Co-ed Naked Philosophy

by Forest, Will

  “I can see it. I can see how the nudity would work for the students’ self-esteem and social awareness,” said John “Rusty” McBride, men’s soccer coach and tenth-grade social studies teacher at Daniel Boone High School. “We’ve got a long way to go before that could happen, though. When pigs fly.”

  Aspects of Saucedo’s research have already been put into practice at Gulf Coast University in Mobile, Ala. Her senior seminar, and an introductory humanities course taught by colleague Chris P. Ross, were offered as clothing optional courses this spring semester. Student reaction has been mostly positive, including the formation of a student nudist group. Saucedo’s research also supports the use of uniforms, even at the college level, but only in areas where climate makes nudism impractical, or as a winter substitute for school-imposed nudism during the warmer months.

  “I know that my results are controversial,” Saucedo acknowledged, “but so were vaccines when they were introduced. That’s the key. If we don’t open our minds to new ideas, we won’t learn. And nudism isn’t even a new idea. Being nude in a learning environment is as old as history. My colleagues and I are simply refreshing people’s collective memories about the possibilities of what I call nude body learning.”

  The full text of the ISCD report is available online.

  ***

  Quique looked around the crowded bar. “I’m surprised to see so much…nocturnal activity here.”

  “Remember,” said Angela, “college towns are what keep the southern states from showing completely red on those electoral maps.”

  “Red. Like, comunistas?”

  “No, like Republicans.”

  “In fact, ours is one of the purplest red states in the South,” said Christopher. “That’s one of so many things…factors…that have come into play these past few months. Factors that ultimately may have saved Lana’s job, for instance.”

  “And your job, too,” added Manny, “or at least your tenure.”

  “Is Lana the reporter who dared to bare on live TV? What happened to her?” asked Quique.

  “Her piece on social nudity was a ratings hit and won some sort of journalism prize,” said Angela.

  “A prize for social responsibility in the media,” Christopher clarified. “But she and her cameraman held their jobs by a call-in vote of only about sixty percent in favor and forty percent opposed. By the way,” he turned to Angela, “did you get her message about..?”

  “Yeah, she’s helping the CRM plan a nude walk-a-thon fundraiser. What a great idea!”

  “Not bad for a red state,” shrugged Manny.

  “I’d like to propose a toast to the purpling of America…” began Christopher. “Actually two, no, wait: I’d like to propose four toasts, so grab your drinks.”

  Christopher held out his mug.

  “Four toasts: To the purpling of America; to good friends; to career goals met; and, finally, a toast to… clothes.”

  Eyebrows raised with glasses.

  “To all we wear, to all we adorn ourselves with that’s been sewn, woven, knit. We’re all wearing clothes right now, after all. Clothes give us warmth, protection, identity…employment in the making and selling of clothes…and no better way to start a revolution.”

  “To clothes.” Angela smiled. “Especially our graduating seniors’ caps and gowns…and a certain old fluffy robe I’m fond of curling up in.”

  “To clothing,” said Manny, “and food and shelter too.”

  “Sale. To clothes,” said Quique, “but only bedclothes. And I don’t mean pajamas!” He laughed mechanically, thrusting his face towards those of his companions.

  Christopher laughed with Quique, elated that he and Manny had been able to visit on their frequent-flyer miles, now that the semester was ending, Angela’s article published, and his tenure secure.

  Quique couldn’t stop himself. “Next revolution: gay marriage!”

  Christopher couldn’t tell if Quique was shouting accidentally or provocatively. “Little by little. Bit by bit. That revolution has already begun, and this one is only now taking shape.”

  “And just how, dear innudators, are you going to keep the revolution going?” asked Manny. “Are you going to teach all your classes in the nude from now on?”

  “We’ve got to work it out with the administration, but I think we’ll be able to get a ‘CO’ designation for some courses or sections,” said Angela.

  “CO?” asked Quique.

  “Clothing-optional.”

  “That’s a hot concept right now,” said Christopher. “My students did research projects on nudism in different areas of the world—they did a great job, by the way, across the board—for example, in Japan, Australia, India, Brazil, Norway, Mexico, the US. Many areas are revamping their tourist industries to cater to the CO sector.”

  “But these CO tourists,” said Manny, “I bet they’re still mostly European and American, Canadian and Australian.”

  “Good point,” said Christopher, “but you’d be surprised. My students’ research turned up growing interest within most of the tourist destination countries’ populations as well.”

  “Is that why you’re going to Brazil in August?”

  “You did get my message! Manny, you’re such a poor email correspondent,” Christopher chided. “No. I got a grant to research Afro-Brazilian culture and religion in Bahia. But, sure, Angela and I will check out the CO beaches while we’re there, why not?”

  “It will be our honeymoon,” Angela said.

  Manny’s eyes widened. “Now I’m sure I did not get that message! You’re getting married?”

  “Well, it’s more of a pre-marriage honeymoon,” Angela clarified. “People change the sequence so much anymore, you know…”

  “The wedding’s set for December at Pelican Bay Resort near Tampa,” said Christopher. “We’re working out details with our families. Can you two make it?”

  “Why not La Rioja?” Manny asked out loud but then answered himself, “Oh of course: it’s too risky. Unofficial. Police barging in.”

  “Right,” said Angela. “It’s our ideal choice, for sentimental reasons, but it just wouldn’t work. So Pelican Bay, which is a naturist resort and not that far away, is a good substitute.”

  “You mean, it’ll be a nude wedding?” Quique’s interest flashed.

  Christopher smiled. “It would be very appropriate, don’t you think?”

  “And…your families are on board for this?” Manny asked.

  “Well, no, not everybody. It may end up being CO instead of nude,” said Christopher.

  “Anybody opposed to a nude wedding,” said Manny, “will also oppose a CO wedding.”

  “You may be right,” said Christopher. “But it’s all about marriage; a union, a synthesis, the best of both sides. I think, with some convincing, we’ll be able to get everybody to show.”

  “Show what? Their navels?” Manny started in.

  “Show up…” Christopher laughed. “You know, attend.”

  “Show this.”

  “Oh, stop already...”

  ***

  Dear Christopher,

  Greetings from Florence! How I’ve been waiting to write that joke - I’ve traveled in Europe many times, but this is the first time Karl and I have been able to visit here. It was a long line to see David, but it was worth it! My favorite part of our journey so far has been the terrific naturist bed & breakfast where we’re staying.

  I am glad that the situation with your student was resolved. It was a special joy for me to sign your tenure approval as a trustee! You and Angela have made a very positive difference in the perceptions of your students. Nurturing tolerance and expanding horizons is the highest call of an educator. Congratulations!

  Most of the people I’ve met on my travels haven’t heard of GCU, but if I tell them I’m involved with “that nude school” they know exactly what’s going on! Keep up the innudations, a big hug for Angela, and let us know when is the wedding,

  Florence


  3

  JULY

  July

  Oceanic Humanity

  Christopher looked through the spokes of the masking tape “X” on the rain-splattered bay window in Angela’s dining room. The frequent lightning bursts illuminated trees bent in the wind under cascading rain. Maybe Hurricane Bernarda won’t do much damage after all, just some flooding and power lines down. Angela lowered the radio volume and walked toward him slowly, enjoying the way the light from the candle she was carrying played off the sheen of sweat on his back and buttocks as she approached. She set the candle on top of the television, long since unplugged. Christopher turned around and pulled her into an embrace. They kissed, many more kinds of kisses than can be suggested by one verb, and as they did they gradually became aware of a lack of sound. They looked out the window together: the trees were upright again and the rain had stopped. There was an eerie stillness, as if the earth lay suddenly exposed to the stellar sky, bereft of its atmosphere yanked away like a blanket by the manic storm, all sound swallowed in such a vacuum.

  “It’s the eye of the hurricane,” Angela said. “Everything stopped.”

  “It reminds me of my first time at La Rioja: the sudden silence just before the MPs arrived on their dune buggies,” Christopher said. “It’s as if sound flees the arrival of a menacing force.”

  “That’s right. They say the worst of the storm is yet to come.”

  The candlelight flickered softly.

  “Wow!” Christopher whispered, shaking his head. “This is giving me goosebumps.” He and Angela verified the raised hairs on his arms, chest and legs. “And look here,” he whispered, amazed anew at his body, as he lifted his penis to show the stiffened hairs on his contracted scrotum. Angela instinctively cupped her hand over the compact and wrinkled sac.

  “Why did you get piel de gallina?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “You know, goosebumps.”

  Christopher felt his scrotum expand in his lover’s hand. “I don’t know, power of nature or something like that.”

  They both stood still for a moment, Angela holding Christopher’s scrotum and looking into his eyes. She felt herself filling with tenderness, a welling-up within her that flowed out forming the words “I choose you, Chris. You are the one I choose.”

  He laughed and put his arms around her, cupping her buttocks as his penis began to stir. “I love you too.”

  Angela lifted her hands to his shoulders and began to rub. He rested his head on hers to relax into her massage. He loved the cherrywood smell of her neck, especially the area behind her ears and at the nape, and he loved to trace her lunares with his finger. Lunares, in Spanish and evocative of the moon, such a classier word than the English moles. Her chest projected a proud pattern of lunares, as if they had spilled from the moon upon her neck and between her breasts, streaking a trail on down beyond and to the left of her navel. He loved to pinch her areolas with his fingertips, to feel them pucker up and stiffen at his caress. The nude lovers made their way to bed where, cuddling under the sheets, they surrendered to the passionate coupling that they naturally began to embody.

  Some half hour later, they awoke to register a new wave of goosebumps as the winds began to bend branches and smack raindrops against the window. They rode out the rest of the hurricane in a tight embrace and celebrated the final silence in renewed lovemaking.

  ***

  Christopher and Angela drove slowly along University Boulevard, dodging puddles the size of ponds and skirting severed branches barring the road. Hurricane Bernarda had left more destruction in its wake than Christopher had predicted. In the university’s own housing complex—an old neighborhood of shoddily maintained cottages near campus—most of the homes were flooded, without electricity or tap water, and endangered by downed power lines and tilting trees. Several university buildings had been heavily damaged, although the replica of the Tholos ruin, notably, had survived intact. The Humanities Building, relatively unscathed, had become a community shelter for the families who lived near campus.

  The professors parked and unloaded the trunk. Laden with boxes and bags of canned food and water, Drs. Ross and Saucedo stepped through the propped-open doorway at the back of the Humanities Building auditorium and looked down into the dark, humid cavern of a room from the highest row of seats. There were probably two hundred people there on this morning after the hurricane, but the electricity was not back on yet, so the noisy auditorium had become a huge sauna. The heat from so many bodies, even in the tall room, led many of the smaller children to go shirtless, if not completely naked. Many of the men had removed their shirts as well. The hurricane had opened a few holes in the auditorium ceiling, marked by the buckets and trash receptacles placed below them to catch the errant drops from puddles on the flat roof. The dim glow of a newly overcast sky seeped through the roof holes, providing only a half-light in the auditorium.

  Christopher set his boxes on the floor for a moment and took off his shirt. With a wide-eyed look at Angela, he slid off his pants, leaving just his boxers on. Angela removed her blouse but not her bra or shorts, and stuffed their discarded clothes into one of the bags she was carrying. As they walked down the aisle they recognized students and colleagues. Jennifer, Alex, Tucker, and Ed were setting up a first-aid area in one of the back rows. Ed, looking svelte, wore a pink tanktop and shorts; Alex was wearing only shorts; Jennifer, a one-piece swimsuit; and Tucker, the famous leopard-print thong that he had sewn back together after he sold the David statue to one Florence Lowell. Daphne and Greg, and little Adam, all wearing swimsuits, were setting up a children’s play area off to the side of one of the wider, wheelchair-access rows. A large group of CRMers congregated on the front dais, sorting the contents of the aid boxes already received: bottled water, canned food, plastic cutlery, first-aid kits, toys, batteries, lanterns and flashlights, blankets and books. All of the students, maybe about a dozen including Renee, Terrence, Lisa, Jacob, Heather, and Paul, were shirtless, the women wearing only bikini tops or bras. Angela and Christopher reached the front of the auditorium and began to empty the goods from their bags and boxes into the growing pile of supplies.

  Just as Angela placed her grocery bags on the table, she felt a cold splash slide down her chest. She jumped back and looked skyward: pooled water on the weakened roof had opened another hole, right over the dais where she was standing. The cups of her bra had caught most of the water, but it was beginning to drip down her abdomen, so she just slipped her bra off and hung it over the back of a chair.

  Christopher noticed a young mother, holding a crying baby in the front row of seats, stunned to see Angela bare her breasts so nonchalantly. But the mother’s expression dissolved when she saw the other women CRMers decide to shed their bras and bikini tops as well. The young mother looked at the man seated next to her, probably her husband, who began studying the new opening in the ceiling, embarrassed. She looked at her baby, naked except his diaper, crying and rooting around to find her breast. “Hold the baby a second,” Christopher heard her say to the man. Then she took off her blouse and nursing bra and held the baby directly to her breast. The man put his arm around her awkwardly, unable to do anything except stare, red-cheeked, at the hushed baby.

  Christopher resisted looking directly at the couple even though he was fascinated by their image. The woman had light skin while the man’s was dark, forming a reverse of the Orozco mural that Jaime had shown in class, and evoking the birth of a synthesis and maybe even a new hope. Discreetly, Christopher called Angela’s attention to the couple. The two innudators stood next to each other, squeezing each other’s hands tight, as they observed the mother cooing at the baby while her husband remained frozen at her side. But as the father watched his infant child suckling, his face softened and resolved into a smile. He pulled back his arm so he could take his shirt off, as if posing for the mural in Christopher’s memory. He even shimmied off his shorts. Then he reclined in his briefs, crossed his legs, and snaked h
is arm back around his wife, who smiled at him through half-closed eyes.

  And then, there was the sun, suddenly streaming through one of the holes in the roof. It lit a diagonal shaft in the back of the auditorium, and Christopher could see people blinking, shielding their eyes to look up at the light. Quickly as the clouds moved there followed another sunlit streak, and then another, and another, illuminating sparkles in the oceanic humanity that shined from bodies wearing rings, watches, buckles, and necklaces. A shaft fell on Jennifer and she sneezed in the sudden brilliance of forms. Another shaft of light fell directly on the young couple and their baby. The man and woman looked up with mouths open and palms raised as if to catch the glow, and then turned their gaze up to the professors just as one final sunbeam illuminated the pair of them standing together on the stage. Angie and Chris looked at each other in the new light and embraced. They took a joyous bow.

  3

  Afterword

  One Monday morning in the fall semester of 1997 or 1998, when I was an Assistant Professor at a university in southern Alabama, I received a call in my office. “Are you married?” the female voice asked.

  “Yes, why?”

  “My friend, So-and-so, used to be your student. She’s getting married this weekend and we’d like to know if you’d perform a striptease at her bachelorette party on Thursday.”

  “Really?” I asked, and then, vainly trying to sound business-like and nonchalant, “How much will you pay?”

  “Name your price. So-and-so had a huge crush on you and nobody else in the whole state could do this and have it mean as much for her.”