“Damn Devil Music”

Originally published in N, the Magazine of Naturist Living

Copyright © 2019 Camp Naturist. All rights reserved.

It was a cool April evening on the mountain, and a crisp breeze carried the unmistakable aromas of new-mown grass, bonfire smoke and steam from a heavily-chlorinated hot tub throughout the old campground. With the sun quickly sinking behind a ridge of freshly-blooming oaks and poplars, an enthusiastic crowd was gathering at the dining hall in the lodge, which had a distinctive ambiance that evening, sort of an absurdist, clothing-optional Cracker Barrel. The porch was filled with guests in rocking chairs, playing checkers and chatting about cold snaps and late frosts. Hickory logs were crackling in the fireplace, the flames dancing in the crossed glass eyes of a rather terrifying taxidermy bear and sparkling in the mirrored squares of an enormous disco ball that dangled above a linoleum dance floor. The waitress moved from table to table, greeting diners and carefully lighting the hurricane oil lamps with a long wooden match as a disaffected teenage DJ pumped his fist in the air, about five songs into a jarring set list of Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath. A woman with a headful of tight silver curls and no clothing except for an apron, emerged from the kitchen, pointed a spatula at the young man and shouted, “If you want me to get these taters fried, you better turn down that damn devil music! It’s getting on my nerves!”

Just another evening at a naturist campground.

While most folks had spent the day lounging by the pool or playing volleyball on the sandy courts without a stitch of clothing, the unseasonably chilly evening had inspired a spontaneous, delightfully ludicrous fashion show inside the dining hall. A guy wearing nothing but a pair of Chuck Taylors and a Gilligan hat chatted nonchalantly about cult horror movie podcasts with a fellow who was completely naked except for a headband. Another man wore a seventies-era caramel brown polyester suit, with large tinted glasses and a garish tie, but without a shirt and shoes, looking sort of like a discombobulated Paul Lynde. There were people in tank tops, crop tops, and no tops, mingling with people in cargo pants, jogging pants and no pants. T-shirts were used as turbans, beach towels as sarongs. Who knew such radical fashion statements could be found in a naturist camp?

Most naturist clubs have a compulsory nudity policy, based on the premise that a dress code helps to ensure a respectful atmosphere and maintain a sense of equality. I suppose that argument has merit, but I rather enjoyed the fashion anarchy of the old campground, where various articles of clothing were often worn indiscriminately, nonsensically, and where strolling naked into a restaurant and requesting a table for three seemed like the most natural and normal thing imaginable. It was a tremendously liberating experience to realize that what you were wearing, if anything, was utterly irrelevant. While going naked was never mandated at the old campground, it always seemed the logical thing to do in the woodsy wonderland, and few visitors ever bothered with clothing, unless to ward off the chill of the mountain evenings or cover up a particularly hideous sunburn.

Come to think of it, there weren’t a whole lot of rules at this campground. Unlike most resorts, the campground had no policies designed to restrict singles or ensure some arbitrary gender balance. I once began what could have been a lengthy and passionate monologue on the necessity of judging a person by his behavior rather than by his inclusion in a particular demographic group, but as I babbled on about how a gender quota at a nudist resort is a relic of a bygone era made irrelevant by the contemporary understanding of sexuality and gender identity, a long-time naturist rolled her eyes and said,

“Some boys are damn rotten, some girls are as wild as a bunch of apple orchard hogs, and I got two ex-husbands I can show you if you think a wedding band makes a person behave. Rules are simple here: you act ugly, we throw your ass out.”

Sometimes a keen observation by a straight-talking septuagenarian can illustrate a point better than a wordy sermon from a precocious college kid.

There weren’t a lot of rules at the old campground, but there didn’t need to be, as there was a strong sense of community, and that tends to influence behavior far more than a written code of conduct. This camp knew no strangers, and there were no “others.” It made no difference where you came from, what you looked like or what you believed. No matter who you were, you could be sure that at some point, you would be pulled onto the stage and forced to sing a karaoke version of a Cher song, most likely “If I Could Turn Back Time.” You would be dragged into a lawless game of volleyball, dodgeball or wiffle ball. You would probably end up in a dunking booth, in a blindfolded golf cart race or in a long line at a catfish fry, clutching a paper plate and frantically swatting mosquitoes off of your bare butt. And if you survived the initiation, if you chose to stick around, you would become a part of that big, crazy family, and that campground would become a part of you. And there would be no turning back.

The owner of the campground, a Native American known as “the chief,” liked to tell folks that there was a difference between nudists and naturists, but he never really elaborated on what that difference was, other than a few grumbles about how nudists liked to “run their big mouths” or leave trash at their campsites, or hide in their campers and eat Beanie Weenies and watch TV instead of joining the others in the restaurant. The chief was always adamant that his campground was a naturist campground. “You, me, all them people there by the lake. We’re naturists. We ain’t nudists. Naturists are different, son.”

Is there a difference between nudists and naturists? For me, a nudist resort can feel a bit like a secret society where admission is a privilege, while a gathering of naturists feels more like a beach party, where nobody cares who you are, as long as you seem like a decent-enough fellow and you’re willing to toss off your swim trunks and dance along with the rest of the happy, bare-assed idiots. I’ve only visited a few resorts, but I’ve often been bewildered by the strangely specific checklists of forbidden piercings and inkings, the dubious “ladies night” pricing, and the intense suspicion and paranoia that invariably greets a single male visitor. An office employee at one nudist resort once questioned my motives for dropping into their gated utopia.

“So, let me get this straight. You’re tellin’ me that you drove all the way out here, all by yourself, to sit around and read a book? A book. Hmph.”

As she Xeroxed my driver’s license, she asked what I did for a living, then proudly boasted that many of the members were physicians and attorneys, which seemed more than just a little classist. No need to worry about encountering a lowly waitress or Uber driver loitering around her shuffleboard court!

Occasionally, the staff at a resort can be quite militaristic, buzzing around the grounds on noisy golf carts, walkie talkies in hand, shrieking at guests who have the audacity to dip a toe in the grass, or fail to have exact change at the snack bar, or dare to drive a car in the parking lot at a speed greater than 0.5 MPH. I respect law and order as much as the next guy, but having an autocratic groundskeeper shout, “Don’t you even think about getting in that pool until you scrub every drop of sunscreen off them legs!” kind of spoils a leisurely summer afternoon.

Maybe the difference between nudists and naturists is one of semantics, or perhaps the difference is more complicated. The American nudist movement took root during WWII, in gated, members-only clubs located in remote, rural areas. Demographic restrictions and the imposition of strict rules seemed necessary to avoid the ire of the local sheriff and complaints from prying neighbors, who were already more than a little suspicious of this cult of outsiders, these nature-worshipping crackpots who were rumored to take off their pants and participate in all kinds of abhorrent activities, like ping pong and potlucks. I imagine mid-century suburbanites calling up neighbors, nearly frantic about the new nudist “colony” down the road. “People! Naked! Out there in broad daylight. Eating baked beans and potato salad! Naked! Well, I can’t help but wonder if somebody ought to say something!”

Is the aura of exclusivity one encounters at some nudist resorts a remnant of the days when nudists needed to reassure scandalized townsfolk that we were virtuous, wholesome and exceedingly normal, and not some cult of loners, outcasts, deviates and "others?"

The naturist movement evolved along a different trajectory, emerging from a group of free beach enthusiasts during the seventies and eighties, a loosely-structured organization of folks with environmentalist leanings and progressive ideals, with a few peace-loving hippies thrown in for good measure. Not confined to secretive camps and free from the disapproving gaze of skeptical townsfolk, the naturists were far more willing to welcome singles, people of color and the LGBTQ community. The naturists were less of a membership organization, less of an exclusive club and more of a group of like-minded folks gathering on beaches and in backyards. For the naturists, the focus was never on the facility, but on the community.

The old campground was unquestionably a product of the naturist movement. It was a place where every visitor was greeted by name, welcomed into whatever wacky activity was underway, and begged to stay just another hour or so. “Stay and have a free supper with us” the chief offered many times. “Stay in one of them empty cabins if you don’t want to drive home in the dark!” The sweet grandmother in the office, known to most as “mom,” once pushed back my twenty-dollar admission fee and whispered, “Aw, just keep this, you paid last time.” Even in the off-season, it was quite common to get a call from someone at the campground. “We’re just checking to be sure you’re surviving this awful winter! Come on up and sit in the hot tub if you get cold this weekend! Mom’s making chili!”

Years after the old campground closed, I still find myself looking back on those ethereal summer weekends, thinking about the friends I made on the porch of the lodge, the books I read by the lake, the afternoons spent ducking for cover under pavilions as passing thunderstorms pummeled the tin roofs with hail pellets and filled the sky with lightning. I recall mornings spent sitting on the steps of the office, welcoming anxiety-filled newcomers who were about to discover for themselves that getting naked in the woods with a bunch of strangers wasn’t some defiant political statement or delirious act of exhibitionism, but a homecoming.

Maybe it’s just a word that means different things to different people, but I think naturism is much more than a dress code, it’s a mindset. Naturism is more than a freedom from clothing, it’s a celebration of uncensored individuality and unapologetic self-expression. Naturism is not a facility, it’s a family. Naturism is not a campground or club, it’s a community, and a diverse community at that.

The last time I saw the chief, we sat on logs around a campfire, on a chilly April evening. The old campground had been closed down and sold off, and he was struggling with a variety of illnesses, but none of this seemed to affect his wit, passion and determination. As in the old restaurant, on a similar spring night a few years back, some of us were naked, some not. Something as insignificant as clothing hardly seemed to matter that evening. Should it ever matter?

There was no pool filled with laughing skinny-dippers, no basketball court packed with boys doing layups. No DJ playing devil music in a lodge bustling with hungry diners. But it didn’t matter. The campground was gone, but the folks were there, and a familiar energy was present. The community was alive and well. And that was the point all along, really.

“You know son,” the chief said, scratching the head of his sleeping dog, “there’s a difference between naturists and nudists. There’s a difference.” He didn’t explain, but as we sat there admiring the blooms just starting to emerge in the forest around us, smoke from the campfire rising into the evening sky, and the laughter of a wildly diverse group of mostly naked people happily swatting a badminton birdie over a net haphazardly strung between a pair of saplings, no explanation was needed.