The First Time
by: Bill
My parents were very much clothists. I did not share a tub with my younger sister after the age of 5. Only saw my Dad nude at the gym locker room. Got a spanking from my mother for running around outside without clothes with three other kids on a hot summer day at age 6, which was the last time I did that until I was an adult!
When I was 13, my 15 year old cousin and life-long best friend came to stay with us for two weeks. He slept nude. I was intrigued, so I tried it. Haven't worn anything to bed since. He also talked about skinnydipping, and promised to take me, but never did.
I was in high school when the streaking craze started. I thought it would be fun, but didn't have the nerve to do it. What I did do instead, was go out in my backyard nude after the rest of the family was asleep, and sit out there and look at the stars, and feel the night air on parts of me which were not used to it.
In college I tended to be nude whenever I was by myself in the dorm room. I had the same roommate from sophomore year through senior year. He would "catch" me from time to time, but never seemed to care. Junior year, he and I had a two bedroom apartment. I went nude in my room; to & from the bathroom; and to the kitchen if I was getting something to take straight back to my room. I would get dressed if I was going to be in the living room or dining area for any length of time. Senior year, he & I shared a three-story house with one other guy. I had the middle floor to myself and basically operated the same as I did in the apartment, except this house had a deck on which I would sunbathe nude. Also, my roomie's family had some lakefront property where I was able to slip out of my swimsuit once I was in the water. So, throughout this period I was basically a solo, home nudist.
Later in life, while living by myself for the first time, I met a woman whose family had spent time at clothing-optional beaches in Europe. As we set up life together, and subsequently married, we practiced a clothing optional home life, but initially never went to any nude / C/O beaches, clubs, resorts or whatnot.
In a previous job, I traveled a lot, and was often able to sneak into the hotel swimming pools after hours to skinnydip. At one point, I was traveling constantly to Austin, Texas, and one of the people I was working with mentioned that Austin had a nude beach. I was intrigued. I asked at my hotel and was told where it was. Now, at this point, I had not been nude with another person in a non-sexual situation except for a locker room or in the case of my cousin, a shared bedroom, and my wife (of course sometimes sexual; sometimes not). I was not sure how I would react. I had the erection concerns we've seen discussed ad nauseam on these boards, etc., so I decided to go when I thought it would not be too crowded, like a Wednesday afternoon during a warm spell in February. Had this beautiful place to myself. OK, no problem. Went back the next day, and found several other people had the same idea. They were about 100 yards away. Again, no problem.
To cut this down, over time, I kept going and as winter (such as it is in the heart of Texas) turned into spring, many more people were there. I found myself sitting closer to other people, and began engaging them in conversations. I found, as so many others have, that being nude with people is no different than being clothed with people except that there is something about the communal nudity that makes people more open and accepting and respectful of each other. Imagine my joy when, rather unexpectedly, my career took a sudden change, and rather than traveling to Texas from the east I found myself moving down here. My wife and I began going to Hippie Hollow together. We love it. We used to take the kids, until the county banned children. Now we still have a clothing-optional home life, and go to a stretch of beach on the Gulf of Mexico with the children where we and others go without suits without problems, even though it is not an official C/O beach.