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For your consideration. 3rd draft essay. Husband read it, but he likes everything I do and isn't the best critic of my work.
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Stepping out of a tiny beach side changing tent, surprise struck me as I laid my eyes on a full moon on what was otherwise a glorious summer afternoon along the North Sea. Quickly looking away I was confronted by the sight of a rather voluptuous, nearly naked, mother wiping sand off her toddler daughter's bare rump with a quick hand. I swung my head about the opposite direction to steal a quick look at an old man, standing in ankle deep sand, changing into swim trunks with intermittent flashes of his god-givens bobbing about. The level of my personal surprise, discomfort, and eventual amusement grew. As I probably appeared as a sight of a woman stunned, my German host came to my rescue.
"Are you ready for the water?" His brusk accent caught my ear and served as a Teutonic life preserver in the sea of confusion. Grateful for the distraction, I clambered down the wooden walk to meet him with a quick nod.
"Why do they even have these things?!" Gesturing with a sweeping arm to the rows of colorful changing tents, eyes wide. "No one seems to use them around here." He laughed a very amused sort of chuckle and smiled at me.
"They are for the American Tourists." Never in my lift have I considered myself a prude. Time to time I have thought myself to be sensible and maintain that one should keep personal areas personal when in public. When in private, however, that was a whole different matter.
My sister and I went through our "Dukes of Hazzard" phase, yes we grew up in the 80's, and she insisted that she wear all her button-up shirts untucked and unbuttoned to mirror her favorite character Bo. After all, she was the blond sister and I was the brunette. She wasn't very old at the time, about five or six, with me being three years her elder. Despite our age, alarm bells would go off in my head every time she would free herself. True, we were sliding over the hood of Dad's El Camino and climbing through open windows pretending to be Bo and Luke Duke. It didn't change the fact that we were girls, and more importantly, she was my sister. My protective nature was stirred.
It was a rule that you don't show anyone that area, it was for your own protection and not to mention public decency. I had to protect her. Attempts at sister coercion to cover-up failed. I went to Mom, the great Equalizer. She was the one who taught me a majority of life's lessons, including girls should cover-up. I found it very confusing when she told me that my sister was too young to worry about that rule. Age was lost on me. A rule was a rule and needed to be enforced. I guess I had to be the enforcer. After about a week of badgering my mother and my mother badgering my sister, the shirt was finally remained buttoned and we continued our adventures in Hazzard county aureola free.
Growing-up I never considered my reactions unreasonable, but as an adult I can better question and analyze why I react the way I do. Why did the exhibitionist German beach-goers catch me off guard like that? Why did my sister's open shirt upset me that way? Am I really that much of a conservative despite feeling quite open-minded? I appreciate the naked human form. My early college years were spent drawing nudes from live models, which I did without batting an eye. But confront me with a live naked body in public and I will blink twice and possibly blush heavily.
Perhaps it is a reasonable reaction that when confronted by nudity where I am not expecting it that it does cause discomfort because I am not mentally prepared while when it is expected it is accepted and comfortable as coming in from the cold into a warm kitchen.
When I look at the photos of the indigenous people of countries where technology seems to be an extreme rarity with bare breasts, exposed genitalia, and lavishly beaded jewelry the child in my mind giggles in embarrassment at their nudity. It is an oddity for me to behold people carrying out daily activities in the buff. I have to remind my inner-child that it's a different culture, a different way than what I was reared in. Raised in America means raised in a country formed by religious zealots where anything remotely sexual was the work of the devil and an occasion to be beaten down. It wasn't even that long ago when women were arrested for showing too much leg while wearing baggy cotton swimsuits that more resemble modern nightwear and dust caps. Even our current incarnation of the bikini covers up those anatomical identifiers we hold in high regard as private.
There is a part of me that envies those people in the photos. They are unashamed, unapologetic, and comfortable with their bodies. They display no need for to physically augment or alter their appearance or sexual being. No need to hide figure flaws with uncomfortable fashion trappings. I'm sure one wouldn't often hear "Does this leaf make my butt look big?" It's a kind of peace with one's form that seems to be lacking in our modern world.
This could be why some people choose to live in nudist camps. For a time they can have a freedom from 2000 years worth of social fashion restrictions by western civilization. Nothing frees the soul like naked volleyball and tennis. Really, though, the self-expression in the freedom granted and the ultimate love and acceptance of your body and self as you are can truly make for very confident and happy people. But, you will never find me clamoring to get in because at heart that child defending the basic tenement of "cover it up," remains. While I can see the bare body, I cannot be the bare body. A fact, I am sure, many are quite grateful for.
So while my past continues to shape me and my own views flex and change by way of experience, I will continue to wear my clothes. I promise my inner-child will refrain from judgment, but expect the occasional snicker to escape.
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