Desnudo en el Mar I've never been entirely comfortable with nudity, at least not my own, anyway. Even though I live alone, for some reason, I can never get myself to sleep in the nude, no matter how many great things I hear about it or how much I drink before bed. (And I've tried. A lot.) And just about the only thing I can do in the bathroom with the door wide open is that thing where you look in the mirror and say "Bloody Mary" three times. When it comes to other people showcasing their goods, however, I say bring it on. In fact, you might say it's been a bit of a thing with me for some time now. I spent my childhood dreaming that some doctor or dentist would accidentally leave an old issue of Playboy in the waiting room magazine rack.
Or that my family would somehow stumble upon a nudist colony on one of our camping trips. And I remember being changed forever at the age of twelve when, one balmy summer day at Jones Beach, I saw one girl lose her top in the waves and another accidentally display her butt while trying to clean sand out of her bathing suit. In the car home later that day, I felt like a man, and it was awesome. The occasional brush with fate or some romantic date's poor judgment aside, I still wanted more in the nudity department. Then as luck would have it, I was asked to cover a "clothing-optional dinner" by a now-defunct radio program. "We couldn't talk anyone on our staff or even someone not on our staff into doing it," they told me. "Then your name came up." "I'll do it! I'll do it!" I said, remaining perfectly calm.
As an inquisitive and occasionally hard-hitting journalist, I felt obligated to accept. The fact that I'd be hanging out with a bunch of totally naked people and actually getting paid for it made me feel like I was creating my own destiny. It was as if I had been working toward this moment my whole life. The group behind these clothing-optional dinners held events every few months, usually in some restaurant with a spare banquet room, an open-minded waitstaff, and-presumably-chairs that wipe down easily. But the stars magically aligned and the dinner I planned to drop in on would be taking place on a small cruise ship that would sexily wend its way around New York City's sexy surrounding waters as sexy naked people enjoyed what would undoubtedly be one sexy, sexy meal. My great-grandfather was a sea captain,1 so it was almost as if my past and present had joined forces to give me what would undoubtedly be one of the greatest and most important nights of my life. I was born to be on that boat, dammit. It was a rainy evening as I hopped in a cab headed for the water with John, a tech guy the radio show sent along with me to record everything the naked people and I said, and my friend Lucy, who was coming along both for emotional support and in hopes that this naked cruise was going to be every bit as awesome as I kept telling her it would be.
"Everyone on the boat is going to be fully nude and just kind of free, y'know?" I told her excitedly. "There's also supposed to be a very nice buffet." "I'm sorry," Lucy said. "It just doesn't sound like my kind of thing." "Please, I really need this." "Fine, but you owe me one." "You got it!" I figured if things didn't go as planned, at least I'd be on a boat with a good friend, which is always nice. Also, to be honest, whether I took my clothes off or not, I didn't feel secure enough in my masculinity to go out there with just another dude.
The naked boat was setting sail from Sheepshead Bay, an area of Brooklyn that looks like it was once the stomping grounds of sailors, convicts, and whores but is now a port of call for sexy, sexy people with both a taste for adventure and a distaste for clothes, which is to say, people I totally could not wait to hang out with. I was certain the boat was going to be teeming with open-minded, uninhibited, and totally butt-naked superfoxes and maybe a handful of dudes with their junk out that I would just have to accept as part of the deal. As our cab pulled up to the docks, it wasn't hard to spot the naked party boat. It was practically radiating good times. Even from far away I could see large swatches of flesh passing sexily by the boat's windows. "Come to us, Dave, you succulent man," I swore I heard them call from the distance. "We're waaaaiting.…" My expectations, however, were dealt their first blow as soon as we got a little closer and myopia was no longer on my side.
There, awaiting our arrival in the boat's entryway, was Ron, the event organizer and-to his credit-the brains behind the operation. Pale, freckled, and fiftyish, Ron wore only glasses and had a build not unlike a lopsided baked potato with four toothpicks shoved into it. One gut picked up just below where the first one left off and, well, I was determined not to investigate any further south after that. "Whatever, I'm not here to look at dudes anyway," I thought. "Welcome," Ron said with a firm yet slightly-too-long handshake. "I'm so happy you've decided to cover our little event here!" "It's my pleasure," I said before immediately questioning that statement. "Wonderful," Ron said. "Now climb aboard, we'll be setting sail just as soon as everyone gets situated.
" As I quickly learned, in Ron's vocabulary "situated" meant "pantsless." At this point, I was starting to think maybe this would be like the movie Eyes Wide Shut where all the men were old and flabby, but all the women were still scorching hot for some reason. But that delusion was shattered only seconds later as Ron led me to the main dining area of the boat. There I was greeted by about thirty absolutely nude men and women in their forties and fifties, a shameless sea of pasty flab, cellulite, and slowly graying pubic hair. "Usually we have a bigger group," Ron explained, "but the rain has kept a lot of folks away." "Are you sure it's the rain?" I wanted to ask him. To be fair, this wasn't necessarily an unattractive bunch. They more served to illustrate the fact that most people should probably keep covered up at all times than, for example, the idea that ugly people simply can't wait to drop their pants in a group setting.
The exception, of course, were the half dozen gay men seated together in one corner, who were uniformly toned and tanned from head-to-toe. (As I understand it, most gay men receive a gym membership in the mail immediately after even grazing a male crotch other than their own for the first time, so this wasn't a surprise, really.) As I slowly made my way around the boat, I decided to take my shirt off in a show of solidarity. Pale, flabby, somehow skinny and fat at the same time, and with enough random patches of body hair to singlehandedly prove the theory of evolution, I'm not exactly headed for the cover of Men's Fitness any time soon myself. Still, I was confident my looks (or lack thereof) would land me squarely between Ron and the table of gay guys, so I figured I might as well go for it. "You're not going to take off your pants?" Ron teased me. "Baby steps, Ron," I told him. "Baby steps.
" "Oh, come on, Dave," he persisted. "Why not just see how you feel without them for a bit? For me." "What happened to the 'optional' part in 'clothing optional'?" I wondered. He could have at least offered to buy me a drink or told me how nice my hair looked first. But, among other things, tonight was about acceptance, so Ron let the whole thing about me keeping my wedding tackle under wraps slide as he began to further explain what exactly I was in for once we pulled up anchor and headed out into the extra-friendly waters. "There's only one rule at our dinners," Ron smiled. "No hot soup." He said that last part like it was the group's official slogan.
I wanted to suggest he get it printed up on T-shirts, but it seemed pointless. And as it turned out, there was another rule besides that one-everyone has to put a towel down on their chair before sitting, a courtesy that I'm guessing facilitates both sanitary table hopping and Ron getting his deposit back. As Ron continued bringing me up to speed, I couldn't help but notice he was one of those people who stands just a little too close to you when he's talking, a detail greatly magnified by the fact that his senior vice president was flapping in the breeze as he spoke to me. Still, I had a job to do, so I held my ground and began asking the tough questions. "What about erections?" I asked. "What about them?" Ron replied. "Well, are they frowned upon or … not at all?" I asked with a wink. "It rarely happens," he explained as if he were reading aloud from some member literature, "but if it does, we ask that the owner simply be discreet about it and excuse himself.
" "Good to know," I said. "But I think you'll find this is a completely nonsexual environment," Ron continued. I couldn't have agreed with him more, but I think my reasons we.