Grin & Bare It
By Jason Feifer
Zink Magazine - June, 2004 issue; page 38

I rarely remember my dreams, but this one was vivid. I was at a semi-formal affair, the kind of thing where people dress nice and then hover around a buffet table like penguins at a pig trough. I knew nobody, and tried to make small talk with those around me. But in return, I received an eerily consistent reaction. People I met would say nothing, but instead cock their eyebrows and tense their lips, as if biting a lemon while trying to impersonate Dana Carvey's Church Lady. In return, I smiled. Nervously.

At first, I thought it was because they didn't know me. I was an outsider at an insider's affair, the kind of guy that will be forced to wander uncomfortably until all the tables are full, after which he will identify the one table with empty chairs and then shyly ask if the seat is taken. He will receive a round of full-mouthed grunts and dismissive waves, and will spend the rest of the evening listening to the disgruntled couple at his table commiserate over the way in which someone forgot to seat them with their friends. He will appear immensely interested in his food. I was prepared for this. After all, I had come alone.

But in fact, there was a more immediate reason for people's response: I had shown up naked. Granted, this isn't unique in dreamland, since "the naked dream" is our unconscious brain's version of the romantic comedy -- a situational cliché with lazy direction and an unlimited cast of characters. This dream, however, was different. I did not run screaming. I did not cover myself with the nearest napkin. Instead, when I looked down at myself -- my bare, skinny, slightly hairy and completely bare self -- I thought one thing: "Oh. Wrong event."

That, of course, presupposes that there is a right event to show up naked at -- an assumption almost as perplexing as the reaction itself. But regardless, I calmly walked out of the room, found a suitcase, put on a pair of pants, and rejoined the party. And then I woke up.

This isn't the first time I've had this dream. I've been on the street, in class, hanging out with friends. Each time, I conduct myself with perfect normality and then realize, oh, whoops, sorry for showing you my penis. But I'm never mortified. It's only a casual recognition of minor fault, like showing up to a funeral wearing the wrong shade of black. Sometimes I take corrective action, and other times I shrug. I am suddenly bearing the nudist's ultimatum: people can either look at my ass, or they can stop hanging out with me. It's their choice -- and if I do say so myself, it's more of a loss to leave me. I have a nice ass.

But do I, in real life, have a nice ass? I have no idea. Only my parents and a handful of girls have seen it, and I've never solicited feedback. For the most part, my ass takes a Wizard of Oz approach, staying comfortably draped and making the occasional booming noise. In elementary school, I'd always chicken out when my friends mooned people, afraid that I'd expose some horrific remnant of my latest bowel movement. In high school, I conceived the then-brilliant senior prank of photocopying many asses, which would be strategically taped to the school's second-floor windows, thus spelling the words "ASS OF '98." However, the plan came to a grinding halt after I photocopied my own ass in private, and was mortified -- truly, breathlessly taken aback -- at how hairy the machine had made it appear. My ass looked like a grainy photo of freaky mythological Medusa, with a Mohawk. I quickly destroyed the photocopy, and practically withdrew myself from the prank altogether.

I am, despite the dreams, no nudist. I'll gladly walk around friends and strangers in a pair of boxers, but to me, there is a huge gap between wearing boxers and wearing nothing. And so, I am perplexed by these dreams, in which I am so arrestingly comfortable in the buff that I become wholly ignorant of it. To people who believe dreams have deeper meaning -- a hocus-pocus philosophy, as far as I'm concerned -- I suppose my inner-nudist is crying, suffocating under my t-shirt and pants, woozy from my usual insistence on wearing socks. Am I a closet nudist -- predisposed to be exposed?

One time, while I was staying at my parents' house a few years ago, I tried to confront this mystery. Nobody was home, and so I spent the better part of the afternoon waltzing around in the buff and discovering a new fondness for sitting cross-legged. It was amazing how almost instantaneously non-sexual a lack of clothes can become -- a true shifting from the clumsy "naked" to the artful "nude." I walked aimlessly, enjoying the soft breeze of movement and contemplating the aerodynamics of normally hidden body parts. Being nude gave meaning to my every action. With nothing to hide, I felt more aware of myself, encouraged to micro-manage every muscle twitch with a thoughtful audience in mind.

After a few hours, I tried putting on a t-shirt, but found it to be somehow heavy, a stiff burden on my liberated shoulders. I began wondering if I had somehow spoiled clothing, as if my experiment cast me from the world of the dressed, forever left to wander in cloth shackles, a Medieval tragedy with cotton armor. I was contemplating this as I sauntered into the kitchen for a snack and spied, to my horror, a man in the backyard. I don't know if he saw me or not, but I instinctively scurried back to my room in a flash of flesh, feeling exposed for exposing myself, and dove into the safety net of a pair of boxers. I suddenly relished the feel of fabric against skin, the social contract of the Western world. And with that, the experiment was over.

But then again, maybe I was startled because I was alone and out of context. The man outside wouldn't have seen my casual, introspective jaunt into the land of the undressed; he would have seen an idiot who forgot to close the window blinds, or worse, an exhibitionist. He would have felt like he intruded, and that would make me feel intruded upon.

Maybe my inner-nudist won't come out unless surrounded by outer-nudists, an experience I've had only once. My family and I took a trip to a Caribbean island when I was a teenager, and half-way through it, my father suggested that we all take a peek at a nearby clothing-optional beach.

"Are we going to get naked?" I asked.

"No, we'll just look around," he said. And he was serious.

So off we went, like tourists on safari. As the only clothed people on the beach, we sought safety in numbers -- huddling together like a small army does when outnumbered, ready to fend off any stray breast or butt-cheek that might come to steal our clothing. As a typical teenager, I was generally embarrassed to be in public with my parents -- but on that beach, the embarrassment of wearing clothing suddenly outweighed all else. I felt as if we were the only ones on the beach with something to prove -- the only ones shamefully tied to conformity, who couldn't take such a clearly noble, practical leap. We were branded, our marks of shame drooping off of us, attached by elastic and design. People clearly considered us out of place, and in return, we tried not to stare.

As we walked, my mother tried to be positive by voicing variations of, "well, this is interesting," while my dad amused my sister and I with crass comments. "Eew, how'd you like to wake up next to that?" he'd say, elbowing the two of us and motioning towards a particularly flabby beachgoer.

Indeed, the people on the beach were the last people I'd want to see naked. They were arrestingly average -- splotchy and saggy, uncommon only in their common dress code -- and seemed somehow undeserving of a license to bare all. From my teenage perch, nudity came only in movies and magazines, bestowed upon flawless people as a reward for genetic luck. I had seen naked bodies, but not these kind of naked bodies. These bodies were alarmingly like my own body. And in their commonality, they were an invitation, a reminder of possibility, a cry of 'faux' against a cultural faux pas.

We left after a few minutes, and slipped easily back into a world where cleavage meant something. But part of me wondered what I would have done if I visited that beach alone, with no ties to a family agenda. In my more self-confident moments, I picture myself joining these people, blending in and feeling how completely routine and unimportant my body can become. But, most of them spend the day on the sand, walking or throwing frisbees, their multiple body parts bouncing independently of each other. And every time I imagine it, I don't see myself on the sand with them, or anywhere near them. I am missing from the party, my only mark made where I left my wardrobe. But look around, and there I am -- not far from shore, squinting and smiling into the sun, happy to join them, to be nude in my own mind, wearing the ocean as my pants.