Sticking it to the Puritans

Liz Langley has an excellent article on AlterNet about nudism.

On my first day, I eased out of my clothes one item at a time over the course of about an hour, and once I did, the relaxation was palpable. With no bathing suit squeezing your flesh and reminding you of how much you have and no wardrobe tricks to diminish this or amplify that, it's all you, baby: no faking. There's something very freeing about having no choice but to be exactly what you are.

Now you've relaxed, and you can sit back and be dazzled by something from which consumer media has shielded you: the staggering variety that real human bodies come in. Variations in sizes, shapes, colors, density, hairiness, age, texture, mass and buoyancy will knock you sideways unless you're a doctor, moritician or hooker and have seen it all before. You will be reminded wonderfully of those Discovery channel specials about life at the bottom of the ocean, the ones that make your mouth drop open with the thrilling realization that you don't know shit about the world in which you live.

Lastly, there's the feeling of sun hitting some parts of your body for the first time and the incomparable sweetness of gliding through the water and feeling it everywhere -- cool and vast and tranquilizing. Hanging out under the waterfall with Sheree and calling it "research" made me feel, not only like I was like a perfectly realized component of nature, but also that every decision I've ever made to get me here was good and I must be the smartest cookie in the box.