naked ambition

by emily bittner
1 | 2

• • •

Name any kind of creed and it’s a good bet that a nudist has embraced its ideology. There are Christian nudists who pursue an Adam-and-Eve ideal, pagan nudists who call their practice “skydressing,” stay-at-home nudists who keep it private; risqué nudists whose parties are rumored to rival swingers’ clubs, traveling nudists who throw progressive dinners, and family nudists who invite the neighbors over to barbecue after a day in the pool.

Most adherents say that, like the Amish, they are misunderstood by the outside world. For them nudism is a lifestyle choice, a way to strip life to its bare necessities, to shed their dress and their stress. It’s natural, moral and healthy, they say.

They also say that their lifestyle has never been more mainstream than right now. According to the American Association for Nude Recreation, which represents more than 50,000 members, more people than ever before are joining nudist clubs, surfing nudist Web sites and even skinny-dipping. Why has nudity become all the rage? Ask any nudist and you’ll get the same answer: “You have to bare to believe.”

• • •

After some casual Internet trolling, I stumbled across the Ponderosa Sun Camp, a “family nudist camp” in Roselawn, Ind. About 90 minutes south of Chicago, the camp is within striking distance for weekend recreation. I could hardly resist, having only scant experience with public nudity. Since the one time I tried — at a coed naked spa in Germany, where nudity is encouraged — I’ve had the bug. Ponderosa beckoned as the ideal chance to try my hand at full-fledged outdoor nudity.

For weeks I agonized about what to bring, what to wear, how to psych myself up for the weekend. (“The dimpled bottom look is all the rage!”) Eventually I settled on painting my toenails blue, to match the sky and my eyes. I shaved daily for a week. And on the final leg of my journey, cruising down Interstate 65, I blasted Jimi Hendrix’s “Foxy Lady” no less than 14 times.

And then, suddenly, I was there. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. I pulled up to the security gate, checked in and paid $80 for a deluxe trailer and a day’s worth of ground fees. (Had I brought a man, he would’ve been free. A woman would’ve run me another $25. The pricing rationale encourages couples to vacation together, so that everyone is more comfortable) The weekend activity chart showed that I was too late for the flea market, tennis lessons and kid’s camp, but would have plenty of time for line dancing, an all-camp dance and a tea social.

I also was handed a list of club rules. Among other no-no’s, Ponderosa bars cameras, overt displays of affection, and erections. As I was later told, “The human body is not a sexual thing. An erection is a sexual thing.”

Basically, Ponderosa’s standard is that it’s okay to be natural, to look at other people. But gawking or exhibitionism or the sexualization of anyone or thing — particularly children — is completely off-limits. Dawn, who checked me in and remained clothed because she works the front office, told me to be careful.

"You're so young and skinny, you could have a problem. Just come get one of us if you feel uncomfortable."

(Young? I suppose. At 22, I’m decades younger than the average visitor. Skinny? Hardly. Long long ago, I exercised religiously. But of late my workout regimen has consisted mostly of hefting cases of beer up three flights of stairs to my apartment. I hoped that a trip to the nudist camp would help me accept the 15 new pounds Budweiser had brought me.)

Dawn drove a golf cart to my trailer, where I would be staying overnight. I followed in my car, drumming my fingers in time with one last soul-bolstering rendition of “Foxy Lady.” Everything had happened so quickly that I didn’t have time for nerves. I was completely unprepared to see a man’s set of cheeks jiggling mere feet away. I screamed, “Whoa!” and in flustered embarrassment, accidentally laid on my horn. When he whipped around, I ducked behind my wheel just in time to avoid anything fully frontal.

Moments later we arrived at my air-conditioned two-bedroom trailer, one of the more luxurious ones at the camp. The furniture was covered in brown sheets, which are changed for every tenant. I had a light quilt and an eight-track player in my room. In the bathroom, yellow and puce wallpaper lined the walls.

• • •

Scarlett Cox, whose family has run the camp for three generations, dropped by my trailer to give me the tour.

I clung to my green pants and white tank top on for the tour, too nervous to even consider disrobing. Tall, blond and athletic, Cox stayed in her navy shorts and a midriff-bearing tank top as she drove. I was surprised that she was dressed – after all, she grew up at Ponderosa – but clothes are only her professional garb.

“If I have to throw somebody out, especially as a woman, (clothes) make me feel like I have an edge,” said Cox, 37. “If you have to confront somebody, you need clothes."

Cox rarely has to kick anyone out, though, because Ponderosa screens potential visitors at the gate. Over the past 37 years, fewer than a dozen members have been asked to leave. Among visitors, expulsion is more frequent, with six or seven being asked to leave every season for gawking or getting too rowdy. Single men generally prove more problematic than women. Adjusting to nudity is a bigger stretch for women, so Cox wants to create the most comfortable environment possible for them. She maintains gender equilibrium at Ponderosa, limiting the number of single men who stay at any time.
Campers are overwhelming white, but while I visited I saw an Asian man walking hand-in-hand with his toddling daughter, a couple of African-Americans and one Indian man. Cox said that a few gay and lesbian couples belong to the club, but that they are in the minority.

Members hail mostly from Chicago and Indianapolis, although Ohio and Kentucky are well represented, too. Professionally, members span the work force and are employed as police officers, teachers, landscapers, lawyers and doctors.

• • •

Cox wound us through the camp’s 76 wooded acres on her golf cart. Most of the 300 members have added personal touches to their trailers. Several American flags flapped in the breeze. Deer antlers clung to the siding at one trailer. Another was covered in oversized beer logos from around the world. Mickey Mouse’s grinning face hung from a tree.

Interest in joining is high, and only six trailers were on sale this spring. Cox is trying to delay expansion for as long as possible, but considers it inevitable. Still, no one wants the camp to get too big, she said.

Ponderosa has stayed small since it was founded 37 years ago, and a family atmosphere permeates almost all the activities. Every Saturday morning, different parents sponsor children’s activities. They’ve hosted water fights, built birdhouses, learned how to decorate cakes and mastered the basics of first aid. The weekend I visited was an early summer scorcher, and I joined about 50 other people at the pool.

I opted to keep my clothes on for the first few interviews. Around the glassy pool, three dozen sunbathers listened to the radio. Most of them puffed on cigarettes; absolutely all of them were naked. About a dozen bare souls splashed in the water. One set of parents, lounging in the buff, called on their equally nude children to stop running. The normality was jarring, even if everyone present had shopped at the store that tailored the emperor’s new clothes.

I fought the urge to let my eyes wander. During interviews, I memorized everyone’s eye and hair color. I’d just finished peppering a local newspaper reporter and 7-year Ponderosa member with questions when my concentration broke. A man walked by and a flash of light drew my eyes down. It wasn’t the metal rings in both of his nipples that distracted me, though. The culprit was an inch-long stud at the tip of his penis.

Talking to people gathered at the pool, it was clear that piercings are the source of much generational strife at Ponderosa. Older members were “freaked out” by people with metal protruding from multiple body parts. They thought that piercings, especially of the genitals, focused too much attention on the body and sexualized it. Now most people have realized it’s just a trend, Cox said.

“We go with the times. It’s just another new thing,” she said. “Long time ago, beer wasn’t allowed either.”
Ponderosa works hard to preserve a family atmosphere. "You have more parents here than at home,” a middle-aged woman with several tattoos said poolside. “You can't get away with nothing down here.”

A nearby high-schooler rolled her eyes in agreement and groaned.

• • •

I moved on to a cluster of older couples who were nearing retirement. For the most part, the couples had been members for more than 20 years. Their children had grown up at Ponderosa and played together.
None of the couples ever dreamed they would become lifelong nudists. For one pair, it was visiting a Club Med, known for its nude beaches, that changed their lives. Another wanted to make friends as a couple and found a welcoming community at Ponderosa. Others had always been curious. Those first exposures to nudity left people like Denny and his wife, Arlene, yearning for more.

"You can't understand what it's about until you go there,” Denny said. “Without exposure, you can't really know.
"Before this camp — you know, I'm a business owner — I had that kind of lifestyle,” Denny said. “I was always worried about material possessions. What Ponderosa made me realize is that the nice things in life are the things you can remember, the people. We have a million friends here. They treat you like family. Whenever anybody is ill, they help. It's a different type of closeness."

While Arlene and Denny chatted with me, I caught a sudden glimpse of people who were good-looking enough to be models in an Abercrombie and Fitch catalogue. (Until then most members had been brown and fit, neither truly unattractive or especially gorgeous.) But these men, volleying the ball back and forth on a sand court, were chiseled like David and tanned to golden perfection. The only catch: They wore shorts.

Denny and Arlene also noticed the men, who were, as it turned out, brothers from Chicago who had summered at Ponderosa all their lives. I asked if people-watching was kosher.

"Would you not look at someone who’s good-looking on the outside world?” Denny said. “Of course you would, and that's normal here, too."

From below her green homemade visor (inscribed with the saying, “I’m no prude, I go nude,”) Arlene raised an eyebrow. "Women say we don't look, but we still do,” she said. “We've had some interesting people go through here."

I gleaned more etiquette about eye contact and when clothing was appropriate. Arlene usually dons a T-shirt when it’s chilly. "We're nudists, not stupid. Or masochists."

But as much as it’s possible, they stay in the sun and in the buff.

“It's a freedom you can't explain,” Denny said.

Charlie, another 20-year Ponderosa veteran, piped in for the first time. “Just take an outdoor shower. You'll see.”

• • •

Cox slung her left arm around my shoulders to escort me to the men on the volleyball court. “We’ll get you to play!” she said. “You can’t come to a nudist camp and not play volleyball. It's The Nudist Sport.”

Ponderosa is the brothers’ escape. Michael, 29, and Joey, 25, consider it as a resort, just like any other place. They come for tanning and outdoor sports, although that day, they forsook a nude game. The day before, they’d been overeager to get on the court and picked up lobster-red burns.

Michael pulled his shorts down to show me the shiny red skin. “Chafing can be a serious problem with the sand,” he laughed as an explanation.

The brothers, who visit Ponderosa on the weekends, have brought numerous friends and girlfriends to visit through the years. At first, everyone's nervous and anxious.

“After they're out here for one weekend, they always want to come back,” said Michael, a technical writer who pens poetry and the great American novel in his spare time. “And women’s first question is always, “‘Where do they look at you?’”

Most women are the same — anxious for the first 15 minutes, gradually warming up to nudity and eventually feeling extremely comfortable, he said. People look each other in the eye, have serious conversations, joke around or play outdoor games. Very little is sexual or even flirtatious.

“You would think it would be the opposite,” Joey said. “Anywhere you go, aside from here, people would be looking at your boobies or whatever.”

His brother was a little more diplomatic. “There's a certain dynamic that exists with something like clubbing. You go out clubbing, there are glances. Everybody notices each other, checks each other out. But here, when you're exposed already, what is there to hide?”

Joey could think of at least one thing.

“When there’s a fat guy doing a belly flop in the pool, that’s the worst,” Joey said.

“I thought people weren't judgmental here,” I replied.

“You’re not,” he said. “But you notice it if you’re in the pool. You can’t help it.” He lifted his arms in the air, brought them down quickly and yelled, “Whoosh!”

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