Our ‘nude debut’ series seems to have struck a chord with readers, and contributions are coming in to the point where it’s hard to keep up with the in world photo sessions required to illustrate the contributions.
Our next contribution comes from Swedish avatar Boon, whose vague ideas of naturism appear to have nagged away at the back of his mind for four decades before it engulfed him, and he finally took the plunge into the naturist lifestyle. The moral is, sometimes it’s a journey, and sometimes there are diversions on the way but however long it takes, you get there. A recurring thought amongst late bloomers is ‘I wish I’d done this many years ago’.
‘I am thinking of the first time I dropped my clothes in public, and just enjoyed myself being naked and feeling the wind and the sun on my skin.
But before I got there, I made quite a journey to get to that point where getting naked was something that I had to do. I have always been ashamed of my body. I guess there were nothing actually wrong with it when I grew up. I looked like my school mates, even if I was quite long for my age during school. I hated getting undressed after gymnastics, and shower with 10-15 other guys. This was way out of my comfort zone.
When I got older, and met my wife, had children and growing a family I stopped grow on the length but continued to grow around my waist. At some point, a few years ago, I felt that it was hard to cope with my work, which can be quite physically demanding some times. It was time to start loosing weight and try to start some sort of exercise to manage my work again.
I had been running a lot in my youth, so I thought of picking that up again. While surfing the net for some advice of how to start running as an overweight, middle aged man I bumped into barefoot running. The arguments for running barefoot made sense to me, but there was one big obstacle – I had to be barefoot – In public!
After I had got used to the thought for a while, I started running barefoot. It turned out so well that I really enjoyed being barefoot all the time, even when not running. I liked to feel the ground I was walking on, I liked that my feet didn’t get wet and smelly from sweat and I got used to be the fool that don’t wear shoes.
After a few month there was a new thought that started to make some noise deep inside. “If being barefoot feels this nice, how will it feel to be barefoot all over?”
The urge to drop my clothes grew stronger and stronger, but this really took some time to get used to. I started to be more and more naked around the house, and I liked the feeling of “connection” between my skin and the environment around me. The air felt good on my skin, the freedom of not having clothes encouraged me to spend more and more time naked.
My home was a secure surrounding, with only the family around that could see me, and they had seen me naked before.
The next step was to visit a nude beach, and get naked where other people would see me. This was not an easy thing to do, but the urge to do this wouldn’t leave me alone.
One fairly warm day during the autumn, I drove to a nearby beach in the late afternoon. The beach was quite empty and there was small “pockets” where you were quite out of sight for others.
I looked around if anyone else could see me, and I then took all my clothes of and sat down in the sand. The feeling was some kind of as anti climax. I had been so nervous about this moment, but in the same time been longing for it, and now it just felt – good.
The sand, the sun and the wind was new feelings to my body, but they felt nice and I enjoyed them.
After a little while another guy turned up, and picked a spot not far from me. I could see him get undressed like it was the most natural thing in the world. He didn’t care about being naked, and I started to forget about me being naked. It was one of the most liberating moments I can remember.
This was one of the last warm days that year, so there were no more visits to the beach until next summer, but I had made it. I had felt how it was to be naked outdoors and I simply loved it. After 40 years of shame I suddenly reached a point where I could accept my body and how it looked. I didn’t mind others seeing it, and I found out that seeing other people naked was not sexy at all. It was the most natural thing in the world, and it was very liberating.
Boon
I‘ve reprinted this word for word, as received, with no alterations other than to italicise what I feel are very important points. Boon, thank you for your contribution and I sincerely hope that you can build on your naturist experiences in the summer of 2015. Thank you, Boon, your contribution is greatly appreciated. Ella
Photos by Diane Toxx
the sl naturist 