Carolyn Hawkins' husband asked her to go to a nudist resort with him. Sorry, she told him, but no thank you.

After much pleading and convincing, she reluctantly agreed to go with him to Cypress Cove, a nudist resort in central Florida, but she refused to take her clothes off while they were there. On that point, she was resolute.

Hawkins had seen nudity like many American still see it today - as something to do in the privacy of your home, certainly not around other people and definitely not in public - but today she's a full-blown nudist, working full-time to promote the joys of nudity.

Hawkins now works as the public relations coordinator for the American Association of Nude Recreation. It's her job, literally, to spread the good word on nudism - often also called naturism - to people who might have the same fears that once kept her from going bare.

Her own turning point came on the tour of Cypress Cove, when she finally met the people there.

"During that tour everybody was speaking, everybody spoke, 'Hi, how are you? Welcome to Cypress Cove,'" Hawkins recalled. "I thought, 'You know what? Maybe this isn't so bad after all."

The people at the resort were much like the people at many nudist resorts around the country. They were friendly, warm and not pushy about Hawkins' discomforts. She and her husband sat down and chatted with another couple, there with their two kids. After hearing them out, she was convinced: she would give nudism a try.

"It went uphill from there," she said.

At the end of the day she and her husband bought memberships at Cypress Cove. Later she got a part-time job there. Then she moved into the nude resort, where she and her husband raised her 3-year-old grandson.

It sounds astonishing, but in reality that kind of 180-degree turnaround isn't so unusual among nudists.

Dave Arter, a board member of Oregon's own Squaw Mountain Ranch - the state's oldest nude resort - said he didn't try it until he was in his 50s, but he hasn't turned back since he first went bare.

"It's a sense of freedom, a sense of being one with whatever it is, in being in whatever environment that you're in," he explained. "The thing that sets nudism apart is that most people are uncomfortable with it."

Part of it is cultural, he said. Nudity is viewed as silly at best or sinful at worst by large segments of the American public. Europe, by comparison, is largely considered to be much more lenient about public display of unclothed bodies.

"That's one of the features of our cultural heritage," Arter said. "You've been taught that it's wrong."

And while some Americans have been attempting to walk back objections to nudity lately - see the Free the Nipple movement, the nurse-in protests or the World Naked Bike Ride - there's still overwhelming opposition to showing bare skin in public.

For recreational nudists, all the fuss is over nothing.

"Being nude is the best feeling I've had and it's just such a free feeling," Hawkins said. "It's just the best feeling one could ever feel, and I would encourage anyone to try it."

--Jamie Hale | jhale@oregonian.com | @HaleJamesB