Wearing Only a Smile, Nudists Seek Out the Young and the Naked
by DOUGLAS BELKIN, online.wsj.com
May 2nd 2011
LOXAHATCHEE GROVES, Fla.—On a recent Friday morning, Jessi Bartoletti arrived
at the Sunsport Gardens Nudist Resort here in a T-shirt and shorts.
By evening, the 19-year-old had stripped down to a string of purple Mardi Gras
beads and was dancing around a bonfire with about 200 young nudists, many of
them first-timers.
"I don't think I've ever felt this free," Ms. Bartoletti yelled over pounding
drums.
That's good news to the nudist resort industry, which is desperate for young
nudists like Ms. Bartoletti to augment its clientele of graying baby boomers.
Membership in the two big nudist umbrella groups has been flat or declining for
years, prompting a youth-recruitment effort that includes reverse-strip-poker
nights, volleyball tournaments, naked 5K road races and music festivals like
Nudepalooza and Nudestock.
One new group, Young Nudists and Naturists of America, this month is having a
naked dinner party in a loft in New York's financial district to recruit
members.
"The whole lifestyle will just disappear unless we attract a younger crowd,"
said Nicky Hoffman, head of the Naturist Society, one of the two big
organizations of U.S. nudists. "The problem is, most of these resorts aren't
geared to young people. They've become like retirement homes; they've sort of
calcified."
John Whitehead, 22, visited the Sunsport Gardens resort for the first time last
year. He enjoyed being naked until he spotted a man his father's age he knew
from work, then spent the day avoiding him.
"It's not that I have anything against old people," Mr. Whitehead said. "I just
don't really want to hang out with them at the pool."
In 1929, six men and women in their twenties attended what is believed to have
been the first nudist retreat, organized in upstate New York by German
immigrant Kurt Barthel.
In Mr. Barthel's homeland, nudism had taken root among young people as an
expression of physical fitness and harmony with nature. In the U.S., it found
controversy.
Nudists meeting in private in New York were arrested and charged with indecent
exposure. In 1935, a crowd beat up a dozen nudists in northern New Jersey.
In the 1960s, public nudity gained wider acceptance. Morley Schloss, now the
69-year-old majority shareholder of Sunsport Gardens, skinny-dipped for the
first time at the Woodstock Music Festival in 1969.
"I stood there in front of Mother Nature and all those people and said, 'This
is me! This is who I am!'" Mr. Schloss recalls. "It changed my life."
Nudist resorts sprang up across the country. There are more than 250 today,
plus cruises and other events making up a $440 million business, says the
American Association for Nude Recreation.
But AANR and Naturist Society membership stopped growing years ago, mainly
because many people now in their twenties and thirties don't appear interested
in joining.
Young people have largely turned their backs on nudist camps, favoring instead
public nudist spots like Hippie Hollow in Austin, Texas, Baker Beach in San
Francisco or Haulover Beach in Miami, a "clothing optional" stretch of sand at
the city's northern edge.
One reason: Private nudist clubs tend to be geared toward retirees.
Pools close at sundown. Body piercings are prohibited. Some older nudists
complain that younger ones keep them up with late-night cavorting. Mostly,
though, youngsters appear not to be eager to socialize regularly with folks the
age of their grandparents.
So the AANR and the Naturist Society have asked their younger members to reach
out to their peers and think of ways to make them feel that undressing in front
of strangers is wonderful. Florida Young Naturists, Vita Nuda and other young
nudist groups have since formed.
Vita Nuda organizes most of the young people who attend Nudepalooza each fall
at the Cypress Cove Nudist Resort and Spa in Kissimmee, Fla., said resort owner
Ted Hadley.
"We've been looking for years to reach out to that demographic and it's been a
lot of brick walls," Mr. Hadley said. "It took a group of young nudists to do
it on their own."
Robbe White, 27 years old, attended a winter festival at Sunsport Gardens in
2009 and was one of a handful of people younger than 35.
"I thought, 'This is ridiculous,'" he said. "I wanted to bring people my own
age in to see what it was about."
He founded the Florida Young Naturists, opened a Facebook account and organized
the first Spring Break Bash at Sunsport Gardens for people under 30.
The inaugural Bash attracted 55 people. This year, 140 young nudists showed up
for a free weekend on the grass-and-sand grounds of Sunsport Gardens, including
a "midnight skinny dip and blacklight party."
One Friday morning, guests pulled off the dirt road that separates the
Everglades from the rustic, 40-acre resort. A middle-aged man wearing only a
ponytail and glasses sat behind a desk registering people. Signs informed
visitors that there were seven types of poisonous snakes in the area and that
photography was forbidden.
Guests under 30 were handed colored wristbands to give them access to an area
separate from the rest of the resort. The idea was to keep them from feeling
uncomfortable around older guests.
"No one wants to feel like eye candy," said Kathleen Kraft, a 27-year-old
organizer handing out the wristbands.
Some young guests disrobed immediately. Others hesitated or covered themselves
with towels.
Ms. Bartoletti said she felt a surge of anxiety as she prepared to disrobe in
public for the first time.
At the pool, she saw a sign saying nudity is mandatory in the water. "Well,
this is what I came here for," she thought. Off came the towel.
Pup tents went up. Several bands in various stages of undress began to play.
Vendors sold tapestries, fruit smoothies and jewelry.
On Saturday, some of the much older residents and visitors joined the younger
guests for volleyball, a mainstay of traditional nudist colonies.
"The barriers between people just fall away when you're nude," Ms. Kraft said.
"It's like watching chains falling off."
Ms. Bartoletti, who is starting college in May, said she felt as if she'd known
her fellow nudists for weeks. Her only complaint was the mosquitoes.
"I woke up this morning and put on a shirt to keep them off me," she said.
Original Page:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703856704576285653184636030.html
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