Imagine treading water wearing a business suit. Blue jeans. A sweater. Or whatever you chose to wear when you left the house that morning. Unless you’re at a pool party, and alcohol aided your decision to enter the water, you’re not there of your own free will. You slipped, you tripped, you misjudged the distance to the dock when you volunteered to leap from the boat and tie it off. You’re struggling to stay afloat; the weight of your shoes, belt and other items not associated with swimming are trying mightily to pull you under.
But you survive. Eventually you pull yourself out of the water and congratulate yourself on your triumph. Maybe you laugh at your misfortune.
Now imagine being in that same body of water wearing nothing. Not even a bathing suit. The generic term is skinny dipping. Maybe you’re with your spouse, your lover, an equally adventurous friend or you’re alone. Your nakedness is protected by darkness. Or maybe it’s not. There may be strangers on the shore completely aware of your behavior. They’re pointing, shaking their heads in disgust or documenting your escapades with their phones so they can show the clip to their friends and say, “You’re not going to believe what I saw on the beach this morning!”
But you don’t care. You are not self conscious or embarrassed. Let whoever is aiming their iPhone at you post the video on TikTok if they desire.
The only emotion you feel is freedom.
I have experienced both scenarios. I won’t go into the particulars of each, but I do believe everybody’s bucket list should include swimming fully naked and fully clothed.
“Weight” For It
Start with the latter. Despite the pool scene in It’s a Wonderful Life, where an unsuspecting George Bailey falls into a swimming pool beneath a gymnasium floor, and dozens of party guests eventually join in the frivolity, swimming while clothed is no fun. Upon exiting the water, your frame feels like it has added an additional 100 pounds. Wet clothes don’t dry quickly, so a change of attire is imminent. Staying in dripping wet clothing for too long leads to skin rashes. Wet clothing also stinks.
But oh, how wonderful it feels to shed those clothes. You instantly feel like the weight of the world is off your shoulders because, literally, it is. Your day, and your life, can only improve from this moment forward. Nobody ever says, “Gosh I wish I was still walking around in soaking wet pants.” Even babies in soiled diapers eventually cry for a change.
If your fully clothed experience involved jumping into the water to save a potential drowning victim, then you only feel relief. In my case, I felt embarrassed, for I fell in while walking too close to a dock’s edge. My companion, doubled over in laughter, eventually asked if I was OK after seeing me flounder toward a nearby ladder and hoist myself out.
“Thanks for nothing,” I said. “Nice to know I can save myself.”
At that moment I no longer felt embarrassed. Instead I felt independence. Which is always nice.
I’ve skinny dipped twice. Once solo and once with a female whose identity I will not reveal. Everyone, I surmise, who engages in this form of public nakedness emerges from the water thinking, “I can’t believe I just did that.”
I Will Keep My ‘Swim Naked’ Story Private
Followed shortly by, “I can’t wait to do it again. When the time is right.”
Maybe that time will never come. But just as we value independence, we also value anticipation. And, as previously mentioned, freedom. Skinny dipping provides both.
As I write this column, I am visiting the Greek Islands. I am surrounded by water. I doubt this trip will involve a dip into the Mediterranean or Aegean seas naked or clothed but, for the reasons I just laid out, both sound tempting.
As long as I have dry clothes, a robe or a large towel nearby.
