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Art's First Time Dancing Nude

, so I'm here at the Peel Off in Palm Springs (May, 1998) with Art, who lives in San Francisco and is a lawyer -- can I say that?

OK.

And I wanted to find out, on behalf of the Men Dancing Naked page, about the first time you danced naked.

It was [here] at the Palm Springs Peel Off square dancing event. I was visiting Palm Springs and several of my friends happened to be at the square dance party and I decided to dance with them. It was the first time I had danced naked.

You emphasized "danced."

Um hum... I've gotten naked frequently in other places and situations.

or example?

Particularly I like hiking nude -- the high desert in Palm Springs, various national parks, naked.

How old were you the first time you did that?

Probably 35.

What was the occasion?

My boyfriend and I went camping at Lassen National Monument and we both decided to walk through a beautiful glen naked. We were there early in the week and there were no other people present, and it was a beautiful experience.

How so?

Because I surprised him by slipping off my clothes as he walked ahead on the trail, and I saw a real look of delight when he turned around and saw me naked -- and excitement rising in him at the thought that we were going to be naked together in this beautiful pasture.

Rising excitement?

(He laughs.)

How's that? You mean he was getting hard?

Exactly!

Had you had any previous suggestion that he would like doing things naked?

Oh, yes, on our way to the monument he had taken off all his clothes and was driving naked; I had joined him. But of course we put on our clothes as we set up our tent and prepared for camping.

You little devil, you!

(He laughs.) He's a very dedicated nudist, and I believe that he really enjoys having a boyfriend who is following in his path. I'd done a lot of nude hikes before I met him, but had never embraced it so completely.

o this Palm Springs event is the first time you DANCED naked.

That's right.

How did it feel?

It felt completely natural. I'm at that point of nudism that I'm very unselfconscious of it. I was able to concentrate on the other dancers and the music and not worry about it. What I really enjoy about nudism is that I get a strong sense of community with the other men there nude, and dancing with them seemed to be an expression of that sense of community.

GNI has the slogan that male bonding is best done nude. That kind of expresses the idea.

I think so. Pretenses are stripped away. What you do for a living doesn't matter, it's just wonderful communication that can take place when the socially imposed variables are removed and you're back to nature.

ow tell me about being naked in the bar.

The first time I ever got naked in a bar was about 9 months ago, and I found it to be a real psychological catharsis. A lot of issues came immediately to the forefront for me. First of all would be control issues, as you put your clothes away and realize that you can't quickly clothe yourself, due to the inaccessibility of your things. You realize that anyone could walk into this public place and see you naked, and you are a bit out of control in that situation, and yet in a way you're very much in control because you've clearly made your choice about the course of action you've decided to take, the consequences notwithstanding.

I really agree with you there! I don't agree with the feminists who say that the naked person loses power by virtue of being naked. Usually quite the contrary in my experience.

I think the feminists' standpoint is based upon a socioeconomic model of the naked dancer, who due to her circumstances is reduced to selling her flesh. In a bar setting I'm certainly not doing this for pay, and there's no compulsion for me to do these things other than my own choices, so I don't think the feminist model is applicable to nudity such as we're discussing.

o have you been naked in a bar and had someone you know seen you naked for the first time?

Yes. I've had friends and acquaintances and business associates see me naked with other naked men there. Almost universally the reaction has been positive. People have said, "It's great to see you reveal yourself on such a human level as opposed to being a businessman or an attorney and relating to me in that state." Others have said that they know I must have a very great ego, a very positive self-image to be able to do this, and they've been very envious of it.

So when you said "ego," you didn't mean self-important ego.

No, just a good sense of self-worth.

efore the interview, you mentioned something about how being naked demonstrates that you're willing to cut through bullshit.

A friend of mine admired me for the ability to get naked physically, but he thought I could never get naked emotionally in intimate relations, and due to the fact that I started revealing my body to people in bars I was able to understand exactly what he meant -- that I wasn't getting naked emotionally, not taking the risks that you have to take to become closer to people you care about.

So have you changed?

I'd been afraid to give my boyfriend flowers, because I thought he might reject me over that. I forced myself to get naked emotionally, draw on the strength I had from getting naked physically, lessons I'd learned from that. I bought him some flowers, and gave them to him as much for him as for myself, just in celebration of the fact that I was willing to take risks to achieve emotional breakthroughs.

Wow! Because I have some similar issues, I think.

One of the issues is the control issue, the other more importantly for me -- the reason I got naked in a bar -- was in protest against what I call the objectification of men's bodies. I believe our media has permeated our brains that you have to be hunky, you have to have a certain look which centers around a muscular physique. I'm a very slender person, and I never see the media celebrate slender bodies, or very rarely, or if at all, associated with very young men -- and so learning to accept my own body I felt that I wanted to get naked, just to in a sense put it in their face. This is how it is! I don't care if you like it or not. This is how I am. I'm a slender person, I like my body, and let's see if everyone's been duped by the media into believing that only muscular men should be celebrated. And I was really pleasantly surprised. It was great for me to make this personal statement. On the other hand I did get a lot of real positive feedback from people who came up to me to say, this is great to see a slender man take his clothes off. Many people instantly related to my basic position that all body types are worthwhile and deserve to be celebrated, and I was sort of reaffirmed in my faith in people that not everyone bought the media hype. That's what's nice about getting naked: there's overweight people, really slender people, average body types, there's a good communal feeling among those who are getting naked, and a celebration that we're a bit rebellious, against the mainstream, and that's fun!

Indeed!

ow did you get into square dancing?

I've been doing international folk dancing for about a year, and it turns out a bunch of my friends from SF were here.

The idea was you were here in Palm Springs accidentally on the same weekend as friends who were here for the Peel-off.

Right. I thought I'd stop by to see them. And on Saturday there was an opportunity for beginners to take a lesson. That was my first time dancing nude.

So you liked it?

I did!

Did you get that same feeling of camaraderie?

Yes -- camaraderie and sharing something important, something frivolous, sharing good times with friends. It's fun!

Will you be back?

I'm going to look into square dance lessons in San Francisco to find some lessons on a night that doesn't conflict with my folk dancing.

, let me put an idea into your head. Do you think the gay folk dancing group might dance naked sometime?

I don't think so. It's equally men and women, and quite a few straight women, and I think the closest we'll ever get to nudism is our annual skirt party, where everyone dresses in a skirt to dance, and most of the men are naked under the skirts.

You mean (mock horror) there are LESBIANS wearing skirts????

For one day out of the year, they'll compromise and wear a skirt!

Wonderful!

ell me about the police coming into the bar.

I was at the bar one night with one other naked man, and in the course of the evening he left and I was the last one naked, and suddenly someone said oh there's the police, and I said [jokingly] that I'm really slender and can slide behind this large friend of mine. "Stand aside, stand aside," said the cop, and I had to walk out and stand in the police flashlight naked. At first I thought it was a joke, and I quickly realized it was not, and I later learned that they did not make a habit of harassing naked people at this bar. They were actually looking for a felon who had escaped. They asked me three times do you think this is funny, and I quickly realized that I wanted to give the correct response to de-escalate the situation. So I replied, no officer, I don't think this is funny. Would I put my clothes back on? By the time I did, the officers had left. So there was no trouble.

But you're a lawyer so you could have defended yourself.

My thought was I'd rather drive to court in my own car, rather than as part of a police escort! The followup I'd like to give is that I've been doing this nudism for 9 months. It's lost some of its luster -- the lessons learned have been learned, I don't feel the need to make such a social statement to the degree I felt that need before. Unfortunately the bar has degenerated into a lot of drug activity and [felons], a lot of homeless people. Many of my friends who get nude -- we've all remarked -- it's not as much fun as it used to be because the crowd has changed. So I don't see getting nude in the bar as being a big event in my future. I really enjoy nude nature walks, nudism in private places like my backyard, and communal events such as this Peel-off which I really enjoyed.

NOTE: A few weeks after this interview, I myself went to San Francisco and got nude in the bar with Art. It's a small place -- only one room, just a little hole in the wall -- and it is indeed on the sleazy side. I enjoyed myself but I wasn't sure I'd want to become a regular; it was uncomfortable. On the other hand, we also visited another bar in the Folsom district, a quite well-known leather bar, which also permits casual nudity now (and I heard of a third one). Here I felt much more comfortable (although I attracted next to no attention, it seemed; people were blasé). One fellow was playing pool in the nude -- as if he'd just been sitting around his house, naked, and decided to go down to the corner bar to shoot some pool, not because it was at all sexual to him but because it was relaxing. Cool!

I won't tell you the names of these bars, because things like this change frequently in San Francisco. But next time you're there, ask around -- and, if possible, give it a try!!