Perspectives

What a Tintin comic, a hedge, and a stranger in white linen trousers taught me about being seen

Footprints toward the water | Photo via Envato Elements

I recently saw this picture from Tintin in Tibet, where he and his little friend were staring out into the immense Himalaya mountain range.

It brought me back to the time that we used to spend in the mountains, and what a profound effect it had on us. How it kind of detached us from the rest of reality. Away from the fast-moving world. Away from the day-to-day problems or worries. The intimidating vastness of the environment triggers you to put things in a much larger perspective.

Shedding my clothes gives me that same feeling of shedding the worries and problems of my normal day-to-day life. These worries and problems are as unnecessary as the clothes are on those moments that I cherish.

Back to basics, mentally. No more expressing yourself through what you are wearing. You can only express yourself through who you are. No pretending. The naked truth.

We are almost a year later than when we discovered nudism together. We’ve lived through a long winter, which feels like we got detached from ourselves again, from the real person that we discovered underneath the layers of clothes. As winter approached, we were forced to hide behind those clothes again, and it alienated us again from who we really are.

It felt like stress building up slowly but surely. After a couple of months I already started to struggle to remember or relive all of the emotions that we discovered last year, the happiness and joy that entered our lives and our relationship. And slowly we drifted back into the sadness of the ordinary clothed life, where superficiality rules over wellness, authenticity, and peace of mind.

I thought, feared, that I had lost the feeling, that it had been just a temporary thing. The joy and excitement of something new wearing off.

Until that day in April, when the sun came out again, and temperatures rose to very comfortable levels. We got out the sunbeds and took off our clothes again. It completely revived me, it lifted my spirits again as it did last summer. The freedom of running around naked in and outside of the house just makes one human again. Back to the essence of being.

All of a sudden I hear the voice of the woman next door very close to me, behind the not-so-covering hedge plants between our gardens. While she is explaining something to another woman next to her, I decide not to shock anyone and move discretely inside the house to get my bathrobe. Even though I wouldn’t really mind if she saw me, I hate to think that I imposed my nudity upon her, against her will.

That is not shame, but empathy and being considerate to others. Even though I really don’t know her point of view on this.

What could be her reaction, her perspective, as a non-nudist (I think) person?

Anger? Surprise? Embarrassment?

She could be angry. Because I imposed my nudity on her and her visitor.

A naked body doesn’t always induce a negative reaction in people; that depends on their upbringing, their experiences, their background. And the context of the nudity. If I were to confront her with any sexual activity of mine, that would be offensive in so many ways. Just like I was confronted once with a nudist man who started masturbating in plain view. There is nudity and there is sex.

Or when swinger couples invade nudist and naturist spaces. They impose their sexuality upon people who do not associate nudity with sex (except in their own privacy). Personally, they trigger my anger, as they feel like predators to me.

As opposed to anger, she could also just be surprised, or embarrassed. I can imagine one not having a real problem with nudity, but not knowing how to react when confronted with it unexpectedly.

Or she could just be surprised, without any further negative feeling or emotion.

I experienced this recently with the dermatologist, when I had her examine a dark spot on my areola, under my nipple. She reassured me that it was nothing harmful, and that she could freeze it if I wanted to get rid of it. She said that it couldn’t be exposed to the sun after this, “but that shouldn’t be a problem, right?” I contradicted this, and I was amused by her surprise about it. “Ok, then we’ll do this after summer.” I expected a different reaction there. Like, considering my lack of tan lines, a sermon about using sun lotion (I have never used that in my entire life, nor have my parents, grandparents, or in-laws, and there is no trace of any skin cancer in any of them). Or, when I mentioned that I had a wound there last summer, while working outside. (”How on earth do you wound your nipple?”) I did not expect a “meh” reaction. But she’s a doctor, I bet she’s heard wilder stories than this.

And then there’s the reaction of my friend, whom I called last summer to talk about my desire for nude recreation. She responded enthusiastically, saying that she has been doing that for ages and that she would love to have a friend join her.

Among nudists, there can only be one sort of reaction, because we share the same perspective about it.

Last Friday we went back to the nude beach, for the first time this year. Other nude visitors make eye contact, some say hello, some just smile and nod. One woman moved her things right next to us because there were children playing with jellyfish (yes, really) near her previous spot, and the screaming and yelling got to her. So you just engage in some friendly conversation with a naked woman, as if it really is the most normal thing in the world.

And those children — they didn’t have a care in the world. Their perspective was about jellyfish, and nothing else existed or mattered. How I miss and envy that innocence.

Some passers-by who weren’t naked were the most amusing ones, as they obviously didn’t know how to not look at all these naked people nearby. They are the ones who are embarrassed, and have no reason to complain, as they were invading our territory. Some of them might even have envied us for the freedom that we enjoyed, for the pride we somehow exhibited in it. As if they don’t have that same freedom of choice. Because it is a choice to not dare to show and enjoy your body.

And then there was this other, clothed woman near the waterline. I was looking at the washed-up seashells on the ground, while I was nearing the textile part of the beach. My wife was doing the same thing, some ten meters behind me. When I looked up, I saw this elegant woman approaching in her white linen trousers and her long blonde hair. She had this wide smile on her face as she greeted me and crossed my path. She wasn’t shocked, she wasn’t baffled, she wasn’t surprised or overwhelmed, nor embarrassed. She just encountered another human being and was just being the nice person that she seemed to be.

I really felt sad not to have engaged in a conversation with her; that would have really been a wonderful experience. She didn’t seem to care about me being naked — we were just two human beings enjoying the seaside.

And that is the ultimate in perspectives to me. That is my perfect world. There is no right or wrong, there’s just us, people, human beings, enjoying our lives and respecting each other. No looking down upon, no talking down, understanding instead of judging. 🪐

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