Introduction

This is my story of how I ended up not wearing out my clothes as fast as everyone else does. No, seriously, people become nudists or naturists in a kind of a process. It's not necessarily an overnight thing. It involves your response to nudity, your own and others. It is reflected in how you feel when societal norms dictate something different to yours about nudity at home, outdoors, in a jacuzzi, at the beach, on a walking trail. The feel of a breeze on your skin enlivens you. Fear of discovery is lessened with experience, leaving you with fond memories of some accidental encounters.

When I come home from work, those annoying clothes and shoes are off and bliss is the result. I don't take it for granted. I am very fortunate. My wife isn't on the same page, but loves a private skinny dip.

This article will take you through the influences that worked upon me from my open, body-free, uninhibited parents. They had four sons. All but one experienced social nudity even though our parents didn't.

I grew up in Sydney Australia and presently live in Sydney still. That might explain the spellings and word usage being a little different to yours. And if you could hear me I have a softer kind of Aussie accent, probably due to flatting with three Kiwis, one of whom became my wife. I've known her for just over forty years now.

Descended from an Irish gentleman who borrowed a horse without permission; thus, earning himself a new part of the world to reside in and heavy jewellery about his ankles to keep him in camp. Timber getting was the local work for convicts where he laboured. Eventually he was granted 30 acres with a pardon and went into orcharding apples. I would say that in his day skinny dipping in the local creeks was the norm.

Mum and Dad's Influence

For whatever reason, my father and mother stopped sharing the same bedroom when I was very young. My mum used to say that his body heat annoyed her. My mum also told me that there was some relationship issues that plagued them. Why don't people get counseling and sort these things out? Once they got the house to themselves some years later they became closer again. I was the fourth child and we had just two bedrooms. Dad had closed in the back verandah area and that became my dad's room. Four boys in one bedroom wasn't going to work, especially with the oldest in his teens. So I got to share the room with dad.

A story written by George on Sunny's Message Board reminded me of a similar unintentional fatherly introduction to nudism. Out of young curiosity and being exploratory I discovered my dad's collection of nudist magazines. These had the smudging that rendered everyone neuter gender. The equivalent of today's pixelating. No genitals to be seen. The truth of humanity distorted once again. To my knowledge I don't know whether either of my parents ever visited a nudist venue of any kind. I know that my dad worked hard and loved to do projects around the house. I can't imagine him having the time to run off to some place. I don't think there were many places one could go in those days, nevertheless he would have known if there was from his collection of magazines.

There was never a time when I was made to feel ashamed of my body being seen by anyone else. I knew what both my mother and father looked like sans clothes. They never went out of their way to hide what they had been given. Mum and dad's casual attitude to nudity was such a great influence on me. They talked of being "in the nuddy" as if it was a happy experience. Never did they make me feel ashamed of my body. Even as a teenager my mother and I would occasionally see each other nude and neither of us batted an eyelid. She would go from bedroom to bathroom for a shower and back without anything on and didn't try to hide her nudity from me. By this I guess she continually reinforced a healthy attitude in me. Maybe she was in teaching mode. If she saw me nude in my room she would just carry on as if it was perfectly normal. I remember how she was so excited when she bought a tan-thru bikini. She would sunbathe by the pool in just the bottoms. I don't think someone would wear them at the beach because tan-thru to me looked more like see-thru. I wondered why she bothered wearing them at all.

I, being the youngest always seemed to be left out of the loop regarding any interesting news except what may have come to light at the dinner table. We would talk quite a bit after dinner and then someone would suggest playing a card game to decide who would do the washing up. This family tradition fell by the wayside once we could finally afford a television. During my teenage years I remember being unhappy with the new tradition of dinner being in your lap and the dinner table becoming cluttered with letters and old newspapers. Progress sometimes brings a regress. Now we've chased that digression, I never knew very much about whether my older brothers participated in nude recreation. At least not until just a few years back which I will cover later on. Before we leave that topic to continue the early part of my life I will share this. I recently asked my nearest in age brother “Did we ever skinny dip?” to which he replied “All the time.”

I could talk with my mum about anything. We shared a frank openness that would be rare in a lot of families, especially when I reached puberty. There was this kind of trust between us. I think the casual family nudity somehow helped this.

I saw my father in his skin many times. Funny how he liked to dress comfortably while working on a project. Almost always his shorts were subject to wardrobe malfunctions as he shifted this way or that. No big deal. I had no issue with the fact that I was circumcised and he wasn't. My son and grandson aren't circumcised either. Choices on this had their various reasons. I loved helping my dad on projects. We even designed and built the extension of our house together. A good bonding and learning experience. I went on to become a Structural Drafter. He was not only my dad, but a mentor. Though he had a problem with expressing emotional love, he did it in these other ways like teaching what he knew about the stars while we stared up at them. I still know how to find due south with the Southern Cross and the two pointers. If you live in the northern hemisphere, google it. My mum and dad always had amazing tans. Us boys all have fair skin and tend to go pinkish. I recently had a melanoma removed from my back. I'm obviously not cut out for a lot of sun exposure. Ha - “cut out”. Sorry, unintended pun.

We lived on the edge of a National Park. All of that bush was our playground as kids. We swam in various places, caught yabbies (crayfish or crawfish), snakes etc. I was about eight years old when we were playing Tarzan in "The Vines", a place along the creek with a genuine rainforest canopy and vines everywhere. I wanted my Tarzan impression to have some realism, so I took off my clothes, swung on a vine doing my best ohhhhh-eeh ohh-eeh ohh-eeh oghhhhhh. Then I ran along the foot track for the whole length of the track and back, repeating my call. Some neighbour kids and one of my brothers might have been there with us. Nobody cared at all about my streaking. It was just normal behaviour to these kids.

Dad ensured that the neighbours couldn't see the pool area and was quite open about maintaining privacy for us all. I'm not sure how much each of us took advantage of this. I will share something about my experience in the next chapter.

When I went to high school we had the regular communal shower after PE or sport. It was a boys high school, not coed. Some of the guys may have been bothered by the shower but it didn't seem a big deal to me. I had a circle of friends one of whom had a pool. On occasion while his parents were out we would use the pool sans suits. His pool was also private. In all of these experiences I had no qualms at all whether out in the bush or in a pool. Getting out of clothes became a freeing experience for me.

As A Young Man

When I was 19 I met this 19 year old girl who now is my wife. I used to take her out bushwalking. She was new to Australia and went from being afraid of our snakes etc. to really enjoying bushwalking. On one occasion I took her to a remote part of bush where there was a large flat rock area. I took it all off and proceeded to enjoy the feeling of the sun, air and peaceful surroundings. She didn't share my enthusiasm for being in a natural state and talked me into covering up and us going back to the car. She thought it was weird how I had this desire to be in that state. For me it was just normal behaviour. Her religious upbringing led her to have a different attitude. I think this was the first occasion of me getting nude outdoors in her company. I just dropped all my clothes right there without a word and probably suggested she try it. On another occasion we both skinny dipped in a remote bush waterfall and pool and picnicked nude for hours. It was a very secure secluded place. She felt safe being there.

On occasion after that we had other opportunities to skinny dip with others in different places and circumstances. Somewhere along the way she became more confident participating with me and whoever was with us. On one occasion we were camping with a bunch of friends. There must have been a dozen of us including some Finnish friends who I will share about below. I was amazed at this interesting situation. We in the western countries think of the Finnish sauna as an exotic thing. You would think that using it would promote a freer attitude to nudity. Our friends all skinny dipped on one occasion. All except the Finnish family who was with us. They had 2 small boys and I was unsure of what held them back. On reflection though it could have been the fact that the boys would not have been used to the tradition of their parents because they were living in Australia. I wonder if they were old enough to remember their sauna experiences. If so they would have only participated as a family. After a few years in Australia they returned to Helsinki. I will have more to say about them further on.

I remember sunbathing nude with my girlfriend by my parent’s pool. I can't remember if mum and dad were there at the time. All I know is that we had a pleasant time enjoying the pool and the sun. In all of this she actively participated with me. She certainly had gained confidence and a liking for skinny dipping. We were living together by then and were just visiting at my parent’s house. We weren't far from getting married. Life would take a different turn after that.

Getting Married and Becoming Christians

We both came to believe in the Bible in our first year of marriage. She had previous religious experiences, but I had not. My parents weren't religious and even my dad was turned off to it by his strict and probably abusive upbringing. With most of the things I thought I had to change in my life from the worldly person that I was, I just made decisions based on what I thought was right and wrong and by observing what my fellow Christians did or didn't do. Thus, I assumed that practicing any kind of nudity was unacceptable. Now in hindsight I can see that it isn't considered acceptable because of our western society’s values which encourage body shame. At that time, I never realized how much the Bible was so non-committal on nudity.

I stifled all urges to get my clothes off outdoors. Though at home with my wife I still had a tendency to get around without much on when it was warm. My wife used to remark that my uniform consisted of just a tee shirt. She would say that I was in my comfort zone then. I must have it in my blood - a true nudist at heart. I know that when opportunities came up to get in a skinny dip alone together we would jump at it. I slept nude seasonally those days, but in more recent years I never wear anything to bed all year round. A couple of years later we traveled around Europe and had the occasion to bathe in a river we camped next to in Greece. That was so nice. About a month later we celebrated mid-summer with a sauna in Finland with a crowd of participants. We used the sauna weekly with our hosts for five weeks. Our hosts of course were the family I shared about earlier. While there, we always went to the sauna with men and women separately. This may explain something about the earlier experiences they had with us in Australia. So I found that people, though eager to experience the sauna, didn't necessarily share my current attitude towards nudity. Somehow while on that long trip I did loosen up my thinking somewhat to be a little more sensible about it. It would be another 20 years before I started to get back to nature again.

END - Part 1 of 3

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