The Right Crowd

Michael sent in this great story that’s interesting at many levels. If you or someone you know has been hesitant to try skinny dipping, read on!

Several years ago, I took a trip to Maui with my then girlfriend. Of course, one of the best parts about Maui are the beautiful beaches. We got to sample several of them during the week.

At Makena State Park, there are two beaches. The main one is what you would think of as the typical wide sandy Hawaiian beach and is called Big Beach. My girlfriend and I spent the afternoon there the day after arriving on the island and had a lot of fun. My girlfriend, although she had been skinny dipping with me multiple times, was fairly modest (she wore bikinis) when other people were around. She was a little surprised at how skimpy the bathing suits were worn by the women (Big Beach is a clothed beach). The norm for the women at that beach (at least the teenagers and adults under 40) tended to be barely-there string bikini tops and barely-there thong bottoms. My girlfriend laughed when she said her bikini felt like an “old granny tank suit” compared to what those other women her age were wearing.

On the north end of Big Beach is a small rock ridge you need to climb over to reach the other beach. On the other side of the ridge was a smaller beach called Little Beach. I had walked over to Little Beach while my girlfriend was tanning and taking a nap at Big Beach. As I had heard, Little Beach was clothing optional.

Although I had been skinny dipping countless times over the years, it had always been on the sly and I had never been to a place where you could walk around in the nude without being afraid to get caught.

For dinner that night, my girlfriend had a little surprise for me. Inspired by the casual attitude toward clothing she had seen on the island, she bought a wrap to wear. The lady at the store had shown her how to wrap it around her and make sure she was covered in the right places. She was wearing that and nothing else. I had a hard time eating thinking about how little she was wearing in public.

When we got back to the condo where we were staying, she said she wanted to go hang out in the pool and hot tub for a little while before going to bed. I was pleasantly surprised when she changed into her string bikini top and a pair of her thong underwear. She figured that she might as well try to blend in with the locals.

After cooling off for a few minutes in the pool, we went to the hot tub. Since it was getting late, the other people who had been there left to go to bed. Soon, it was just my girlfriend and I in the hot tub, and another young couple getting close in the pool.

When she noticed it was just us and the other couple, my girlfriend got a smile on her face. She untied the back string on her bikini top (leaving it just dangling around her neck) and let her boobs float free in the warm water. Then, she took off her thong and set it on the edge of the hot tub. Taking her cue, I of course took off my shorts and enjoyed the hot tub au natural as well.

When it was time for us to leave, my girlfriend looked around and saw it was still only us and the other couple (who only had eyes for each other at that moment). Instead of trying to finagle her wet clothes back on her for the short trip back to our room, she just said “what the hell?,” jumped out of the hot tub naked, and grabbed her towel to wrap around her. Taking her lead, I did the same thing. It was quite arousing for both of us walking around there in nothing but a towel. Before we even got back to our room on the top floor, the towels had come off. Let’s say we didn’t get much sleep that night.

Over the next couple of days, we did a lot of touristy things. Since there were more people staying at our condo building, the pool and hot tub were much busier at night (including families with kids), so we couldn’t go naked like we had done before.

One afternoon, we decided to spend it back at Big Beach. I talked to my girlfriend about going to Little Beach instead. While she loved skinny dipping with me, she wasn’t crazy about the idea of being naked in broad daylight in front of a bunch of strangers. However, since she enjoyed watching me run around naked, she agreed to go but would just wear her bikini.

She was pleasantly surprised when she got there to see a couple of different things. First of all, no one looked like they were a lifeguard on Baywatch. In fact, most of the people looked very ordinary. There were actually a lot more “hot bodies” on Big Beach wearing clothes. Second, she was glad to see that she wasn’t the only one wearing a swimsuit. She was afraid she would stand out by being the only one clothed. About a third of the women there were wearing full swimsuits (like her), a third were topless, and the other third were completely nude. About 75% of the men were running around naked.

We set up “camp” near the far end of the beach next to what ended up being another couple around our age named Cara and Eric. As I got undressed and applied sunscreen, the other couple came out of the water (nude of course) and back to their towels to relax. They were very friendly and we ended up talking with them quite a bit over the next few hours.

As we spoke with them, I mentioned that my girlfriend was a little reluctant to go nude in public. Cara said “No problem. Eric was the same way when we first got together.”

Cara explained that she had grown up in California and her mother took her often to a nude beach not too far from where they lived. Her mother wanted Cara to have a positive body self image, so she took her to the nude beach to get comfortable with her body and see how people with all different body types were comfortable as well. Cara said that she actually felt more comfortable naked at a pool or beach than she did wearing a bikini. She didn’t have to worry about whether or not the bikini fit her well or having to adjust it while wearing it to make sure nothing was “exposed.”

Eric and Cara told about how when they first got married a few years before, they went to a Caribbean island for their honeymoon. When they got there, they discovered the beach was clothing optional so Cara of course just ditched her bikini and went nude. Eric, however, was reluctant to get naked in public and wore his swimsuit while he was there. Cara kept encouraging him, but he just didn’t want to take that step.

Finally, on the last day of their trip, she got him try skinny dipping and he loved it. He was disappointed he hadn’t tried it sooner. Cara said that after their honeymoon, they always made sure to go somewhere that had a nude beach available. In fact, Eric got so into it, he would always go naked in their hot tub at home. They even had a group of friends who would go naked in their hot tub with them.

While I hoped Cara’s stories would inspire my girlfriend to join in the fun, I decided to not worry about it and just enjoy myself. Over the next couple of hours, my girlfriend and I played in the water, explored the beach a little, and laid out in the sun.

Skinny dipping had always been a pretty solitary activity for us. We were both pretty surprised at how open and friendly the people on the nude beach were toward us and each other. There was no judgement and you felt very comfortable starting up conversations with people (much more so than at “normal” beaches). It was definitely the right kind of crowd to hang around.

A couple of hours after we got there, my girlfriend was body surfing when a wave caught her by surprise and displaced her bikini top. Embarrassed, she tried put her upper body underwater to fix it, but the waves made it nearly impossible. After a minute or two of trying, she looked around and realized where she was. She just took off her top, walked out of the water, and set her bikini top on her towel.

When she got back in, she enjoyed jumping around without her top and after about ten minutes, got back out and took off her bikini bottom. Jumping in fully naked, she said she couldn’t believe she had been so hung up about being naked like that. We had a great time for the next hour or so playing naked in the water and on the beach.

Eric and Cara congratulated her on her new found “freedom”. The four of us enjoyed a very pleasant, normal conversation for a while before it was time to leave and head back and get some dinner.

At dinner that night, my girlfriend couldn’t stop talking about how much fun she had that afternoon and how she wished she had done it sooner. We were able to get back to Little Beach one more time on that trip. Of course, she got naked as soon as we got there the second time :-).

What a great story and memory, Michael. See, everyone, it doesn’t have to be scary!

-Jen