Photo by Aleksandra P., Poland
I’m not.
Last week I performed an experiment. I took off my clothes at my friends house in front of her and her 15 year old daughter.
Why? Because I want to feel completely unencumbered by my body. I asked permission, of course. And wore good underwear. My friend, being a good sport, said, “Sure, in the kitchen while I cook up the meat.” So we poured ourselves a glass of good red wine, seared some flesh, and heated up the room.
I remember reading about a man in a Tantric workshop who was crippled, yet, when he took off his clothes in front of the group with no artifice everyone saw him as luminous and beautiful. This is what I had in mind for me, in the kitchen. No strip tease, no attitude, no artifice. I wanted to be relaxed and easy, like I am at home in front of my partner, Will, in bright daylight.
At first my friend and her daughter didn’t really look. Then they glanced in my direction once in a while. Then finally they drank me in bit by bit. No one said anything about a particular part. No one threw up. I had wanted to walk around, but I found myself rooted behind the table and chairs. That’s as comfortable as I could get.
But I did it.
The next morning I told my sweetie, Will, what I had done and his reaction was not what I’d hoped for. “You don’t just go to other people’s houses and strip off all your clothes.” He was furious. I was deeply disappointed. He wouldn’t speak to me. I let him be while he thought things out.
That night, before bedtime, we talked. Will said he felt it was a breach of our intimacy and that I had shared something that was meant just for us. For me it was a daring investigation into how I see and live with my body; a personal test.
“What’s next?” Will said. “Nude hot-tubbing with the guys just to see if you can do it? Lady Godiva-ing around your Aikido Dojo?” I can understand his point of view. And by the end of our talk I think he understood mine. I don’t feel the need to escalate. It was a mini milestone for me. For the moment I feel complete.
Thanks for sharing this Susan. I might suggest my clients experiment with this idea. I love being naked myself, the freedom feeling of it, and it’s a shame that bodies have been shamed into hiding. In my homeland Denmark I am continuously reminded about a more relaxed attitude towards real bodies and nudity and it about time America becomes a little more comfortable with ‘real’ naked bodies.
i totally agree. i remember being in a tennis class in paris and the men and women all changed in one dressing room. at first i was mortified, and then i got used to it as no one made a big deal of it. no staring or gawking.
Susan, you are a great writer…..one of the things I liked about the piece was that you conveyed to me more of the spirit of experimentation and expansion of stripping so naturally in an unlikely setting….it din’t feel like you were doing anything brash or even daring. You were just being you in a different kind of way. It was also a little reassuring hearing Will’s reaction in that i can imagine Tim’s would be similar.
In fact, maybe in the nick of time, you gave me a new topic for the audio argument for my website! (only kidding.)
liking writing you here….love, Nancy
(what did you mean by “crowding him w/words?”…wasn’t really sure.)
that’s a new way of looking at it that ii like — that i was just being me. a bigger me than i usually am. re: crowding tim w/words was a reference to an earlier discussion we had about your tiffing style, remember? xs