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The whole world is abuzz about collegiate nudity. The New York Times recently ran an article about so-called “Naked Parties” at Yale University. The trend has made it to Maine as well, reaching Bowdoin and – for all I know – the University of Maine.
The basic gist of the party is self-explanatory. Someone throws a party, usually off campus, where nudity is a requirement. They are free of coercion and pressure but open to all body types. Commenting on your own or other peoples’ nudity is forbidden unless you’re commenting on a tattoo. At Bowdoin, which faces a winter as unforgiving to naked flesh as Orono, a changing room ensures that no one risks frostbite in places that defy explanation. In the room, typical party activities go on like normal, though with dimmer lighting. Students play beer pong and card games and desperately attempt not to glance down.
Naked parties defy the stereotypes of those “Girls Gone Wild” bacchanals cable television outlets force-feed us in between “Daily Show” reruns. The Naked Party view of nudity is actually healthier than most of the body-image messages people typically have to endure.
“I think a lot of people feel much more comfortable with and confident about their bodies and feel very liberated after attending a naked party,” Bowdoin senior Anna Troyansky, a founder of the Bowdoin naked party phenomenon, explained in a December interview with The Bowdoin Orient.
Comfort and confidence are the name of the game. Far from being about sex, the Naked Party is truly about “sexy,” a condition that comes after figuring out your body is just as awkward and strange as anyone else’s. You’ll never get that sort of realization from television or movies, where everyone glows with the gorgeous radiance of the never-strange and seldom-awkward. Insecure women and porn-damaged boys hold on to this mythology of the perfect human form, but in a roomful of naked strangers that myth dissolves rather quickly.
Naked events aren’t just for college students. Just ask the experts, Old Town’s Bare Nekkid Mainers. According to a report in the Bangor Daily News, the nudists have over 30 members on their Naked Bowling team. Hessa, an organizer for the event who goes only by her first name, clarified to the Bangor Daily that “there’s no sexual overtones in any way,” which is something Naked Bowling and Naked Parties have in common. But why?
Could it be that the secret to a healthy body image is to separate the naked body from “sexual overtones?” In our culture, it is hard to imagine nudity serving anything but a highly sexualized purpose. People get naked when it’s time to do the deed, and then get dressed. The naked body has very little time to hang out – no pun intended.
Whether or not bodies are useful or attractive in the bedroom seems to be the only criteria we have, even for ourselves. As a result, everyone is suspicious and resentful of the perfect bodies we presume are lurking beneath other people’s layers of clothing. Taking sex out of the picture, a person can take an objective look at his or her body, finally seeing it for him or herself instead of through the eyes of sexual rejection or acceptance. What would happen if we looked at our naked bodies in a nonsexual way? For example, might it draw attention to the plight of North Canadian seal cubs?
You read that right. French figure-skating champion Surya Bonaly announced her plans to skate in the nude in hopes of drawing attention to the baby seals. This comes just a month or so after the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals released a video online of a young woman stripping off every stitch of clothing while discussing PETA’s 2007 plans and animal abuse statistics. Public nudity as an attention getter was getting a bit old, but these campaigns bring it firmly into elderly dementia.
With anything sexual, comfort is priority No. 1. To begin exploring any part of it, self-confidence and self-awareness are key. As long as nudity is always tied in with sex, it will also open up all sorts of potential for sexual harassment at the hands of the people who just don’t get it. Ultimately, that’s what we’re afraid of – not the nudity itself, but revealing the deep dark secret that our bodies aren’t the super-toned revelations of raw sexual energy we think they’re supposed to be. Naked parties declare the secret loud and clear: you aren’t alone there, friend.
