Naked at Lunch (5 page)

One of the treatments for this phobia is cognitive behavior modification through what’s called “exposure therapy.” It’s pretty much what you think it is.

I can’t say I suffer from gymnophobia. I don’t have a fear of seeing other people naked and I’m not necessarily fearful of being naked myself. Which is not to say I’m immodest. I’m not the guy who struts around the locker room swinging his wang for everyone to look at; I’m adept at wrapping a towel around my waist. But then I had never been to a nudist resort. I had never experienced being naked in front of other naked people in a place where every single person is naked. You can’t not be naked—being nude is the entrance fee, the prerequisite to entering this realm. The gymnophobic need not apply. Or as the sign clearly states:
SWIM ATTIRE IS NOT ALLOWED IN THE POOL AREA
.

Finding a nudist resort for my first experience of nonsexual social nudism wasn’t as difficult as I thought it might be. Nudism is a predominantly warm-weather activity and in Southern California, where I live, there is a surprising number of places that cater to anyone seeking a little exposure therapy.

Palm Springs is only a two-hour drive from Los Angeles, and with its average temperature of 73 degrees and annual precipitation of less than six inches, it is an ideal spot for nude recreation. The area was originally settled by the Cahuilla Indians who lived near a large lake fed by the Colorado River. The lake dried up a long time ago but that hasn’t stopped people from turning Palm Springs into a swinging resort town. Nowadays it’s an upscale desert oasis dotted with spas and golf courses and tennis courts. People come from all over the world to lie out in the sun and look at palm trees.

I wasn’t particularly surprised to discover that the former playground of Frank Sinatra and his cocktail-quaffing cohorts is also a nude tanning mecca, but I was surprised at how many there were. There are at least a half dozen “clothing-optional” resorts in Palm Springs, but only two that I found that don’t cater exclusively to gay men. I briefly considered going to one of the gay resorts but, I’ll be honest, I am not a gay man, I am shockingly heteronormative.

On its website the Terra Cotta Inn proudly acclaims itself as Palm Springs’ “most popular topless and nude sunbathing resort” and cites a
Huffington Post
article proclaiming that the inn is ranked number one of the “Top 11 Nudist Resorts around the World to Visit.” It also boasts that it is a great place for your first nudist experience. As the brochure says, “Not a nudist or naturist? Never vacationed at nude beaches before? No problem!”

But when I called to make a reservation there was a problem. I was informed that it was a “couples only” resort. Or as the woman who answered the phone said, “We have a lot of first-timers and we like to reassure the ladies that the men here are all married and with their wives.”

As if married men weren’t just as capable of gawking and leering at naked women as single men.

“I’m married,” I assured her.

“You’re more than welcome to come with your wife. We’d be happy to have you.” She sounded unnaturally chirpy when she said this.

“But my wife doesn’t want to come.”

Which was true. She had zero interest in being naked around other naked people. When I told her the Terra Cotta Inn wasn’t going to make a reservation unless she came along, she shook her head and said, “No fucking way.”

It’s not because she doesn’t look good naked—I’m biased, but I think she looks fantastic—or that she suffers from any anxiety or hidden fears. She definitely doesn’t have gymnophobia. She just doesn’t want to try nonsexual social nudism. At least not at a resort in Palm Springs. In fact, she finds it fairly laughable that I’m going to run around naked with other naked people. At least
she
laughs about it.

A lot.

I reminded her that this was all part of the process. You can’t study a culture from a distance, you’ve got to immerse yourself to gain any true understanding.
*****
Like Dian Fossey might’ve said, if I’m going to study gorillas, I’ve got to go out into the mist.

I tried again with the reservationist at the Terra Cotta Inn. “It’ll be my first time and you guys are famous for first-timers.”

I heard a sigh on the other end of the phone.

“Like I said, we’re a couples resort.” She said this with that resigned there’s-nothing-I-can-do-about-it voice and then said good-bye. I found her attitude especially annoying because on the resort’s website it says, “The Terra Cotta Inn is the best not because we are exclusive and snobby (we jokingly recommend those people to go elsewhere). Quite the contrary, we’re the best because we have such a friendly atmosphere and the guests have so much fun. If you naturally have a smile, you will love our nudist resort.”

I naturally have a smile, I’m smiling right now, but I guess I’ll never grin and bare it at the Terra Cotta Inn.

While the Terra Cotta Inn might be biased against single men seeking a clothing-free experience, the nearby Desert Sun Resort is not in the discrimination business. It welcomes single men and women, but with the excellent caveat: “Behavior requiring an apology is not tolerated.”

I packed up a variety of sunscreening and sunblocking products—creams and sprays and gels and sticks of anti-ultraviolet technology—and threw them in my trusty Subaru Forester along with a hat and some towels. Normally I’m someone who travels with a swimsuit; even if I’m going to Moscow in February I’ll pack it because you just never know, you might get invited to jump into a natural hot spring or swim in a hotel pool, so it felt slightly unnerving, like I was courting disaster, to leave my swim trunks at home.

I kissed my wife good-bye and hit the road.

I know what you’re thinking and I have to admit that it did feel strange to be going to a nudist resort to lie around naked with other naked people without her. But I had questions that needed answers. Questions like: What did it feel like to be naked in a social setting? What was the appeal?

I would like to say that the drive from Los Angeles to Palm Springs was, as Joan Didion famously said, “haunted by the Mojave just beyond the mountains, devastated by the hot dry Santa Ana wind,”
¹¹
but really the freeway is a traffic-clogged strip of concrete bordered by an endless barrage of logo litter—corporate signage for Applebee’s and Del Taco and Petco and everyone else who’s got some business selling something out there with a sign to prove it—punctuated by the occasional billboard for a “gentlemen’s club” and cell phone towers disguised as non-native trees.

It’s only after you enter the pass that cuts between the San Jacinto and San Bernadino Mountains that the landscape begins to change. The sprawl of suburban housing developments and shitty fast-food restaurants gives way to scrubby desert, railroad tracks, and a high-end outlet mall where busloads of tourists gorge on discounted luxury goods and designer clothes. The freeway passes the mall and then you’re greeted by an architectural aberration, the skyscraperish Morongo Casino, run by the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, which juts out of the surrounding desert like an unwanted boner.

Past the casino, mountains rise up on both sides of the freeway and the road drops down into the Coachella Valley, a vast expanse of brown dotted by more than three thousand windmills, their white blades rotating in the wind. Normally I love seeing the windmills, but this time I got a queasy feeling. Were they a metaphor for my own quixotic quest? Or was this the first hint of heretofore unknown gymnophobia?

There’s a buzzer at the entrance to the Desert Sun Resort. There are no windows, no flashing neon, just a discreet sign and a large wooden door. A security camera eyeballed me from overhead. I pushed the button, announced myself, and a friendly voice told me to “come on in.”

The resort is on one of the main streets just north of downtown Palm Springs, but you wouldn’t know it was a clothing-free facility if you walked by. It looks like most of the other Mojave-blasted stucco complexes in the area, only this one has high walls and lush foliage creating a barricade against the outside world.

An affable man in a bright yellow polo shirt checked me in and walked me through a surprisingly extensive list of rules. Many of the rules were typical of any resort—admonitions to shower before entering the pool, to use the hot tub at your own risk, and not to bring pets into the guest rooms. Then there were some that I had never seen before:

• Overt sexual behavior, or the appearance of overt sexual behavior, is strictly prohibited.
  
• Proper naturist etiquette requires use of a towel while seated when nude.
  
• Do not use cell phones/laptops/cameras/stereos anywhere on the resort except for inside hotel rooms. iPads, Kindles, or tablets are permitted on the grounds
  if
  a Desert Sun Resort business card is taped over the camera lens.
  
• Do not gawk at guests.
  
• Do not wear swimming suits/undergarments at any time for any reason. No clothing is necessary at any time, anywhere within the facility.
  

Which didn’t mean that nudity was required everywhere at all times. You can slip on a pair of shorts or a shirt if you really want to. Just not around the pool.

The resort is large and attractive, with villas and courtyard suites set around landscaped ponds and man-made streams. There are tennis courts, a restaurant, a spa, and three separate pool areas. My room was in what they called the Chaparral Hotel, which turned out to be a classic motel that had been given a cosmetic upgrade and was right next to the activity pool. The room was completely generic—it looked like every motel room in North America and reminded me of the time I got caught in an ice storm and my wife and I were forced to spend Christmas in a Motel 6 in Abilene, Texas—although there were odd touches of Palm Springs glamour like a marble shower and lemongrass shampoo. I opened the cupboard and found a half-eaten bag of Cool Ranch Doritos and six cans of Sprite. Did the previous guest leave them for me? Was the resort a cool ranch kind of place?

Actually, the room was fine, and it’s not like people come to nudist resorts to sit in their rooms. I was mostly concerned by the fact that there wasn’t a chain or bolt lock on the door and no in-room safe, just the doorknob with a key lock, which anyone who has ever watched an episode of network television knows you open by sliding your credit card between the door and the doorframe. How could I walk outside without a stitch of clothes on and leave my wallet, cell phone, and laptop in a room a twelve-year-old could break into? Or was I using my security fears to keep from leaving the room? I had never been in a nudist resort. I’d never strolled around naked with other naked people, and now that I was in a place where that was not only encouraged but required, I was obsessing about the lack of a deadbolt. Was I just making excuses?

I stood naked in front of a mirror and checked my body. What was I looking for? Gravy stains? Some physical deformation that was so humiliating that I should just call this whole thing off for humanitarian reasons?

I took a canister of spray-on waterproof sunblock and covered my skin with a thick SPF 45 coating. I remembered Dr. Grenier’s warning and made sure I sprayed sunblock everywhere; I was not going to get squamous cell carcinoma on
my
scrotum, or anywhere else for that matter.

Satisfied that I had blasted every inch of my body with several layers of sunblock—and really, what was I doing? Putting on sunblock like it was a pair of jeans?—I took a deep breath, opened the door, and walked out of the room. I strolled toward the pool trying to look as normal as I could. Without any clothes on. In public.

I carried a towel and, being an intrepid immersive-style journalist, a mechanical pencil and a Moleskine notebook.

I heard a song start thumping out of the poolside speakers right on cue, as if they knew I was coming, like I had my own theme song. It was “Super Freak” by Rick James, the sound track for my entrance into the world of social nudity.

There was a small brass plaque on the wall that read,
ABANDON CLOTHES ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE,
and that’s pretty much what was going on. There were about twenty naked men and women sitting in chaise lounges around the pool. And it is not paranoia, I am not making this up, as I walked out by the pool they all turned their heads to look at me.

My first thought wasn’t
Wow, we’re all naked here!

No.

My first thought was
Wow, these people are really old!

They sat blinking at me from behind sunglasses, peering over magazines and books. One man in his early seventies cleared his throat and went back to reading the newspaper. A woman who looked a lot like the actress Maggie Smith
******
took a sip of seltzer water. I caught a whiff of what smelled like something cooking and turned to see a man in his midsixties stretched out in the sun, his skin tanned the color of teak, glistening with cocoa butter.

It could’ve been a scene from any retirement home in America, except that they were all stark naked. An elderly woman walked past me and smiled. I smiled back. Have you ever seen a seventy-year-old woman with her pubic hair shaved into what’s called a “landing strip”? I have.