Fringe Florida: Travels Among Mud Boggers, Furries, Ufologists, Nudists, and Other Lovers of Unconventional Lifestyles (44 page)

Club in 1941. Membership quickly grew. Hollywood shot an exploita-

tion movie there in the 1950s, aptly titled
The
Garden
of
Eden
. It wasn’t the film adaptation of the Ernest Hemingway novel but rather a fiction

chronicling the nudist camp’s battle for social acceptance.

At its peak in 1972, Lake Como had 3,200 members. Membership has

waned since due to intense competition with newer upscale communi-

ties and simply because many of the original residents have died and

proof

not enough new residents have moved in to replace them.

Lake Como claims to be the oldest naturist community in the United

State, and it feels like it. Not that the campground’s dilapidated—far

from it. But it’s a throwback to simpler times when nudism was more

about communing with nature than winning a beautiful-body contest.

Only a fraction of the camp’s 200 acres are developed, and many of the

lakeside mobile homes look as if they sprouted up among cypress trees.

There are no signs to the bucolic community off U.S. Highway 41; you

may need a GPS to find it back in the woods at the end of long, winding

road.

I connect by phone with a member who sets me straight on the dif-

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ference between nudists and naturists. Lake Como residents are natur-

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ists. “A nudist is a person who insists on being nude no matter what.

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They may be less socially sensitive than we are,” says Ted, who pre-

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ferred not to use his real name. “Naturist is a more encompassing term.

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They enjoy freedom without clothing. They embrace a lifestyle that is

concerned a lot more with being in the environment than a selfish de-

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sire to be comfortable with themselves.”

You could also call naturists nude purists. They require all members

to be totally nude when they step outside their mobile homes and will

kick out anyone who leers or makes a sexual display. They are family-

oriented and regularly host summer children’s camps. Some members

were born there.

Like most Pasco residents, Ted is a transplant. He moved to Florida

from New York about ten years ago to live full-time as a naturist, some-

thing he says he’s always been at heart. “I can remember being a kid

and playing on the beach and not having a diaper on. Any chance I had

to go swimming I took it. Where I grew up in the North, when you went

to swim, you swam naked.”

Naturally, when he got a little older, he couldn’t get away with run-

ning naked down a public beach. He was bound by the social conven-

tions of “textiles,” the label he and other nudists use for people who

wear clothes.

Then came Woodstock. “That’s what really got me back into it,” Ted

says. “It was so much fun being naked in the middle of the crowd.” Over

the following years, he gradually went nude more and more until even-

tually he was always nude around his northern home. He wouldn’t go

to the beach unless he could be naked, and the closest nudist one was

forty-five minutes away.

proof

At Lake Como, Ted can walk through the neighborhood completely

nude and swim in the pool. He’s grown so accustomed to being naked

all the time that he hates having to get dressed to go to the grocery

store. “I enjoy not having clothing tugging at my tight places,” he ex-

plains. “I like the freedom of being naked. It’s more about the persona

than possessions. It’s not about body parts. Matter of fact, after a little

bit, you don’t even see body parts. You see the whole person, what God

gave them.”

Boob Art

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Caliente Tampa Resort just up the road from Lake Como falls on the

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extreme opposite end of the nudist-naturist spectrum. It is the na-

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tion’s largest and, by most accounts, swankiest, nudist resort. More

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than three thousand nudists live in the 100-acre community, half sea-

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sonally. Tens of thousands of other nudists vacation there. It’s a private

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club and requires members to get a background check and pay $1,500 a

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couple for year-round access to its pools, tennis courts, spa, nightclub,

2

and restaurants. Add to that the day-trippers (any adult with an ID and

a pocket of cash can visit for a day), and you have a virtual nude city.

About the only things missing are a grocery store and doctors’ offices.

It even has its own nude travel agency booking tours on nude cruises

from the Port of Tampa.

There’s been an international buzz about the place since it opened,

in part because Paris Hilton worked there for a day as part of her reality

TV show
The
Simple
Life
2
. She later told the
New
York
Daily
News
, “It was the weirdest place I have ever seen.” Of course, Paris, being Paris,

she also had some snide things to say: “Everyone was naked and old.”

Cold, but the joke that most people at a nudist resort look better wear-

ing clothes is cliché for good reason.

In the wake of Paris’s public put-downs, the resort has labored to

draw a younger, hard-body crowd. The resort’s website and its ads in

the local alternative newspaper show polished photos of perfect, nubile

bodies. The resort’s nightclub hosts theme parties with sexual under-

tones and names such as “Eyes Wide Shut” and “Arabian Nights.” These

titillating promotions to swingers cost the resort its membership with

AARN, which promotes wholesome nudism fit for families.

Caliente seems to care less about the loss of AARN’s marketing dol-

lars and lobbying power. Swingers tend to be wealthier than old hip-

proof

pie nudists. As Angye Fox, the resort’s former spokesperson puts it:

“Swingers have pockets, nudists don’t.”

Angye is my unofficial ambassador to the resort on my visit. She

considers herself a “lifestyle nudist,” meaning that she’s into both

swinging and nudism. She was Caliente’s spokeswoman from 2008 to

2010 and helped lure the sexually adventurous market. She even pro-

moted the resort at SwingFest.

Her work still revolves around nudism and the swinger lifestyle. She

cohosts a weekly alternative-lifestyles radio talk show called
FoXXXy

Forum
. Her advertising agency caters to the adult and nudism indus-

tries. She runs the FoXXXy Dames website, selling arts and crafts with

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an erotic flair that she and her friends create. The club’s moniker? “We

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put the ‘ass’ in class.” And this is where it gets really wacky: She oc-

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casionally climbs in the bathtub and paints canvases with her breasts.

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That’s right, no hands, just the glands of life.

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She calls them Canvas Cleavages, but they don’t even remotely look

like breasts. “You wouldn’t know how they were painted if no one told

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you,” she says. They range from a simple black, breast-blotted Mickey

proof

Angye Fox fresh from completing her Disney-inspired Cleavage Canvass, that,

yes, she painted with her breasts. Artwork comes with an after-photo such as

this. Call it a stamp of authenticity. Photo by Angye Fox. By permission of Angye

Fox, Tampa.

e

Mouse silhouette to an orange and blue abstract titled
Go
Gators
. Of

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course, what really sells them is the process, or perhaps the imagery

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of it. She includes a photograph of herself holding the piece, her bare

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34F-size breasts still wet with paint.

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I connected with Angye through a more reserved friend who plays

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Bunko with her at their neighborhood clubhouse in a deed-restricted

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suburb of Tampa, where most every house has a screened pool and

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three-car garage.

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Angye graciously agrees to meet me for dinner at Caliente’s gourmet

restaurant, Caribe Grill and Bar. This will be a prelude to the following

weekend biker event with all-day pool parties.

You might think, given my fringe cred, that going to a nudist resort

would be like floating down a calm creek in an inner tube. It’s not. I

know from visiting Paradise Lakes on an assignment a decade ago that

the pressure to bare all is intense, and full nudity is required in the

pools. In an ocean of naked bodies, a swimsuit draws stares. Clothing

screams, “I’m an outsider!” People tend to be suspicious, perhaps think

you’re being judgmental or, worse, a voyeur. All of which are the last

things a journalist needs for an interview. Disrobing might be inevi-

table as it was all those years ago. Around a sparsely populated pool, I

got over the initial shock and giggles of seeing a bunch of naked people.

In the sweltering summer heat, my colleague and I dropped our suits

and dove into the water. While we never got the nerve to walk around

totally nude, we became so comfortable being topless that we forgot to

button our blouses until we were driving home.

Now I’m middle-aged with sags, bulges, and a husband, a husband

who’s not crazy about the idea of going to a nude nightclub or hanging

out with naked bikers.

At least he says he’s not as we sit out under the moonlight and com-

proof

miserate in fear. “You can take your top off and still have your stuff

covered,” he jokes. “But me, I only have one thing to take off, and I’m

definitely not wearing one of those butt-string Speedos.”

This brings up the conundrum of what to wear to the nightclub.

Angye says I’ll want to dress up a little, “maybe a sexy dress,” and

James, “maybe something like a pair of nice shorts and a Tommy Ba-

hama shirt.” It sounds a little strange that people will dress, consid-

ering it is a nudist resort. Though relieved, I suspect that the type of

sexy dress she’s talking about probably isn’t one you’d wear to a Junior

League party.

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Don’t Drop the Knife

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The sky is a dreamy mix of orange, gold, and blue as we pull up to Cali-

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ente’s guard gate. Since it’s after 6:00 p.m., the cost is only twenty

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dollars a couple, as opposed to one hundred dollars for a full day. The

streets are quiet in the lull between the daytime nude sunbathing and

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the nighttime revelry.

We pass a car advertising a “Nude Peekaboo Psychic Spiritual Healer,”

and I long for a consult with Nellie in Cassadaga. Is the universe trying

to tell me something, or does fringe merely attract fringe?

For the most part, the community doesn’t look different from any

other upscale, gated Florida enclave: modern Mediterranean-style

homes and condos; retention ponds spruced up with spewing center

fountains; winding, curbed lanes and roundabouts; and strategically

planted palms and oaks. Residents are clearly moneyed; even the lower-

end modular homes have new Mercedes and BMWs parked outside.

All seems very ordinary until a Range Rover pulls up and a man

climbs out totally nude. He disappears through his garage with a Mc-

Donald’s bag, leaving us to wonder if the locals keep a spare pair of

shorts in the glove box in case something goes wrong on a naked drive-

thru run.

On the other side of the community, a string of parked cars leads

us like breadcrumbs to the actual resort. The two-story club sits atop a

Florida hill, meaning, in this part of Florida, that it’s man-made and no

higher than an interstate off-ramp. Parking lots on both sides overflow,

and residents’ golf carts sit out front, giving the resort a country-club

vibe even though it doesn’t have a golf course.

Inside, the resort feels like one you’d find anywhere in America. The

proof

doorman wears a doorman uniform sans the hat, the front-desk help,

crisp white shirts. There’s not a nude body in sight except for the mar-

ble Grecian statues by the elevator. To the right, a glass window looks

into the Fiesta nightclub. The audience is silhouetted against a brightly

lit stage where a clothed comedian throws out one-liners. To the left,