Nude cruises: The one thing I wouldn’t do naked

THERE’S plenty of things that we do nude every day. Showering and occasionally sleeping. But this is one thing I never want to do in my birthday suit.

I’VE DONE a fair few things nude.

I was born nude, unsurprisingly. I shower nude. If it’s hot I sleep nude. And I can’t count the times I’ve swum nude.

But when I received an invitation to travel on a nude cruise I was floored.

“Would you like to come with me on a cruise on the Celebrity Constellation ship in February?” a friend asked prior to Christmas.

“Sure,” I said, “If I can afford it”.

“It visits some incredible places — Puerto Rico, Turks and Caicos, the Bahamas,” she informed me.

They all sounded exotic and fabulous, and I’ve never been to that part of the world before.

“There’s something else I need to tell you before you commit,” she said, “It’s on The Big Nude Boat”.

Cue raucous laughter.

“No, no, no and no,” I said.

“I thought this would be just your thing,” she said.

Celebrity Constellation — soon to be filled with nudists.

This got me thinking about the writer Mark Haskell Smith, who spent a year travelling the world in his birthday suit to research his book Naked at Lunch.

When I interviewed him recently about the one thing you shouldn’t do at a nudist retreat, his first piece of advice was around humour.

“If you’re at the airport, you don’t make jokes about bombs. When you’re with nudists you don’t make jokes about breasts,” he said.

Haskell Smith devotes a chapter in his book to reflecting on his experience on The Big Nude Boat, which he says was exactly as advertised: nudists running amok on a luxury liner.

All the usual activities one might find on a cruise ship — the cooking classes, the fitness centre, the casino, the movie theatre, the discos and dance halls and bars — were filled with naked people, he says.

Just an average day at work for Haskell Smith.

On the website of Bare Necessities Tour & Travel, the company behind The Big Nude Boat, there’s a set of rules that cruisers must abide by, including: all passengers must be dressed any time the ship is in port; no photographs or videos may be taken without the express consent of that individual; and overtly sexual activity is strictly prohibited.

Haskell Smith explains that while you might think that a bunch of nudists being naked with each other while consuming large quantities of alcohol might lead to some sexual encounters, nudists are somewhat fanatical about creating what they call a “non-sexual” environment.

It sounded like there was about the same amount of bedroom shenanigans taking place on the nude cruise as there would be on a conventional cruise.

The Big Nude Boat says on its website that it supports the belief that “sexuality is not a state of undress but rather a state of mind and that social nudity is not a sexual activity”.

Time to put on some more sunscreen.

Obviously this appeals to many. If Bare Necessities’s numbers are anything to go by, clothing-free holidays are a growing speciality travel market.

The company started from modest beginnings — one of its first offerings was a 36 passenger clothing-optional dive boat trip in 1991. Now The Big Nude Boat can take up to 3000 nudists, depending on the ship that is being chartered.

Not a bad place to stop.

Nancy Tiemann, the president of Bare Necessities, says one of the attractions of clothes-free holidays is that she finds herself withholding less of who she is as she hides less of her body.

“I begin to accept myself, imperfections, and all,” she writes on the company website.

“I can assure you, for a woman who tried for years to match the unrealistic standards of beauty set by the American advertising industry, this can be very liberating. Clothes-free vacationing leads to body acceptance ... your own.”

And she urges people to give social nude recreation a try.

“Believe me, once free of that extra baggage you will be much lighter and happier, naturally.”

It all sounds interesting but I don’t think I’m quite ready for a ‘nakation’ just yet — even though skinny dipping in the Bahamas can’t be all that bad.

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