I recently visited a Nude Beach, to be…well, naked.
From that statement alone, I am sure you are guessing that I felt very much “at home,” au natural.
You would be wrong.
It turns out that sharing space with a group in the Altogether wasn’t altogether comfortable…for me!
Surprised?
No one was more surprised than me when, after settling upon my beach blanket, I steadfastly refused to remove my bottoms feigning fear of: “burning my lady-parts.” Yeah, it sounded lame even to me, and I said it!
What the hell was wrong with me???
I tear my clothes off at a moments notice, as soon as I get home from work (or from anywhere)…at social events that call for it (and many that don’t). When I perform, I do so, most often, in the buff…or do I?
Aside from my own home, when I am embracing a clothing-optional edict in social situations…am I ever really NAKED? Or am I (only) NUDE…?
Adorned with beads, feathers, sequins, a tan, heels, Pastease, hair, nails paint, muscles, oil, sparkles…I am not really completely NAKED…I honestly don’t even FEEL naked.
When I am nude…I feel clothed in purpose…and my purpose is to evoke and sustain your DESIRE.
Perhaps that belief spurred this sudden moment of “shyness” at the nude beach…being seen as NAKED in another’s eye, without a purpose?!?
An esteemed friend Roberto Rodriguez (professor, writer, and fellow explorer into the “psyche of sex”…a true nymphobrainiac, if I may be so bold) shared the following musings on the subject:
“Moved on the occasion of the death of Bettie Page, a 1950s movie star and pin-up girl, Manohla Dargis (quoting art critic John Berger) reflected on the difference between nakedness and nudity:
‘To be naked is to oneself. To be nude is to be seen naked by others and yet not recognized for oneself.’
Not being recognized means there is more in store.
Nakedness is pretty straightforward. It is exposure. What you see is what you get.
The allure of nudity is subtler. What is concealed is equal to or greater than what is revealed. What you see is not what you get.
Partial revelation triggers temptation, seduction, the dance of desire. This is the principle of nudity. Even if what is revealed is the naked body, there is more than meets your eye. Nakedness, although seemingly so close to nudity, is in a way its opposite. Nakedness is our natural state, but it may show too much too soon, more than we want to see, destroying desire.
The principle of desire is that people want what they can’t have and, if they get what they want, they don’t really want it…Infinite desire, bored with completion, thrilling to the process, is fascinated with the partial revelation, the play of concealing and revealing described by the ever-tempting lure of the nude.” (Emphasis added)
So, it seems that when confronted with being truly Naked at the Nude Beach, I was overwhelmed by my own sense of purposelessness…of being naturally naked…of being myself, among others doing the same.
The experience taught me an important lesson, I am not as open, comfortable, or confident in my own skin as perhaps I believed…and this new knowledge challenges me to expand my ideas about nudity, desire, and most importantly (my) self.
I present the same challenge to you, to examine your beliefs around your body…naked. Because if we cannot be ourselves…in any (and every) state…then who are we?
xxx, c.
(My image was shot by MWild of ShutterbugBoudoir.com & Pastease.com supplied “wardrobe”)
