How I Woke Up by JohnW

Let's start with the ending and then trace how I got here. I have a wonderful wife and a young family. We are not social nudists. But we have felt the benefits of being an open household. I guess you might say that we are chaste nudists at home. We are almost always clothed, but when clothes would naturally come off we do not hide from each other. It is simply part of the natural flow of life - nobody thinks anything of it.

Closed door shame to Open Door acceptance

Now how I got here:  I grew up in a very "private" family. I have never seen either of my parents naked and never even saw my sisters in their underwear past the age of eight or so.

From an early age, I remember being very curious about what women's bodies looked like ... and feeling dirty for it. It was made very clear to me that bodies were taboo.

When puberty came I was no less curious and now hormones intensified the curiosity and added the fire of sexuality to it. By my teenage years, bodies and sex were inseparable. And I felt dirtier than ever for caring so much about it.

I can say without reservation that if Internet porn had existed back then, I would have been lost to it. And this raises a sad point. Porn addiction is escalating in the Church. If my experience sheds any light on this, it is that men are not always drawn into porn by sexual fixations. In my case, it was simple curiosity about what girls really looked like. How sad to be drawn into such soul-sapping and mind-warping smut over simple curiosity.

I made it safely through the rest of my teenage years, went on a mission, and got through my undergraduate education. I was a good kid. I was successful in everything I did, served in many callings (Elders Quorum instructor, Elders Quorum President, Executive Secretary, to name a few), and was always well regarded and respected. Still, it troubled me that I had a secret, "dirty" fixation with girls' bodies.

I learned of idea of open doors

At this point in my life, I made a curious observation. I had a couple of roommates who seemed to be very well-adjusted in terms of the fairer gender, relationships and their attitudes about sex. One day I learned that they had both grown up in "open" homes where it was commonplace to see their sisters and mothers naked. I could not fathom this. How could there be mixed-gender nudity without sexual weirdness coming into play? I can see now that the opposite was true -- the openness had actually severed nudity from sex. Or better put, it satisfied natural and innocent curiosity from a very young age and kept it from escalating into something grossly warped and disproportionate, as had happened to me. But I was incapable of seeing this. It was impossible for me to think of nudity without sexual overtones.

Move forward a couple of years. I met an amazing girl. Beautiful, full of light, full of charity, and as pure as they come. And for some reason, she married me.

She also shocked me and made me very uncomfortable. You see, in the way I was raised, when you needed a shower you wore your clothes into the bathroom and also brought along the clothes you would put on. You shut and locked the door, undressed in the bathroom, showered, and dressed again before leaving the bathroom. She, on the other hand, undressed wherever she wanted (bedroom, laundry, etc.) and walked naked to the bathroom. She showered with the door open, got out and did her hair and makeup still naked, and then made her way to the bedroom to get dressed, maybe stopping along the way to do this or that. She was not deliberately staying naked, she just did not feel any urgency to put clothes on.

This caused some real conflict in me. On the one hand, I really liked it. But I also knew that it was the "dirty" side of me that liked it. There was a clear taboo that she was breaking, and it lessened her spiritually in my eyes. I never openly objected, but she sensed my strange reactions and began to feel like she must be a bad person.

To give some background on her, she was raised in a very "open" home just like my roommates. It was normal for her brother to be in the bathroom while she was showering or vice versa. Family members thought nothing of walking between the bedroom area, bathroom, and downstairs laundry with nothing on. Note carefully the key point here: they thought nothing of it. I obsessed daily about bodies; they had no thought of them, even when one was bare in front of them. I should add that this was a very strong LDS home. Mom was the Relief Society president, dad was Bishop then Stake President and then a Branch President.

Now we fast-forward ten more years. We have four kids now. The oldest boy is about eight. My wife is still as open as ever, even in front of the kids, but now feels like maybe there is something wrong with her. The oldest is starting to be very self-conscious about his body and as a result, he starts teasing the other kids about theirs. They have also started using the computer and I realize that porn is lurking around the corner, try as I might to hide it from them. And most of all, I am scared that if they become as body-obsessive as me, porn will be waiting with open arms.

So I go looking for solutions. In my searching, I come across "Christian naturist" sites with claims that the incidence of porn, child molestation, and adultery among Christian naturists is almost zero. Then I find the LDS Skinny Dipper Connection web site which speaks of LDS families that enjoy skinny-dipping together: father, mother, brothers, and sisters. My first reaction is the same one I have had before: How can there be mixed-gender nudity without sexual weirdness coming in?

Then I started thinking about my college roommates and my wife, their families, and how well-adjusted they all were. They were comfortable in their own skin, comfortable with the other gender's skin, and did not find anything inherently sexual about it.

Then the light turned on. Or I woke up; pick the metaphor. It dawned on me that if I had been brought up seeing my mother's and sisters' bodies, my curiosity never would have taken root. It never would have grown into an over-perceived taboo. It never would have taken on a strong sexual overtone, and it never would have become such a defining aspect of my life. Rather, I would have seen bodies as people, which is just what they are. Bodies are the clothing of the spirit, not dirty, not shameful, not inherently sexual, not a taboo. They are just part of the person, half of the soul.

I read through the rest of the LDS Skinny Dipper Connection site. Some things I agreed with, some I disagreed with. But the overall principle was as clear as any truth: chaste nudity is healthy. And the family is the ideal environment for it. I saw that it would satisfy natural, innocent curiosity in the most wholesome way possible, keeping it from turning into something negative. It would help my kids understand bodies in the right light. It could keep the strong sexual overtones out of skin, helping my kids avoid temptation as teenagers. And it would help them grow up with well-balanced attitudes about sexuality and gender differences.

I brought all of these new ideas to my wife. I cannot describe how relieved she was. She was relieved that the false guilt I had caused her would finally go away. And most of all, she was relieved that I was starting to understand a principle that had always been perfectly clear to her. Before my awakening, she had reached the point where she was about to give up and start hiding herself from the kids. We chose the opposite. She should stay open, and I should open up too. Mind you, this was not easy at all for me. But the kids did not think anything of it.

We are now a very open family. It has led to some open, healthy discussions about bodies, the differences between men and women, and the differences between kids and adults. The kids are looking forward to puberty, not dreading it. The body teasing has stopped, and the kids are much less self-conscious. One of my boys walked in on my 30-year-old sister while she was in the shower. He did not think anything of it. It gives me hope that these kids will completely escape the darkness that I carried with me until marriage.

To end on a negative note, I will compare all of this against where two of my sisters are. One of them, who is not married (the 30-year-old), confided that she feels dirty looking at herself nude in the mirror. And she cannot shake the belief that all males are in a constant state of sexual tension.

Another sister is married but will not let her husband see her nude. In her words, "he knows he is allowed to, but he also knows I prefer if he doesn't. I just come from a very chaste family."

The saddest thing of all is something that was revealed to me not long ago. My parents are very openly nude with each other. They shower with the door open, walk about the master suite without clothes, and at times linger nude. But as kids, we never knew this because they kept their door shut tight. I am not blaming them for my life experiences; but I would be a fool to not learn a lesson from it, one which can bless my kids: an open door can change a child's life.

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