Naked With Your Family

My first venture into organized social nudism was at a swim sponsored by a local non-landed group. I had never met a single person who was there, there was just some very brief correspondence through e-mail. After walking through the door, speaking to the man in charge for a while, and paying my fee, I calmly walked to a chair by the side of the pool, and stripped completely naked. There was never a hint of nervousness, honestly.

The only time I had some butterflies in my stomach was approaching my wife for "permission" to attend the swim. In a nutshell, she is completely accepting of the fact that I hate to wear clothes, but she does not join me in walking about daily in the nude. It was a relief when she immediately said "Sure, go for it, have fun". She trusts me.

So why is it that nudists are perfectly calm and even passe about getting naked with perfect strangers, but when it comes to family and friends, many keep their lifestyle choice a secret, or practice it alone?

In my family, it's just my wife and I, and one daughter, who still maintains one foot in the door as she attends graduate school. I cannot honestly say if she ever saw me naked. This was not as a result of any personal shame, it's just something that is a taboo in our society. Dads do not get naked in front of their daughters. And I do not remember the last time I saw my daughter naked. It was certainly sometime between elementary school and middle school. When it comes to my wife, she still steps out of the shower in full view of our daughter, and vice versa. They have always been comfortable being nude in front of each other.

So, I was fascinated to read this blog post about the undervaluation of father-daughter relationships, from the daughter's point of view, and her reticence in having her dad see her giving birth, or naked in any way.

A friend of mine at university was from a family of naturists, and so it was not uncommon for her, along with her parents and siblings, to sit around on a Sunday afternoon reading the papers, watching the Eastenders omnibus and eating cheesecake while completely stark bollock naked. This was considered the norm. But, when she revealed this information many of us (some from Daily-Mail-reading backgrounds) were horrified at the thought that her father may have seen her sans scanties, and thus as a sexual being. It was hard for us to accept that there was nothing more to this scenario than the fact that they all just liked being naked, the feel of their leather sofas and shag pile against bare skin (and nothing more), and in many respects is this not a healthy way to be? If you feel comfortable dropping your drawers and liberating your baps in the comfort of the family home, in an atmosphere of acceptance and security, then surely you will cultivate a healthy body image, devoid of the complexes that plague those of us who are afraid to peel off that cagoule in case some randomer miraculously notices that we have one tit slightly bigger than the other.

Yes, yes, yes. She really "gets it" when it comes to nudism/naturism. In retrospect, I wish that my wife and I had raised our daughter in a naturist way. She still does not know that her Dad likes to swim in the nude with a bunch of strangers. My wife almost told her one night but decided otherwise. Eventually she will know, and she will probably laugh a little bit, but somehow I know she will be perfectly OK. Maybe, in a bit of a dream, she will let us take the grandkids one day to a naturist park for a day of fun and freedom.

Tags: nudism, naturism, nudist, nudists, naturist, naturists, nudity, nudes, bare, au naturel, nude, naked