Naked Women Saved My Life

A Memoir By Our Wonderful Patron Martin

The first time I stumbled onto a photograph of a naked woman in a magazine. I had an unusual epiphany: "I want to do that" my adolescent mind screamed silently. 

I was probably nine at the time (I think it was 1969), and the response was utterly logical.  I was wearing two sweaters and corduroy pants in my parents home and still a bit chilly as Chicago winters lived up to their freezing reputation. 

The magazine was almost certainly Playboy and Miss December or some such was walking nude along a beautiful beach.  Later for lust, I  wanted to be as comfortable as she looked.  Not just soaking up the early morning sun, but comfortable in her skin.  She was physically self-confident in a way that I could barely imagine.

The thought of objectifying was secondary.  To me, she was the latest example of women like Fannie Lou Hamer and Shirley Chisolm who were breaking the limits set for women.

It was an honest stumble. I grew up in a home so stuffed with reading material that it might have been a fire hazard: bookshelves with classics lined the living room, which was full of coffee and end tables overflowing with copies of Time, Newsweek, and the New Yorker.  I was an avid reader and may have perused a profile of an anti Vietnam war activist or a review of a Miles Davis record before finding the centerfold.

In the following weeks and months (and years and decades), it was made clear to me that my perspective was not widely shared; the mainstream view was that Miss December and all of her successors were weak, not strong.  I found a few exceptions like the work of Helmut Newton or Veruschka that kept me believing, but it was an argument that didn't seem worth the effort. So I silently admired the models in Playboy and a newcomer called Penthouse.

In my early adult years, now living in New York City, the fitness boom hit and suddenly millions of women took to the streets in leggings and sport bra combos and even a few bold souls adopted unitards as their daily garb. Their poise and casual authority were inspiring. I immediately saw the parallels to my magazine idols in that these women believed in themselves and refused to let societal restrictions define them.  But, there was a key difference.  Whereas a male nude might be viewed as predatory, a man in leggings or a unitard, was simply choosing to play on the tougher side of the bracket so to speak.  I scrapped my jeans and t-shirts for many varieties of lycra wear, and if queried I'd tell people that women were strong in many ways that men should emulate.

That was a comfortable plateau, but about ten years ago, I stumbled upon a new level of inspirations while perusing social media.

Women like Laetitia, Liz Crosby, Fanny Muller, Jasmin Rituper, Poppyseed Dancer, and the goddesses of the AudriAsana crowd, especially Michelle and Rhyanna presented powerful representation of my original beliefs that a nude woman is like Michelangelo's David, the embodiment of courage and confidence.  The timing couldn't have been better; due to the vagaries of age (ouchies and minor injuries) and an overloaded work schedule, I had fallen off the fitness wagon.  The presence and poise these women possessed reminded me of why the gym and yoga mat had been my happy place.  I even pitched a memoir called Naked Women Saved My Life, but literary agents missed the point.

Nevertheless, the path toward enlightenment seemed clear and accessible. And it was reinforced two summers ago, when both of my roommates went away for a month.  My apartment became a clothing optional zone, and I experienced enormous self validation that comes from allowing your body to interact with the  surrounding environment. I began to create an agenda toward nude fitness and even vacations. And more importantly, I became completely convinced that my nine year old self was right after all.

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