Phillip's Story

his interview began casually on the phone. I was telling Phillip about this website, and he seemed interested in the topic, mentioning that he sometimes dances naked by himself at home. Then there was an expectant pause, as if he was waiting for me to follow up. It took me a moment to realize that this was his wish -- but once I did, I plunged in.

Phillip didn't want a photo posted. He said it was OK to use his real name, but I overruled him (see the question beginning "Did you have..." near the end of the interview) and call him Phillip here. For the record, he's a slim, attractive young man who looks younger than his 30 years, with dark features and piercing eyes.

Dancing naked is just fun. It feels healthy. I like to turn on the music sometimes, and just feel totally unfettered and kind of feel the air in the room rustling against my skin. I feel like an elf in the forest when I do this. I feel primitive, and it somehow brings me back to the feeling that the human body was made to dance and that we were born naked -- so in a sense we were made to be naked. The combination of both dancing and being naked just gives me the feeling of expressing the primitive potential of my body.

It's very freeing and I feel very light, alive, when I dance naked. I like to stretch and I like to kick and kick high and jump and leap as much as I can in the space that I have in my living room and my apartment. Luckily I live alone, so I can dance all through the house if I want to -- the kitchen, bedroom, living room, wherever. Since I trained as a dancer when I was a kid, I draw from all kinds of dance: ballet jazz, modern -- whatever choreography comes to my mind. It feels very artistically elegant to me -- especially being alone, nobody watching me. Being naked just adds to the feeling of being free and creative and "primate" -- in the sense of being a human being without boundaries and without culturally enforced inhibitions.

o have you ever told anyone else that you dance naked?

Hmmmm. I don't know. it never really occurred to me. I guess some people know -- some of my boyfriends might know because they've seen me dance naked occasionally. If I know someone well enough, I might dance my way from the bedroom to the kitchen and back, gleefully and playfully. But I don't exactly tell my neighbors, "I'm closing my blinds now because I'm going to dance naked."

o you do close the blinds?

Oh yeah! I do have one window which doesn't look out onto anybody, but I can see the sky and the trees.

ow long do you dance at a time?

Maybe 15 minutes, sometimes longer.

o you know anyone else who dances naked?

Hmmmmm. I once went to a party at a friend's house, and it was a naked party and people were dancing (naked), so I'm sure other people must.

ut you've never seen it, except at these parties?

Right. (He pauses for awhile.)

Let me tell you one interesting thing. I remember when I was a kid about 7 years old my Mom was getting into witchcraft and she told me about this one spell that she was going to do that required her to dance naked on a full-moonlit night. I remember she said something about how freeing it was to dance naked, and how being naked when you dance was an essential element of the spell. I suppose it put the idea in my head that dancing naked was sort of magical, and it brings a person back to his primitive pagan self -- kind of like a forest dweller, something like that. I think some of my mythology about dancing naked comes from hearing that.

ow old when you first danced naked?

(There's a long pause; then he laughs.) I was probably a kid, because I remember when I was a little boy I used to take "Mr. Bubble" bubble baths, and I would run out of the tub with bubbles all over my body when I was about 4 and my parents would have guests in the living room and I would [run into the living room and] throw my hands in the air with a big smile on my face and present myself and shout "I'm Mr. Bubble!" That was a kind of dancing, although I don't particularly remember it.

The only vivid memory I have of dancing naked is in the past few years, especially because it's only been in the past three and a half years that I've lived on my own -- so I can dance through the whole apartment without any roommates being around.

o at that time -- the time for the first vivid naked dancing -- you were how old?

I guess just about 27.

ell me about that time.

I think it was a matter of claiming my territory in my new place. It was part of just... kind of a ceremony of dancing all around the space and breathing it in and engaging myself in the space and celebrating the fact that I had all this space to dance and live in and how excited I was moving into my own new space without anybody around to tell me what to do and I didn't have to worry about bothering anybody. Dancing around with joy at all this new space I had to play with.

id you have an erection when you did this?

No.

Did you jerk off afterwards?

(Long pause) I'm not comfortable talking about sex that way in an interview about dancing naked, because I'm not comfortable about being interviewed about what I do sexually, and I don't think about dancing naked as something I do for sexual reasons.

ust for the record, when's the last time you danced naked?

Probably just a couple of weeks ago. Actually probably even less. I don't really think about it that much because it's become so integrated into my life that it's kind of... well I don't know what to compare it to, but you know how sometimes people break into a song in the shower? Sometimes I just break into dance. It's as natural to me as singing in the shower. There's a sound bite for you! (He laughs.)

ell me more about the naked party where you saw people dancing.

Well it was really a mixed party of men and women, straight/gay/bi, and the focus was more on the freedom of being naked than it was on creating sexually charged atmosphere. People were just dancing to songs on the radio or the CD player, just the way they would at a quote unquote "normal" party. The host was encouraging some of his friends to join in and have fun and be free and experience the pleasure and freedom of it, so he managed to encourage a few people to get up and dance. I was probably one of them, but I didn't necessarily feel as free dancing naked with other people as I do dancing naked in private in my own place. In fact, I definitely did NOT feel as free dancing with them.

For me, dancing nude is really just kind of a private thing. I just don't like to share it with people I'm not totally comfortable with. I'd never do it with the blinds open -- I just would never do that. I like to do it to get in touch with myself and my inner nature -- it's a way of communing with nature. If I got really close to another person I'd be happy to dance naked with him, or to do a short dance of delight in front of that person, just like someone might break into a piece of song to express an emotion. I don't know how I would feel about dancing naked at a party where others are dancing naked. Not that I couldn't do it, but it would be a stretch.

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