack to be "sexy".

And can I tell you how awesome it was to be naked and a woman and not be sexualized by men?  Because it was pretty fucking awesome.  I was treated with more damn respect at this place with my clothes off than I ever had being fully clothed.  Which made me think....

3.  Men need to see more naked women in a non-sexualized context.  You know how once upon a time the sight of a lady's ankle might drive a man wild?  And how nobody give's a half-chubby for ankles anymore now that we see them all the time?  Because they're just freaking ankles?  Maybe this translates to the rest of the body?  Maybe seeing the naked human body as no more than a naked human body because you see lots of different ones all the time is a good idea?

                                            ♪♫♪You may sa-a-a-ay I'm a dreamer♪♫♪

4.  Women need to see more naked women in a non-sexualized context.  Because that's when we get to see what normal women look like.  Not these crazy wasp-waisted, big-boobed, big booty-ed unicorn women.  Speaking for myself, getting to see lots of different women of different ages and sizes made me feel more comfortable in my own skin.  You get to see that so-called beautiful bodies have their flaws and those which our standards have taught us are supposed to be not beautiful actually are.  I no longer felt self-conscious about my personal flaws because everyone around me has them and we are all totally okay with that.  Nobody gives a fuck and that, for a 21 year old girl, was a profound experience.

5.  There's no ice-breaker quite like being naked.  It was easy for everyone to talk to everyone else because, what the hell?  We're already naked, so what are you afraid of?  There's just nothing to hide.  I felt way more comfortable talking to naked strangers than I ever felt talking to clothes-wearing strangers.  It's a little more of an authentic experience because removing clothes also removes a lot of pretension.  Our clothes can tell people about our tastes, our socio-economic status, our professions, our politics and all kinds of stuff.  When everyone is naked together we are all just equally human and nothing more.

6.  Swimsuits are bullshit.  I found out that I love naked swimming and swimsuits are just dumb.  Being naked in the water just makes so much more sense to me.  The only reason I own a swimsuit is because the staff at our local pool said I couldn't come back there without one.

They are sooo unenlightened.

So do I still go to naked places?  Not really.  The last time I went was with Pedro and his lovely wife (he married my childhood best friend so we're still in touch) back when I was pregnant with Frack.  We had a blast but my husband didn't want to go because he's self conscious about being a wookie.  I missed him and although he told me to go ahead and have a good time it just feels wrong to do naked stuff without him.

But if ever you have the opportunity to go to a place like that then carpe diem, my friends!  You will not regret it.