A Year in the Life: Adventures in British Subcultures by Lucy Leonelli

Author:Lucy Leonelli [Leonelli, Lucy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Unbound
Published: 2021-11-07T00:00:00+00:00

N is for… Naturists

I accidentally just touched

someone’s bum with my bum

‘I’m not being the first one out there,’ my friend Tori declares as she scurries over to the peephole to scout the corridor for naked bodies. She squashes her nose against the door and glues her eye to the small bead of glass. ‘Oh my God,’ she says, spinning her head around to beam at me, her face alive with tipsy excitement – ‘a willy!’

And why, I hear you ask, was Tori so excited about seeing a willy?

Rewind the scene an hour, and we are standing in the lobby of a famous water park in the north of England, our senses assaulted by the smell of chlorine and glaring aquarium-themed wallpaper. I look around the room, trying to imagine the scene when ‘clothing optional’ commences in less than an hour. Oh God. Less than an hour. A feeling of dread washes over me and I forget how to breathe.

‘It’ll be fine,’ Tori tries to reassure me in a voice two octaves above her usual pitch, her blonde hair framing an increasingly reddening face.

I reach for Tori’s hand as we walk up to the welcome desk. ‘We’re here for the naturist weekend,’ I manage to squeak, convinced that the young, fully clothed reception workers are inwardly laughing at us. I feel an overwhelming urge to tell them all that we aren’t actual naturists, but I had made Tori promise that we wouldn’t do that on the drive up. ‘No disclaimers,’ we agreed. That would be cowardly.

According to the British Naturist (BN) website, there are as many as 4 million naturists in the UK, 10,000 of whom are signed up as members of the national organisation. We will be spending the weekend with 420 of their most active members, here to enjoy an annual holiday of ‘fun, in a non-judgemental environment’.

After check-in, we head straight for the bar, a novelty Caribbean-themed room with a warm stone floor, wicker furniture and fake palm trees. The air is sticky, and there is a buzz of anticipation in the air as people mingle from group to group, hugging and shaking hands. We order a bottle of wine to numb the awkwardness of our impending disrobing session and take it up to our room.

Fifteen minutes and four glasses of wine later, we both set to work lowering expectations before the big exposé, describing the intricate details of our anatomy to each other in preparation for what is about to be unveiled, like schoolkids sheepishly saying, ‘It’s not very good,’ before revealing their art projects to each other. We take it in turns to remove one layer at a time, our nautical-themed hotel room – complete with bunk beds and SpongeBob SquarePants welcome packs – providing a surreal backdrop to our platonic striptease.

Once naked, we begin to fire panicked questions at each other – what do we do with our phones? Do we wear shoes? What if I have to bend down to pick something up?

Cue the peephole willy scene.

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