LW: I knew that if I thought about getting naked, I would never do it—so I pulled off my T-shirt and unhooked my bra while I was still in motion. As I exposed my breasts, my ass, and pelvic bones, I realized that these were parts of me that had never felt the sun before. The revelation was so strange that I powered through any lingering fear, fully undressing myself for the novelty alone. And then—nothing. I wasn’t expecting bells or whistles or fireworks, but the sheer ordinariness of what I felt was shocking. Nothing had changed. A woman with huge, leathery breasts decorated with novelty dog tags touched my arm. She handed me a rubber mallet—“To help plant your umbrella in the sand,” she said with a smile. “Welcome to Gunnison Beach.”

LD: While Liz was fearless, prancing down to the water’s edge—naked but for a pair of sweet shades—I wrestled to remove my top, a move I have always considered equivalent in difficulty to showing off an elbow. Okay, Lena, you can do this, I told myself, reaching for the button on my Good American Jeans shorts. I listened to the girl next to me sing “American Pie” as she lotioned her bare breasts. To my other side, a heavily tatted gay couple argued about who seemed like a nicer person, Jack Johnson or John Mayer. Then I realized: I didn’t want to take my pants off. Despite my rep as the queen of flashing parts unknown, I wanted desperately to keep them on. Here at the beach, it was my day for modesty.

LW: I saw everybody and everybody saw me and I didn’t care. Or rather—I did care, but it was an outsize caring, rooted in happiness and comfort instead of fear or judgment. As I bobbed in the water, I remembered being a kid who loved every inch of myself. But we grow up—and we grow bumpier, and hairier. I watched as two beautiful young men grinned and took selfies; I saw an elderly swinger with a playful pair of sunglasses tattooed above his penis stretch into a spontaneous sun salute; as a couple splashed each other gently in the water, the man scooped up his wife in a fit of affection and showered her jawline with kisses. I suddenly thought, It could be really easy to love myself again. The idea felt revolutionary in its simplicity—not just because it was induced by the sight of multiple Prince Albert dick piercings.

LD: I could appreciate the magical elements of nude beach culture while also appreciating my own desperate desire to put my shirt back on, even if it made me look like the only kid at school without a Tamagotchi (the ’90s were weird). I’ve never loved the beach anyway—sand is a rough one for me, even when my butt crack is protected—but something about introducing nudity gathered too many stressors into one bundle. I didn’t know how not to stare or what constitutes good neighborly nude beach behavior. I was scared to burn new things. And I didn’t see myself relaxing, eyes closed and legs open. But I was also in awe of my good friend Liz, who was on her second lap of the shoreline and seemed to be making friends. As she came dashing back to our blanket she marveled, “I think I might be a nude beach person!” That makes one of us.