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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