I absolutely loved being nude as a child, and I think most kids do. My relationship with my body became far less comfortable during puberty, but I still had a strong desire to get out of my clothes. When nobody else was home, I wandered through the house bare and would have been mortified if anyone had caught me. Based on what I’ve read about others’ experiences, I don’t think any of the above is so unusual among those of us who eventually become nudists.
I was sixteen in 1969 when I first saw photos of nudity at Woodstock. Through those images, I realized that it was possible to be socially naked without shame. How I admired those happy, muddy, naked hippies! I envied their apparent comfort with their bodies and the fact that they hadn't let the cameras stop them. I fantasized about experiencing such freedom. I didn’t just want to be nude; I also wanted the courage not to hide it.
Immediately after graduating high school, I got a job ushering at an Off-Broadway show where the actors were nude onstage (and frequently off). Again, I had feelings of envy tinged with inadequacy. I thought, “I could never do that,” ...but I sure wanted to!
I spent much of that summer at my first nude beach. I loved feeling the air and the sun all over, but wasn’t really at ease with the part about being seen. I was fine until I thought someone might actually be looking at me. In an attempt to be invisible, I’d roll over onto my stomach and turn my face away. I knew my embarrassment was hypocritical, and I resolved to overcome it.
Confronting the fear of being seen
When autumn came, I signed up to model for art classes at New York University. I remember walking into a studio for my first gig. The room felt huge. In the center was a low wooden platform, an island completely surrounded by drawing horses (individual benches designed for artists).
The class was Life Drawing 101, and the students were my age. This nude model thing was new to all of us, but I was the one about to be naked. I approached the only adult in the room and introduced myself as the model. The kids within earshot turned to look. The instructor told me to change into my robe. I had not known I was supposed to bring a bathrobe to wear between poses, so I had no means of easing into nudity. He said, “Next time, come prepared.” I sat down in a corner of the studio, removed my shirt, shoes, and socks, and waited.
After a brief introductory talk, the instructor said it was time to begin. I took off my pants with my back to the room. I was shaking. With all eyes on me, I made my way between the seated students and stepped onto the model stand. Resisting an urge to cover my crotch, I kept my hands at my sides. As I waited for instructions, I felt a buzzing in my brain caused by a rush of blood that I never experienced before or since. I had committed to being on display for the next three hours, which sounded like an eternity. Once the actual poses began, it was an out-of-body experience. I concentrated on remembering song lyrics and poems, anything to distract myself from the situation.
The breaks were awkward. Typically, the model would don a robe and do some stretching on the model stand or stroll around to look at the drawings. I wasn’t going to do that naked, yet it felt absurd to put jeans on. So, I remained nude and sat in the corner where I had left my clothes. No one spoke to me.
After the class, I got dressed, and the instructor signed my payment form. He said I had done well for a first-timer and that he hoped I’d come back. I shared an elevator to street level with some of the students, and something clicked in my mind. These strangers had scrutinized my body for hours, and... and nothing! I was just another person in the elevator. They’d seen me naked, so what? I had no idea whether they thought I was cool or a loser, and I realized it was none of my business.
Gaining comfort through art modeling
With each subsequent class, I found it less and less difficult to be mentally present. Before long, I was able look back at the students and meet their eyes as they flickered between me and their sketch pads. I could chat with them about their drawings during breaks. I absorbed what the instructors were saying as they taught the students not only how to draw but also how to see.
They discussed me like I was a bowl of fruit, not a person with feelings. I learned to accept observations such as “he’s bow-legged” or “he’s on the skinny side” not as criticisms but as mere statements of fact. I took ownership of my flaws, if that's what they were. I became familiar with my body and its uniqueness. Putting it all out there to be seen became an affirmation. Being the naked person in the room began to feel like a privilege. Body shame can be unlearned.
Being looked at was no longer a concern, and I discovered aspects of modeling that actually made it enjoyable. I have no doubt that some models do it mainly for the pay. But, for me, a three-hour session is a time to slow down and think and to experience a heightened awareness of my body. While holding a pose, there's nothing to do but be in the moment. I'm acutely aware of the temperature in the room. I love the warmth from a space heater on my flesh in the same way I love sunshine or a breeze when I'm nude outdoors. I am conscious of how my weight is distributed and of the textures of whatever surfaces I’m in contact with; the plywood model stand, the folded towel cushioning my knee, and the way my back sticks to the plastic chair. I become aware of the connections between every part of my body. I listen to the sounds in the studio; the scratching of charcoal on paper, hushed voices, a sudden burst of laughter about a joke I hadn't heard. Sometimes there's music playing. I'm fully in the moment, with no distractions. Having that peaceful quality time with my thoughts and my nude body is a gift.
I’ve heard life modeling referred to as “public nudity,” which it certainly is not. It is a closed-door setting in which nudity is expected. Those inside the room are a collaborative community consisting of the teacher, the students, and the model. Very occasionally, an outsider enters to deliver a message, or a would-be student and their parents peek in while touring the school, and I suddenly feel very naked. Otherwise, modeling is cozy and surprisingly intimate. It’s also very hard work if you’re doing it right.
Art models come in all shapes and ages. As I've said, I started out as a teenager posing for my peers. Soon I was working at numerous schools, as well as for private sketch groups with various demographics. Initially, I was often the youngest in the room.
I worked at the Salmagundi Club, New York’s oldest art club, which seemed to be populated exclusively by old men. I posed for a group of middle-aged housewives who met in an apartment on the Upper West Side and who openly compared my 20-year-old body to those of their middle-aged husbands. I posed one-on-one for some well-known artists. I volunteered to model at a senior residence where some of the old women stared, hardly even pretending to draw, and at SAGE (Senior Action in a Gay Environment) where old men did the same. The list goes on. A small percentage of my bookings were memorable, like modeling nude on the roof of a building at NYU because the teacher thought the day was too nice to stay indoors, but most were routine.
On two occasions, I walked into sketch groups to find that people I knew from other parts of my life had come to draw; a guy who'd been my sister's high school friend and a woman with whom I was in a club for toy collectors. Having them see me in my "work clothes" was mildly weird, but only for the first few minutes.
Years and decades passed. Before I knew it, I was considerably older than the students in the college classes that still provided most of my work. Then I was older than most of the teachers. I still received compliments, usually on my ability to hold poses and occasionally with a thinly veiled appreciation of my physical appearance. I admit that it stoked my ego as I aged.
Then, in the 1990s, there was a young woman who proclaimed loudly, for comedic effect, that I looked “like a 70’s porn star.” Ouch. That’s when I realized that the college kids had begun to see me as pathetic (and that was 30 years ago). I remembered seeing elderly models at the schools when I was still in my twenties and thirties and thinking it was both admirable and a bit sad that they were still at it. I hoped they weren't continuing just because they needed the money. Now here I am, fifty-four years after that first terrifying Life Drawing 101 class, still modeling and still loving it.
The journey to self-acceptance
I’ve long since stopped wondering whether this or that person drawing me thinks I’m attractive. I don't kid myself, especially not in a room full of college kids. But I still feel confident in my skin. I still feel my very best with no clothes on. Continuing to spend time nude helps me stay in touch with my body and come to terms with how it has changed.
My body is not what it was at eighteen, or twenty-five, or forty, or fifty. That's precisely why they use older models, and models with a range of body shapes; because not everyone in the world looks the same. Aging is part of life, if we're lucky, and this is how it looks to be me at seventy-two. I can either continue my quest for self-acceptance or give in to the body shame I worked so hard to beat. I could stop showing my wrinkles and surgical scars to spare others the supposedly awful sight of an older human being, or I can continue to celebrate this vessel I live in.
I love it when one of the people drawing says, with admiration, “You’re so comfortable with your body,” and I agree. I’ve pushed my confidence far beyond the safety zone of art studios. I’m fine with being seen nude by almost anyone, almost anywhere. Figure modeling may not usually qualify as public nudity, but I’ve actually done it on a street corner as part of an art event. I've participated in my share of World Naked Bike Rides and wild San Francisco street fairs, too. This acquired comfort and self-acceptance didn’t come easily to me. I started learning it on that nude beach when I was seventeen, and I’m still working on it. There are bad days when I think it might be time to cover up this old body for good. So far, I've pushed through those negative feelings.
I don’t get naked for anyone else’s benefit. I do it for myself. Nudity is still my happy place, and no one is too old to be naked. 🪐
One photo is of my camp at Burning Man, Art Model Camp in the AEZ village. We get lots of first-timers, who are doing it to get over fears and inhibitions.
Thanks for sharing about your work as a model. I enjoyed your article.