A Nude Attitude

After lockdown, the instinct to bare all is on the rise

By Billy Wa r den P hotogr a Phs By Bryan r egan

Dway ne dr ives an 18 -wheeler, of ten clad in nothing but his tat toos.

“I slip of f my shir t and shor ts and go — but only at night,” he says. A s we speak, he’s soak ing up the sun sans shir t, shor ts or any thing else in a meadow near a busy patio pool. Nearby, folk s hula hoop, au nat urel.

D way ne descr ibes himself as a devout churchgoer and for mer sher if f ’s deput y t ur ned long-haul tr ucker. He’s a lso a nat ur ist, which is readily apparent.

For t he un in it iate d, “nat ur ist” is t he prefer re d ter m for fol k s who enjoy t he fe el of a bre e ze w it hout t he int r usion of f abr ic , who l i ke to bare a l l w it h, a s t he Inter nat iona l Nat ur ist Fe der at ion put s it , “t he intent ion of enc our ag ing self-resp e c t , resp e c t for ot hers a nd for t he env ironment.”

D way ne and his w ife live in the mountains, but like nudists f rom a ll over the state — including a relatively recent surge f rom the Tr iangle and Tr iad — he’s a f requent v isitor to the Bar S R anch, a sprawling nat ur ist resor t t ucked in the hills outside R eidsv ille.

A nd while D way ne’s non-textiled appearance this Sat urday af ter noon might shock some, the reason behind it w ill come as no sur pr ise to anyone familiar w ith a common 21st cent ur y prescr ip tion: self- care.

“In law enforcement, a lot of what I saw broke my hear t. I’d come home and take of f my clothes and just shed the world away,” he recounts. “Shed a ll my stress.”

A similar impulse seemingly tied to the stresses of COV ID -19 produced surg ing interest in nudism here and abroad. T he Wall Street Journal, Vox and T he Telegram a ll repor ted on the spike. In Aug ust 2020, Forbes declared that “nudism has become a thing.”

Ly nn, the no -nonsense manager at the Bar S R anch, repor ts that since 2014, membership has leapt by 150%. T he r ustic resor t’s 26 cabins are rented year-round.

Fueling much of the g row th are people f rom R a leigh, Durham, Winston- Sa lem and Greensboro. “T hey’re some of our biggest population centers for members now,” says Ly nn. “We get doctors, law yers, teachers.”

But af ter word goes out that a repor ting team f rom the capita l cit y would v isit over the weekend, no R a leigh members show up. Coincidence? Or avoidance?

W hich raises a question: in an era that embraces exposure v ia socia l media and dating apps, that celebrates a ll sor ts of things that used to be unacceptable, what is so taboo about being nude?

Nat ur ist resor ts aren’t the only option for get ting together in the a ll-together. Tr iangle A rea Nat ur ists (T. A.N.) has been hosting clothing- optiona l house par ties since the mid-1980s. L ong time member Jay Shapiro, one of the few nat ur ists who shared a last name, repor ts that dur ing the pandemic, T. A.N. picked up 34 new members.

“My theor y,” he proposes in a radio -smooth bar itone, “is that people have been stay ing home, not hav ing to get dressed. Maybe they’re not wear ing any thing. A nd they think, this is nice. Plus, they like not doing laundr y as much.”

At T. A.N.’s first post-pandemic potluck in May, the g reat undraped mingle in the sunken liv ing room and on the back deck (complete w ith a shielding wa ll of ta ll plants) of Jay’s moder nist Nor th R a leigh home. A sked to descr ibe the a llure of reveling in the raw, the 30 or so g uests pop of f the words “f reedom” and “honest y” like firework s at a Four th of July bash.

DiDi, unclad f rom the waist up, cha lk s up her interest in nudism to an A mer ican classic, T he Adventures of Tom Saw yer. “W hen I was eight, I read the chapter where Tom and Huck go sk inny dipping

“My theory is that people have been staying home, not having to get dressed. Maybe they’re not wearing anything. And they think, this is nice. Plus, they like not doing laundry as much.” — Jay Shapiro

This page: Attendees at the T.A.N. meeting. Opposite page: Scenes from Bar S Ranch.

and I thought, I want to do that!” she says.

Grow ing up in a straightlaced home, DiDi didn’t get around to it until she g raduated f rom Duke Universit y and discovered a clothesf ree sw imming hole in Ba hama, just nor th of Durham. “T here were people w ithout clothes in the water, on the rock s, under the trees,” she says. “I was str uck by how nat ura l it was; so f ree.”

Visiting T. A.N. f rom Greenv ille, Kumar pipes up: “I like the positive auras and the f r iendly v ibes. A lso, the equa lit y.” “W hen ever yone is nude,” ag rees Jason “When everyone f rom Greensboro, “you don’t k now if you’re ta lk ing to a banker or a janitor.” is nude, you

W hile class distinctions might vanish w ith the clothes, the parade of human shapes don’t know if is eye popping. But once you see a whole br igade of bare bodies, you get comfor table w ith you’re talking the f ull range of our physiques — much w ider than what you see on cable. to a banker or a

T he pressure-f ree mood is “so good for your self- esteem,” says Jill, br ushing aside janitor.” — Jason aubur n tresses, as if L ady Godiva had dismounted her steed in a suburban k itchen.

Jill “g rew up a pr ude” in a conser vative house in a sma ll tow n where the r ules were “what dad said ” and “the neighbors were a lways ta lk ing about each other.”

“Life is hard; being nude helps,” she sighs. “T his is f reeing.”

Yet, Jill doesn’t feel f ree enough to share news of her remedy for life’s jagged edges w ith her family. “I have g randk ids,” she explains. A nd while she has no plans to go bir thday suit-ing around them, she’s ter r ified the k ids’ parents might get the w rong idea and end their v isits. T he w rong idea has nothing to do w ith f reedom or equa lit y. T hose things are as A mer ican as a ba ld (or other w ise undressed) eagle. R ather, nudists say, they’re bedev iled by the misg uided buzz that their rea l preoccupation is, a hem, the birds and the bees. W hatever br ings each nat ur ist to shed clothes and convention, it is NOT, they say, the promise of sex. T his is ver y nearly a mantra, f rom T. A.N. to the Bar S R anch. R ela xing poolside at the resor t, John, ak a blogger “T he Bearded Beer man,” declares, “T here are no sex ua l under tones. T here are no pretenses in the way here. You can’t be any thing other than what you rea lly are when you’re naked.” Sit ting 4 feet away, and a lso starkers, I take John’s point. For this stor y, T. A.N. and the ranch have required that the repor ting team be, as Jay Shapiro put it, “f ully immersed in the exper ience of enjoy ing the company of other unw rapped humans.” Oh, we’re “f ully immersed ” a ll r ight — but is the exper ience “enjoyable”? I’ll at test that, initia lly, strolling completely exposed into an unfamiliar liv ing room or hula hooping par t y is star tling, even a lar ming. Within a quar ter hour, though, the inter na l a lar m bells ceased their shr iek ing and my raised eyebrows eased back dow n to their usua l position. Hav ing g row n up on sw im teams and being a die-hard g y m rat myself, this is not a ll that dif ferent f rom being in a locker room — ex-

cept w ith no tan lines and lots of members of the opposite sex, one of whom resembles my Aunt L oraine.

T he atmosphere is laid back; ULT R A- casua l, you might say. Nothing like the charged air of a nightclub floating in flat ter ing fabr ics and flashing jewelr y. T he exposure revea ls how v ulnerable we a ll are. My bare foot lands in pr ickers. Dur ing an inter v iew, I bat tle an exceedingly inappropr iate mosquito bra zenly buzzing near my inner thigh while a bubbly teacher f rom Winston- Sa lem g ingerly shoos another one f rom my forehead.

T he teacher’s husband, eyes shaded by a Crocodile Dundee hat, is explaining why he wants to keep even their first names on the dow n low. Despite the world ’s seismic shif ts in what’s acceptable, “this is still the South,” he says, “still the Bible Belt.”

D way ne, the naked tr ucker and av id churchgoer, has a retor t for that. Spreading his ar ms on a deck overlook ing the pond (unfor t unately inhabited by snapping t ur tles), he posits: “Did God not create Adam and Eve this way — and say it was good?”

T hen, hear ing the splashing of a volleyba ll game in the nearby pool, he streak s of f w ith a mer r y, “Oh, shoot! I got ta get in there.” OH

Billy Ward en is a R al eigh -ba se d w r it er an d pro du cer a s w ell a s th e l e a d singer of th e alt - gl am ban d T h e Fl oat ing Chil dren. He is also th e co -foun d er of th e strat eg i c communi c at ion s fir m GBW Strat eg i e s.