1) When I was about eight and going to a snooty island community nearby my own snooty island community with an unspecified Key Girl who may or may not want her skinny-dipping activities chronicled on her friend’s ridiculous journal. The island wasn’t developed very much yet and we got to go there and drive around in a golf cart and live in our very own little cottage and swim in the pool. One weekend we didn’t bring bathing suits and so, after making sure there was no one around, we stripped down to our undies and dove in. This Unspecified Key Girl waved away my concerns about being almost nearly naked by saying, “We’re only little girls,” in a strange show of self-awareness. This was the same girl who had a statue of a naked lady in her front yard that her friends decided was to risqu頦or her ninth birthday party and subsequently made a little bikini out of party crepe paper to cover her up.
2) Summer of 1994 and on a end of the year retreat to Catalina with my college fellowship during the last gasps of my life as a Teen Evangelist. We did intensive Bible Study for a week and there was this one exercise where you had to go for a whole day without talking, the reasons for which elude me now. Anyway. Several girls in my Bible study came up simultaneously with the idea of going down to the beach and running around and jumping in the water and so forth. It was very cold and pebbly. I think we may have even sung praise songs or something. And then you know what we did? Well, we took pictures of course! And you know where that film ended up? Not in Oakland for the summer, as the camera owner promised us it would. No, it accidentally went with her to Korea for the summer instead, unbeknownst to her, and then somehow stayed there for a while with her relatives and it gets pretty hazy story-wise but the upshot was that her elderly aunt developed the film for her and was pretty shocked by the results. I think the pictures were later burned. Good.3) Every other weekend, I think, while I was in college. I was friends with a lot of people whose greatest passion in life, aside from sewing gorillas and rappelling around various towers in the pursuit of very complicated pranks, was to swim naked in the various pools on the 5-college campus. One of these times involved a long (and accidental) slide down a scratchy concrete wall when I was wearing a towel. Another of them took place at the women’s college pool. I think this was actually the first time I ever went, and I was a little shy about it, and undressed as quickly as possible and hopped in the water so as not to be seen (although I admit I did peek at other people). We all had a nice relaxing swim and were getting dressed under the cover of dark when all of a sudden…headlights! Headlights! Campus security! Oh nooooooo! “Stay cool! Stay cool!” all the pranksters were whispering. Two figures emerged from the car. I was right in the spotlight. I was dead. Campus security was going to take me away and then call my mom and then kick me out of college. “Chiara?” a voice said. I was in the middle of fainting when I recognized the voice. It was a girl from my French class. “Do you happen to know what chapters we’re supposed to read for Tuesday?” she asked. I pulled my shirt down over my head and told her in a quavery voice. I don’t think I was wearing pants yet. “Okay, thanks!” she said and went on her way.
4) At a nude beach in San Diego, about a year out of college. Interestingly enough, several of the same people involved in the above vignette were there as well. This beach was pretty touch to get to, as it involved a long climb down a steep cliff. And what was the first thing you saw when you got there? Why, naked volleyball players, of course! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Evangelical Christians and nudists? They looooove volleyball. I can’t quite understand it in the nudist case. Especially on a sand court. Especially when you dive for the ball. I just don’t understand it. We didn’t play volleyball, we just went swimming. The boys in our group went out a little further, presumably so they could get caught in riptides or something, but the other girl and I stayed a little closer to shore. Guess what we saw? Besides a lot of very inventive body jewelry? We saw a seal. I think it was a harbor seal, to be exact. It swam right by us and stopped and stuck its head out of the water and checked us out for a minute. It was so exciting. I have since had good information that one of the boys in that group that day has subsequently swam with wild dolphins, but sources have not confirmed whether he was skinny-dipping or not.
to be exact. It swam right by us and stopped and stuck its head out of the water and checked us out for a minute. It was so exciting. I have since had good information that one of the boys in that group that day has subsequently swam with wild dolphins, but sources have not confirmed whether he was skinny-dipping or not.5) Pretty much every time I go to the ABLparty. It’s just that kind of party. Last year when I went I was all devastated because My So-Called Friend Anna took a picture of me in a bikini that was then broadcasted to all the computer screens in the house. Remember? I was all embarrassed. Yet this was also the same party that I happily read a story I had written to a very kind audience, all of whom were sort of not wearing much of anything at all, really, in a hot tub. Some people wear gold chains and smack booties when they’re in a naked hot tub situation. Not me. I make you sit through spoken word, apparently.