Grin and bare it: For nudists, Lenox gathering is chance to hang out
By Laurel J. Sweet
Monday, June 18, 2007 - Updated: 07:35 AM EST
Hundreds of fun-loving nudists eager to let it all hang out this week in the breathtaking Berkshires will also be noodling around the threat that their aging ilk are becoming an endangered species.
“We’re looking to get younger people into it, but they just don’t see the advantage. They say, ‘Why should I pay to join a club when I can go to the beach for free?’ ” said George Winlock, 65, of Everett, a nude with ’tude since 1994 and board member of the national Naturist Action Committee.
Today through Sunday, the 10th annual Eastern Naturist Gathering will be the exclusive guests of the Eastover Resort in Lenox. As many as 800 nudists from as far away as British Columbia will enjoy gardening, yoga, underwater photography, nude hiking on the Appalachian Trail and the assembling of a naked human alphabet.
Between the limbo contests and cowboy cookouts will be workshops laying bare the uncertain future of social nudism.
Event organizer Nicky Hoffman Lee, 58, a Wisconsin grandmother and editor of “N - The Magazine of Naturist Living,” said the gathering will consist mainly of nudists ages 35 to 65. Though a half-dozen families are signed up to attend, and there is a kids’ camp, Lee expects conventioneers to be predominantly male and 98 percent Caucasian.
But whether it’s the Naturist Society, whose membership is only $53 a year, or Rotary Club, Lee laments that youth today simply aren’t into community.
“I think they’re just not joiners,” Lee said. “When kids get done with college they want their job and their car.”
Nudists may be graying out in places some people don’t care to see, but they’re not dead yet. Lee said the Naturist Society has 450 “card-carrying” members in Massachusetts alone, while “Naked in Massachusetts,” a new Yahoo! [YHOO] group devoted to nude recreation, has amassed 213 members in six months.
Lee said women tend to worry more about whether their body parts stack up to mass-media ideals, but far and away the most-asked question by prospective male nudists is what happens if they’re sexually aroused.
“We’d be lying if we said we didn’t check each other out, but people think (going nude) is sexual and it’s really not,” Lee said. “I tell (men) part of our etiquette is to carry a towel. Or, they can jump in the water. If that doesn’t work, we’re always there to beat you with sticks. I only say that if I know they’re going to laugh.”
If you want to try life in your birthday suit on for size, Winlock, a retired corporate tax accountant, suggests cleaning your house in the buff. You, too, he promises, will be a convert.
“It’s just the comfort of being your natural self as you really are and not having to have a phony aura about you,” Winlock said. “When I’m talking to someone who’s nude, I don’t know if I’m talking to the president of the bank or the janitor.”
Naked ambition
With sunshine abounding this week and temperatures in the mid-70s to high 80s, there’s no time like the present to shed one’s inhibitions with one’s clothing.
Here are a few local places to eyeball if you dare to be bare:
Pilgrim Naturists of New England, P.O. Box 320273, Boston, MA, 02132. Toll-free information line: 1-866-867-2932.
Berkshire Vista Resort, Hancock, MA, a featured club of the American Association for Nude Recreation. Phone: 413-738-5154.
Naked in Massachusetts invites curious nudists to “come back to nature and learn what it means to liberate your body and mind.” Check them out at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NakedInMassachusetts/
Gay Head, Martha’s Vineyard. Partial nude beach.
Sunchasers Travel Club, Ludlow, MA. Phone: 413-583-6877 or click on www.sunchaserstravelclub.com.
Sandy Terraces Associates, a family nudist campground on Cape Cod, P.O. Box 98, Marston Mills, MA, 02648. Phone: 508-428-9209.
