Straber’s Journey

 

By Straber

 

            My journey to my exploration of and my embracing of social nudity has not been ideal or idyllic; however, I’d like to hope that I could be considered a blossoming “Stormy Day” in my own right.  Many of you older adults may have stumbled upon social nudism either from birth, friends, or your own casual exploration (i.e. European or Caribbean trips), but unlike you, I started down a darker path with regards to my perception of nudity.

            I either first discovered that murky habit we men all confront at one time or another, or was led to it and the gateway-like misconstruction of my perception of the purpose of the human body, by the movie ‘Titanic’, with its famous drawing scene, which for some reason didn’t warrant a bumped up ‘R’ rating from the MPAA, which usually gasps at any nudity and slaps on said restriction-minded warning.  So, wow, I found out: naked girls get me excited – excited in very interesting (and soon to be guilty) ways.  Chalk it up to hormones, and a very sexually-charged culture and standard bathing-suit wearing family.

            One thing led to another, and BAM! – I was looking at soft-core sexually explicit material. And then some not-so-soft stuff. Always looking, always wanting more, never satisfied with the objects I had thus collected.  And sure, even though my parents caught me at least twice, and took away my free internet privileges, I still managed to fall deeper down that rabbit-hole.  But, thankfully, I did hit bottom.  Not in the form of, say, a major guilt trip, like Grandma catching me in the act a la “American Pie”, or being super-embarrassed by something my parents found, because they did find stuff (although it didn’t affect me), but in the form of disgust.  I became disgusted at what I was looking for, what I was finding, and most importantly, what I was doing, and why I was doing it.  It’s just too bad I didn’t find the “Experience Grace” pastor’s website earlier, or something like Boyd Allen’s Christian forum or the Fig Leaf Forum and its debates and articles, which would have helped me see my wrongs even more easily than my own soiled and time-wasted discovery.  (Oh the hours and nights I wasted in the smut and filth out there!)  If only I’d known earlier that there can be such a thing as good nudity, of which an understanding can help one break the bondage of hard-core sexually explicit material, as I discovered from Pastor Jeff’s site, or that there was a place I could go to ask questions and find answers about the function of the viewed body (is it for self-pleasure objectification, or is it a simple testament to God’s glory) in the forums that deeply explored the Scriptural implications of taking off one’s clothes for the glory of God.

            Even still, I had something of an epiphany: the female body (and as I eventually realized, the human body) is a wonderful gift from God, and like my own body, I should treat women’s bodies with respect and dignity, and not as objects to please my cravings for one-sided, false love and sick, inappropriate pleasure.  I started looking for artistic nudity, which I learned was appropriately categorized as “fine art photography”.  Eventually, nature tied into the photos I found.  And then stories, texts concerning the beauty of being naked and free outdoors.  This, I discovered, was often called naturism.  Obviously, this discovery led me to nudism, and the information started pouring into my hands – the papers, the research, the commentaries, and most importantly, the first hand accounts and introductions and FAQs concerning social nudism.

            And so, again, BAM!, I was hooked.  I had found a wealth of truth and honesty, and it felt good!  I had so much to catch up on, so many perceptions and aspects of my worldview to change, and so much to explore and think on.  And lo and behold, I came to SunnyDay’s website through the young naturists’ webring.  I poured over Sunny’s stories, amazed by her luck and her winning personality.  The way she described her joy in being nude for the natural feeling of it, the beauty and innocence of it, won me over; I realized after more reading – of other forums, articles, websites, testimonies, and even a full-fledged research report from UCLA, too – that I was a closet nudist, and truly not bound to hard-core sexually explicit desires any longer.  My eyes and my heart were, as a friend once phrased, unglazed, realizing for the first time that there was nothing wrong with my desire to be free in nudity – both in viewing the simplicity and joy and fellowship of it (and lack of pretenses, too!), and in the most soothing, natural practicing of it, anywhere I could, that is.  Perhaps on the roof of my house…  But that’s for a later paragraph.

            As many of you know, it takes one a bit of time to read through all of Sunny’s wondrous adventures, and I can remember many a wonderful afternoon in my high school stealing away to a computer lab and reading to my heart’s content, including the wonderful 4-part story about how Sunny found Brian, and vice versa.  What wonderful providence!  Anyway, it was those stories that in some ways buoyed me through my exploration of social nudity, and to some extent even through the spring of my senior year in high school, given the wrestling I was doing with whether my explorations and desires were appropriate and godly.  Plus, the uncertainty of college loomed, but my coming to terms with my perception of the human body and nudity was helped immensely by the stories, grounded and filled out, and making at least one thing certain.

            And then, finally, came the time to pack up for my interstate journey to my parents’ alma mater, a small, private, conservative, Christian school a little ways outside of a big city.  My first year was fraught with new beginnings, new friends, new adventures, new experiences, and new tribulations, to be sure.  However, I won’t bore any with the details concerning the good times, since many can remember the joys of college: being away from home, with one’s special room, and often one’s fair or even great roommate, and meeting new friends and new mentors in new classes of new discovery… 

New.  That’s what it was.  New and daunting.  My future – the one they always told us about throughout all of grade school – was just around the corner.  And little, uncertain me was just not ready for the commitment to MAKING so many choices: when to study, when to pursue deeper friendships, where to go to church, who to seek out in trouble, what classes to take, even when to eat and plan other routines!  Suffice it to say that I was a little over my head, and that my freshman spring semester didn’t go that well.  One small reason for this, however, was due to some of the follow-up annoyances I had to deal with after what happened in the winter of 2003, when I posted often on Sunny’s message board, somewhat sounding off, at least simply.  (Some did give me precious advice and encouragement, and they have my thanks – even Sunny, bless her!)

During the last weeks of my first semester as a freshman in college, my roommate went home for a weekend, and I was glad to have the dorm room to myself.  I could be nude whenever I had the door shut, and I could have my soothing, natural, affirming pictures of acceptable, appropriate nudity as backgrounds on my computer screen.  Unfortunately, he came back a few hours earlier than I thought he would, while I was out of the room with nude pictures still scrolling as a screensaver.  I came back and found him gone, but seeing his stuff, I panicked.  Looking at my computer screen, still scrolling through images, I saw a simple Post-It note message: “Nice, Straber.  Nice.”  And, knowing my roommate, I knew he was being sarcastic and leaving a hidden message: “Way to go.  You’re in for it now – now that you’ve done something that really offends / disgusts me.”  So, I grabbed my shoes, shut off the computer, and took off.  I ran down the street, thinking, “What do I do?  What’s HE going to do?  How much trouble am I in?” 

I wound up at the other underclassmen dorm, and stewed and worried and eventually wrote my roommate an apology, which happened to be a bit apologetic, too, but that’s kind of how I wanted the note to be.  And then came the inevitable meetings – an administrative chain of fire.  Four of them, in some form.  And in some differing frequency of visits.  First it was with the Residential Dorm Director (RD), a woman.  Then with two male deans – one the Dean of Residence Life, the other the Dean of Student Life.  Later, in the spring semester, I had many meetings with two men - one of the counseling center’s staff members, and one a most renowned Bible professor, and expert in the Hebrew Old Testament (whose Genesis 2 and 3 I had wanted to use… against his arguments against accepted social nudity).  I also eventually had a nice “here’s what happened and why” talk with my Resident Assistant – the upperclassman “in charge” of the floor on which I lived – the floor I might not have been on again had it not been for the fact that the room next door had an open bed for the spring semester; my roommate requested that he and I not be roommates again, so I moved in with a very cool sophomore.

At the meeting with the RD, we talked more about how I offended my roommate than anything else, and what steps I’d still have to take before the semester ended – at the end of that week!  However, she was also interested in how anyone could fathom the prospect of being nude with members of the opposite sex.  Did I desire for the peaking hormones and prime bodies of my college’s campus to be fully exposed in a striking wave of public nudity, she wanted to know.  Did I expect others to be comfortable with practicing social nudity together?  How could social nudity fit in with a Christian’s worldview, given the fall and clothing of man in the Garden of Eden?  While we didn’t spend much time on these questions and issues that she, more than I, brought up, I tried to remain poised and respectful and apologizing (for having pictures which could have offended others or caused them to stumble).  It was with this same attitude that I went to a meeting with both the Deans previously mentioned.  It was hard not to campaign for what I thought was right, thus I’m sure I plugged a few arguments for the acceptability of social nudity.

In any case, I felt less aggressive, yet more on the defensive at the meeting with the two Deans.  They were taken aback by the fact that I had so many pictures depicting non-sexual nudity on my computer, and of course required that I get rid of them immediately.  I learned both from the RD, and more directly from the Dean of Residential Life, that my roommate did not want to room with me for the next semester not just for the weird factor, but because he was offended by or weirded out by the note I wrote to him, which was admittedly a bit too much information and far too defensive.

At the meeting, I knew the Deans would ask me to tell my parents about the whole mess as soon as possible, but given that it was at the very end of the term, when I had finals that very week, and Christmas AND my New Year’s Eve birthday coming up, I basically demanded (in a very supplicating tone) that I be allowed to tell my parents after those events.  Needless to say, I was in quite a confused state during that holiday (and birthday) vacation.  Another thing they said would be a stipulation of my return to campus for the spring semester was that I “avail myself to the services of the college’s counseling center.”  In meetings with the one male counselor to whom I was sent, it seemed like he was getting way too caught up on the idea that nudity always equals sex, especially in the life of someone like me with collected images depicting nude bodies.  So obviously that meant I was raping people, or having many inappropriate thoughts about sex, sex, and more sex.  Talk about a waste of my time.  However, one of the most interesting series of discussions I had was with the renowned Hebrew Bible professor – meetings mandated by the Deans and a requisite for my return in the Spring.

In only three or four meetings with the professor, we had dived into some of the meanings and implications of some of Hebrew words concerning clothing and nudity in the Old Testament of the Bible.  He was pretty much dead set against the idea that naïve nudity was a legitimate thing to seek after, given the fall of man and the description of one being “clothed in [white robes of] righteousness,” etc.  (I tried to get him to read “The Bible, Society, and Nudity” paper, which can be found via Google, but he was pretty set against the idea that not wearing clothes in a social setting could be godly.  Please.  Read Genesis 2:25, for crying out loud.  God made our bodies; how could they be bad?!)  So we mostly butted heads and he seemed to feel disappointed that he couldn’t “bring me back” to his awkward thinking.  What can I say?  We just didn’t have enough time to *really* dive into the entire Bible, both Old and New Testaments, to truly pursue ideas like the concept of good nudity, and questions such as “does the Bible condemn social nudity as sinful?”  (See the Fig Leaf Forum for a most excellent debate and post-debate.)

However, even after these conversations, and even some with parents, too, I still knew that I was right.  (Thanks, Sunny.)  I was actually even a little more bold and inspired to bring up the subject (daintily, cautiously, and treading-lightly) with some friends.  I even had something of a breakthrough conversation with a girl on my sister floor!  It happened that she and I were doing laundry at the same time one late night in the basement of the dorm, and she said something like “I wish we didn’t have to do laundry so often.”  I responded that I could go for about a month without doing laundry, given that I had so many shirts and almost never wore underwear.  I also said something like “You know, there are people who do very little laundry, given that they wear clothes so little of the time.”  She replied that she knew what I was talking about, and that she’d like to visit a nudist resort at least once, just because she was curious. 

Because I was doing homework while waiting, and because I didn’t think it was the best time to simply open up to her and lay into how much I’d discovered and agreed with, I simply said, “I feel the same way.  We should talk more about this, since I’ve done a lot of exploring on the topic of social nudism.”  Stupidly, though, I sent her an email pretty much laying it all out there, which I thought weirded her out, so I sent another email to apologize…  but eventually we got together for lunch and I calmly, freely, and comfortably talked about certain issues concerning social nudism and we discussed things like body shame and sexual tension in the U.S.  It felt so good to have a friend I could talk with about my explorations!  Unfortunately, nothing much happened after that with regards to our mutual exploration of discussed or even practiced social nudity, being that it was near the end of the term and we both had lots of work to do.  However, that she and I might have become “kindred spirits” this past spring still aches in my heart, but for some naught, because she wound up not being at school this spring, off missioning in the great outdoors at a wilderness camp.  But, see, I didn’t go back to school this spring of 2005, either.

Remember how I said earlier that my freshman year spring (2004) semester didn’t go so well?  Well, couple that with a most poor showing as a first-semester sophomore, and you get, well, expelled.  So just imagine how crazy things have been for me with that, which *I* threw into this mix of mine.  What I mean to say is, given the freshman year’s first semester / spring semester craziness, plus being expelled from school, things have just been pretty darn difficult for me – lots of external stress along with plenty of internal things I’m still working out.  But, still, travailing through the embarrassment and uncertainty, the questions of moving out of home, getting job(s), etc., I still managed to have my first social nude experience at a nudist park this past winter.  And it was everything everyone ever says a socially nude experience is like, and then some!

It so happened that I had the car to myself for a full weekend in February due to my parents’ and brother’s trip to a hockey tournament far from home.  I somewhat foolishly took the car to visit a friend a good three hours’ drive from home, which was a good experience because I got to spend time with his wise mother, and also caught up with him and hung out with him and his girlfriend, watching a great movie.  I spent the night and woke up early to a glorious sunrise drive along a wonderful country road, then bade his family goodbye and traveled back home for a bit of repacking, dog-walking, and food-eating, and then drove another three hours in the opposite direction to visit friends at a college that was not too far from a wonderful nudist resort. 

After a strange and difficult morning of planning the trip out to the resort, and actually making the journey, I finally arrived in the mid-afternoon, and had a great time playing pool, sharing a few hints at a computer learning session, and playing water volleyball in the nude.  It was such an exciting first hour or so, because immediately upon arrival, I was witness to a strolling old couple and their carefree naked behinds, and thought to myself “I’m finally here.  I’m finally at a place where I can be nude and not worry about a thing.”  Shedding my clothes was easy, especially because I was indoors for most of the afternoon, except for the quick dash outside to the entrance to the indoor hot tub adjacent to the pool.  What I should say is that I was ready to be nude and free, like Sunny says about being in a place totally meant for nude recreation, although still, it felt strange at first, to be exposed and completely naked in front of so many people.  Yet as every testimony attests, the oddness wore off soon and the pleasure set in fast!  Of course, the time to leave came too quickly, and I hurried back home for my overnight shift.  All in all, it was a somewhat crazy weekend that was a bit too careless, but I didn’t cause too much trouble, and made it home safely.

            So, tack that on to my latest joyful discovery in rooftop sun- and moon-bathing and star-gazing, too (oh why didn’t I think to do this during previous summers!), on the roof of my house, out of sight and trying to get a good tan, or appreciating the not-too-light-polluted starry skies, completely au naturel and avec l’air tranquil, and you have a most interesting end to my story.  Taken from Sunny’s words, I’ve learned that I have to be careful how I deal with others regarding good nudity; most people don’t get it and will condemn others for it and that can cause them big-time problems.  I wish I’d known back then what I know now so that I could have avoided all or at least a lot of these problems.  Lastly, I would like others to know my story so that they can avoid the pitfalls that I’ve experienced.  If everyone could know about good nudity from the beginning, a lot of problems could be avoided.

            Finally, I find myself asking, “Where will I go?  What will I do?  What in the world am I supposed to DO with myself and my life?”  Only God knows, and I hope and pray and do know that He’ll get me through it all somehow, some way.  So, cheers and good tidings to all those I can consider friends for reading this testimony to real life’s crazy twists and turns.  Take care and stay bare this summer (whenever yours may be)!