Naturist

Naturism is the practice of going nude alone or socially for reasons of comfort and/or physical and mental health benefits. Naturists believe that social stigmas about nakedness as sexual when it is between men and women are unnecessary as to simply be naked is not by itself a sexual act. Most naturists also believe in the importance of self-identifying as naturist (as opposed to just enjoying nakedness namelessly without categorisation).

I’m a naturist myself and naturism (or nudism - in fiction I tend to use this term) plays a big part in my writing. Becky in Best Friends With a Naked Girl identifies as a nudist, and Brave Nude World is about an alternate version of America where public nudity becomes a protected legal behaviour - those who take advantage of this new right are called nudists. In my short stories, the protagonist of What Was Found When Lost is nude because she is visiting a nudist retreat, and Roommate’s Revenge has a nudist co-habiting with a clothed girl.

I confess that as an author who is also a naturist, the idea that fellow naturists might enjoy my stories is very appealing.  Yet, I have to also acknowledge that for many naturists, there are aspects of my work that would be problematic.

For starters, my books and stories are unashamedly erotica. Although I think they are very much on the soft-core side of the adult market (while there are sex scenes and masturbation scenes they are fairly lightweight), they are definitely "adults only".

Many naturists would likely find little to approve of in stories which use naturism, or a version thereof, as the basis for sexual escapades. After all, real naturism isn’t particularly sexy, and for the most part it isn’t done for sexual reasons (adult swinger-type resorts aside). But we live in a world that sexualises all nudity, and so people who choose to be visibly naturist are often fighting against that perception in order to gain more social acceptability for their lifestyle. When it turns up in porn and other adult entertainment, naturism is often depicted in a very unrealistic way, with the sexual possibilities of people being uninhibitedly nude together brought to the forefront; all of which gives a very misleading impression of naturism to the wider world.

So how do I, as a naturist, justify writing books in which the practice of being naked is often sexualised, when the reality for me is that naturism is not a sexual experience?

I admit it is something I have pondered myself, and my justification comes from the fact that I believe that there remains a place for sexual nudity, and that practicing naturism is less about the complete eradication of sex and more about understanding that sexual and non-sexual nudity are both good, positive things.

To any naturists concerned about my work, I would send a message that despite the fact that my stories undoubtedly use nakedness to titillate the reader and create erotic tension, I am always careful to draw a line between sexual nudity and non-sexual naturism.

In Best Friends... Becky has a conversation with Lisa where she explains how she sees a distinction between her nudist lifestyle and the exhibitionism that she also enjoys:



In Brave Nude World, a much longer conversation takes place between main character Rachel and her friend Amber, exploring how shares nudity can be both a non-sexual experience but still naturally prompt sexual thoughts in certain situations, without the innocence of nudism being harmed:

I don’t think that naturism is sexual, but I think that while we understandably benefit from drawing a line between non-sexual naturism and sexualised nudity, it doesn’t follow that sexualised nudity is bad; and if we are to truly be able to treat nakedness as natural we need to acknowledge that both can exist simultaneously.

By that, I mean that I don’t stop finding my wife attractive and her body desirable just because we practice naturism together. Likewise, just because my characters are involved in some version of nudism does not mean they are not going to explore their own sexuality and embark upon various sexual adventures in my erotic fiction (many arising from the uninhibited moments created by that nudism).

Some naturists may find this unacceptable but for the time being I am going to continue writing about themes of nakedness in a way that interests me.

I'm no hero (!) and I'm certainly not perfect. In the past I have written stories which pander to some of the least-positive porn stereotypes about naturism (although I'm proud to say the tired old 'nudist camp orgy' scenario has never been used in any of my work), but I'm not ashamed to have explored more controversial areas in my fiction, even if it would get me exiled from the 'club' of online naturists who scream "NO PORN" at the top of their lungs on Twitter.

But I'm also interested in alternative perspectives. I've not encountered many authors who manage to marry naturism and fiction in a way that creates interesting and compelling stories without acknowledging sexuality, but I'm always open to suggestions and recommendations from fellow naturists and others who might have an idea of books that do it 'right' (and don't disappear up their own fundament of dullness).

I even have long-term plans to write my own: I've begun plotting out a non-erotic romantic comedy about naturism. For those readers who want to read about naturism but are put off by themes of exhibitionism and sex scenes in my published work to date, I hope this will be more their cup of tea.

'Brave Nude World' is now available

My second novel, Brave Nude World, is now available to buy as an e-book from Amazon (for Kindle).

Brave Nude World tells the story of an alternate near-future United States in which public nudity has become legalised, and protected as a right by law.  In the years following this legalisation, the practise of going nude in public rather than wearing clothes starts to become more commonplace, and a new nudist movement begins to grow and become more visible, especially in urban areas.  However, society is still catching up with legislation, and people are still adjusting to the idea of naked people in their midst, with old taboos only gradually being eroded.

The novel is told from the point of view of Rachel, a 24-year-old designer living in a big (unnamed) US city.  Rachel has never felt inclined towards being a nudist before, but in the world of the novel, where she sees naked people on the subway, in the park, on the street and in the workplace, she becomes more fascinated by and drawn toward going nude in public and, in experimenting with this, finds herself exploring new sides to herself, including a hitherto undiscovered exhibitionist streak.

My attempt in writing this story is to bridge a gap between my interest in writing about nudism/naturism, and my interest in writing erotic fiction in which exhibitionism and public nakedness figures prominently.  The world of the novel is a "realistic" nudist utopia - there are no barriers preventing people from going about their lives naked save some remaining social taboos (which are explored in the text).  However the main narrative is as much about Rachel's self-discovery and evolving sexuality as it is about her finding a place in this new and more permissive society.

I've read many stories of alternate worlds to our own in which going nude in public is permitted (and in some cases even enforced) but none which consider the gradual social changes that would need to accompany any legal changes before nudists could freely walk the streets unclad without a care.  Brave Nude World is my attempt to show a society in stages of transition, as it approaches the clothing-optional utopia imagined by some naturists, without being quite there just yet.

I hope the novel will be appreciated by naturist readers who will enjoy the premise and aren't uncomfortable with sex and sexuality (and who can understand and appreciate the discussions the central characters have about sexuality in a clothing-optional society) as well as my core audience who just like reading about girls going about in public with no clothes on.

You can get Brave Nude World here:
Amazon

Brave Nude World: A Preview

My next novel, Brave Nude World, is coming soon.

In the novel, public nudity is no longer a crime in the United States, and a new generation of nudists has begun to become visible in towns and cities around the country.  In this brave nude world we meet Rachel, a 24-year-old designer living in the big city.  Rachel has never considered nudism before but in a world where much more freedom is possible, she finds herself gradually and inexplicably drawn to the world of the nudists, and all the possibilities and problems it brings her.

Below is an extract from this forthcoming work.

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Summer, or at least the season’s earliest form, arrived in the city, and I began to take my lunch in the park.  I do the same every year – it’s pretty common for us office types to take an hour or so and catch some rays there, so it’s always fairly busy.  Some days I even wear a bikini under my work clothes, so I can work on my tan over lunch.  I’m not especially vain but I’m blonde and I think my skin looks better when I’ve caught a little sun.

Of course, this was the year of the nudie, and so for the first time I noticed that the sunbathing people in the park included some who had taken off all their clothes, and decided to sunbathe naked. It was probably only a half-dozen people – at the most, ten, although I didn’t sit and count them.  Some were in pairs or in a group together, some were solo.  Just laying or sitting on the grass, chilling out, minding their own business – men and women.  But all of them nude.

It was the most naked people I had seen in one place, but for some reason it was also the least surprising.  It made sense that if you were going to go nude in public, you would do it on a fine sunny day, in the middle of a green space like the park, to work on your tan.  The girls in the subway station or guys like Chris and Martin didn’t really make sense to me, but the people tanning in the park somehow did.

That’s probably one reason why, after not many more visits, I decided to join them.
I’d been to the park a few lunchtimes that week, and had been doing my usual trick of going to work in a sundress and bikini, and whipping the dress off for half an hour to tan, read and eat lunch before getting back to the office.  But that day, call it fate if you like, I’d accidentally dressed hurriedly, and had worn regular underwear rather than a bathing suit beneath my dress. No big deal though, I thought when I realised my mistake, I didn’t need to sunbathe every day.

But lunchtime came around, and as I headed to the park I noticed how it was particularly hot and sunny today, and it began to seem like a real shame that I wasn’t going to feel the sun on as much of my skin.  Then I reached a suitable spot, and my eyes spied nearby two blonde women, about my age or maybe a couple of years older, who as I watched removed all their clothing and lay down, naked, on the grass to tan.

I wondered to myself.  Dare I do it?

I knew the law was on my side. But here, in the park, it also seemed like culture was on my side.  While the vast majority of people visiting the park were clothed or (like I had planned to be) wearing swimwear, the two women weren’t the only nudies visible.  It felt, to me, like a place where to be naked would be considered not just legal, but within the limits of what was socially acceptable.  I decided, with a little smile to myself, to give it a try.

I’m not a prude about my body.  Get me in the bedroom with a good looking guy and I will fling myself around in sexy underwear or nude with complete abandon.  I’m never self-conscious in the women’s locker room and, hey, I live alone so sometimes I walk around naked in my apartment.  Who doesn’t do that?  But those were all one thing – taking my clothes off in a completely public place in the middle of the city is another thing entirely for me, and I felt flutters of nerves at my decision.

Not so much, though, to put me off doing it.  I decided to move nearer to where the other two nude women were – safety in numbers and all that.  I didn’t want to get too close, though, in case they thought I was coming on to them or something.

Satisfied that I was in a suitable spot – nearer to the nude women, farther from everyone else – I took a deep breath and pulled my dress off over my head.  I paused for a moment, looking round.  Then I reached behind my back, unhooked my bra and wiggled out of it.  Finally, I slipped my panties off and laid my clothes down on the grass.  I rolled over onto my stomach, using my dress as a blanket between the grass and my skin.

I looked around me, cautiously.  Absolutely nothing had changed.  No people were coming to attack me, or arrest me, or perv over me.  Nobody was really even looking in my specific direction.  They were all just busy engaging with their own lives, absorbed in their own worlds.

I was completely naked, in a park in the middle of the city, in sight of who knows how many people – and everything was fine.

I lay down and enjoyed basking in the sun for a while, feeling the warmth on my bare butt, before rolling over again on to my back.  I put my arms up behind my head.  I was totally exposed now.  I looked down the length of my body – the peaks of my breasts, nipples pointed at the sky.  My ribs, the flat curve of my stomach, dented with the well of my belly button, then leading down, a tiny, barely-visible trail of silky hairs connecting with the fine, patch of curly light brown hair on my mound.  I don’t shave my pubic hair but it grows fine and neat so it looks as though I spend a lot more time on personal grooming than I actually do.

The notion that I was nude in public was somewhat exhilarating.  I thought back to my only real previous experiences with nude sunbathing; specifically the first time I tried it – as a teenager, in the back yard of my parents’ house while everyone was out.  Then, I jumped and reached for my bikini at every noise, imagining mom, dad, my brother, the whole high school football team and the marching band about to come streaming through the gate and catch me tanning in my birthday suit to try and eradicate my white marks.  It had been such an anxious experience that I had not dared to repeat it more than a handful of times in my life, and when I moved to the city a series of apartments had meant I no longer had any sort of yard in which to tan.  The parks had become my yard instead, but I had never dreamed I would one day sunbathe not just fully nude in these public places, but with a confidence I’d never had at fifteen or so.  Who could ever have expected that?

After a while I realised that the other two women, whose examples I had followed, had slipped their outfits back on and left.  I alone in this area of the park was nude.  Yet I didn’t feel uncomfortable or worried.  I was no different to any other sunbather, other than that I had not even a bikini covering myself – but my experience had taught me that this was a safe place to lie almost-nude in the sun, why not fully nude?  Public nudity was allowed now, and it was only the social contract we observe – and my own sense of modesty – that discouraged it in me.  But here, with no friends, family or colleagues, only strangers minding their own business – here nakedness seemed a reasonable state to be in.

My lunchbreak over, I reached for my clothing.  I experienced a peculiar sense of disappointment as I dressed.

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Keep an eye on my Amazon author and Goodreads author page to see Brave Nude World when it is published.

Writing About Naked People

It's been two weeks since I first threw my debut erotic novel, Best Friends With A Naked Girl, out into the world of Amazon Kindle.

Sales have exceeded what I expected (in that I have sales - I fully anticipated that nobody would ever buy a softcore niche-fetish coming-of-age lesbian love story from a first-time author with no experience of selling or marketing a book), and I've been working where I can on raising the book's profile with potential readers using social media.

To that end I've spent rather too much time in the world of naturism on Twitter.

Why naturists - or as some would have it, nudists?  Well, I admit that the majority of naturists wouldn't consider reading an erotic lesbian coming-of-age story about exhibitionism (or at least, wouldn't admit to it!), but there are certain themes in my book that cross over a little with that particular world.  Becky identifies as a nudist as well as an exhibitionist, after all - and there's a strong philosophy about accepting nakedness, about being proud of who you are and about problematic societal attitudes to women who choose to not be covered up all the time.

So I've been seeking out particular Twitter figures who promote naturism and pro-nudity stuff to try and subtly make people aware of my work.

There's another reason for this; I'm a little more familiar with that world, having been involved in social nude recreation for several years now, having first become interested in it in my mid-20s.  Although I choose not to apply the term naturist to myself, I'm not averse to doing naturist things, in particular nude spas, beaches and social events.  I keep the writer side of myself away from these things (hence the pen name) because there are some in naturism who would not approve of the fact that someone who writes sexy stories about naked girls might also be taking part in a nude social event - while I feel both my writing and my nude recreation are compatible, I know others don't share that view.

But regardless, I've found myself suddenly putting my view across about nudity and nakedness, and naturism, on social media, rather than just focusing on my writing.  I do have certain opinions about these subjects; many of which I try to communicate in my fiction.  I try to give a sense of fun and enjoyment of nudity; try to depict social and casual nakedness as well as the sexual side of what is enjoyable about being nude; and try to present a very "body positive" viewpoint from my characters.

I use nudism in my work too because it's a useful short-hand explanation of why a character might have no compunction about taking off their clothes in front of friends or family or even a stranger.  It's an established trope, showing why a character might not have a taboo about nudity even when others around them do.

I also use nudism in my work because I enjoy writing characters, especially women, who have a certain amount of self-confidence.  If you're someone who routinely gets naked with or in front of other people, you are likely to be someone who has confidence in yourself, and that is the sort of person I like to put in my stories.

What I don't like to do is what some other authors of erotica do, which is to use nudism and nudists in an absurdly cartoonish way in their fiction; for example, writing a story about a "nudist camp" which is full of partner-swapping swingers, group orgies and even incest.

That's not interesting to me as a writer, it belongs to the past, to 1970s sex comedy films full of "naughty nudists".  I don't think it's very sex and I also find it very unrealistic.

What interests me more are modern day, 21st century attitudes to nakedness and nude recreation.  My characters are usually young people aged 18-30, they aren't really interested in the seaside-postcard, holiday-camp version of naturism.  They're more aware of things like Instagram body-positivity, the neo-hippy movement, and general changing attitudes to body shame that are happening across their generation.  How do these people explore their own identity within these type of ideas?  How do they explore their sexuality with them?

Sex and sexuality is often a taboo subject in naturism, for the simple reason that naturism seeks to break the instant linking of nudity and sex, arguing that mixed gender, cross-generational nude recreation is perfectly natural and not likely to produce any more sexual feelings than socialising clothed would.  That's not something I disagree with personally, and I can support that with my own experiences.

But I'm also writing about sex, a lot of sex.  The main narrative purpose of my books is to describe sex and relationships, and the main thing people are reading them for is the sex.  I hope they also enjoy the characters and the plot but, well, it is erotica, there's going to be some fucking in there and they're going to be disappointed if there isn't.

As it happens, I think the sex in my stories is fairly soft-core.  It's smutty, sure, and descriptive, but it tends to just be quite mainstream in terms of what the characters get up to.  Many excellent erotic writers take their wagon far down the roads of kinky, explicit, hardcore filth but I'm happy hanging out in the parking lot.

But is the association between characters being nude and identifying as nudists, and them being described having (relatively soft-core) sex something that means my work gives a version of nakedness which naturists would find objectionable?

I would hope that it would not, and that people with an interest in both the innocent, positive side of being naked, and the fun and sexy side, find something in my work they like.  Ultimately, I write what I want, but it's nice to think some people at least enjoy and appreciate it (and of course, buy the book!)

Best Friends With A Naked Girl can be read now on:
Amazon Kindle
Smashwords

'Best Friends with a Naked Girl' is now available

If you've enjoyed my fiction and come to this blog because erotica themed around exhibitionism, public nudity and nudism appeal to you, I have good news - you can now read my very first complete novel, available to buy on Amazon Kindle for the low, low price of $2.98 (about £2.21).

You'll find it on sale here:
'Best Friends with a Naked Girl' by A D Rowen on Amazon Kindle

If you'd told me at the start of 2017 that about 12 months into the future I would have an entire novel written and published (even self-published on Amazon Kindle), I would never have believed you.

I've tried before to write novels.  Non-erotic ones, these, since I was maybe 16 years old.  I've deliberately sat down at my computer, made lists of characters, plotted out what is going to happen, written a few hundred or even a few thousand words... then gotten bored, bored of filling in the necessary plot between the few scenes I had imagined in my head.  My approach to writing long-form fiction was a little like making a film trailer from a film that didn't exist - everything looked very cool but there was nothing of substance behind it.

So how did it come to be easier to write an erotic novel?

Well for a start, my book is hardly an epic.  At about 300 pages, it's the "right" length for a decent read, but it's hardly The Lord of the Rings.  By curtailing my ambitions for something more achievable, I managed to overcome the sense of being daunted by how much there was still to do, which I always found put me right off the experience.

Also, I never deliberately set out to write a novel.

'Best Friends...', as I may have mentioned, began as my first ever sequence of short erotic stories, the 'Lisa & Becky' series.  The idea had come to me to tell the story of an exhibitionist and her friend, who wasn't.  I'd enjoyed stories about exhibitionism, public nudity, and the CFNF (clothed female/nude female) trope, but I wanted to put my own twist on those themes, and focus not on the exhibitionist herself, but tell her adventures through the eyes of a friend whom she had managed to rope into being a bit of an accomplice to her developing kink.

As the idea evolved it became apparent to me that things would be more amusing and fun to read if the two protagonists had some unresolved sexual tension, that was going to be exacerbated by the fact that Becky was always taking her clothes off in places where she shouldn't.  So, in a way, it became both a story about exhibitionism, and also about a young woman developing a very real crush on her best friend, and all the emotional baggage that might entail.

I'd already got too much material for one story - I planned for the two girls to have a series of adventures - but I never envisaged it as a novel.  Instead I was interested in publishing the stories on the website Literotica, and I favoured a model there where the stories can be read as individual ones, but are also part of an overall sequence.

So part one had Becky and Lisa going camping, part two had them doing other stuff (such as Becky stripping off in the cinema) and then I'd planned a part three where the two would meet up at university and more exhibitionist fun would ensue.

That was as far as I got.  My ambition outstripped my ability and I quickly found it hard to feel enthusiasm for the characters, who seemed stuck in a bit of a loop and not a happy one.  Part three never got published, and I'd no idea where they would go in part 4 and how long I wanted to drag this nonsense out for.

Flash forward a year.  I'd written some other stories on Literotica, singular short stories about exhibitionism, public nudity and naughty nudists, which had been well received and which I had enjoyed writing.  I decided to try and come up with a longer story, which as time went on, crossed the finish line first for novella and then full-length novel.

That novel was called... 'Brave Nude World', about a version of our world in which public nudity becomes legally permitted but is not yet fully socially-acceptable, and it will be out later in 2018!

But what of Becky and Lisa.  Well, confidence given a boost by the feedback I'd been getting and by the fact that I'd actually managed to write something long enough to be called a novel, I decided to go back to my earliest work with renewed enthusiasm - and no small amount of changes I wanted to make.

Gone was Lisa's narration which, while fun, forced the action to take place only when she was around and with frequent and repetitive intrusions from her own psyche.  Instead I opted for still telling the story from Lisa's point of view, but in third person, giving me chance to divert away to other things happening (such as the prologue chapter, which tells the story of an encounter with the girls from the point of view of a third party, or very late in the book, which relays an experience of public nakedness from Becky's point of view).

Gone too was the notion that Lisa was constantly embarrassed and/or exasperated with Becky.  While that had been fine as an initial concept, in practice it just led to stories where the two were practically on the verge of falling out - especially because it made it seem as though Becky was always incredibly self-interested and oblivious to her friend's discomfort.

In this new version, Lisa actively encouraged Becky in many ways, only becoming doubtful when she feared their activities might have gone too far (and this was something Becky acknowledged too, making her more aware of how her exhibitionism might affect others).

Those two major changes helped inspire me to write a great deal more of the girls' adventures, now flowing together in a much more natural way and, before I knew it, I had a novel on my hands, and no difficulty taking it towards a natural conclusion.

So it seems that I might not be a great novelist on purpose, but I can accidentally at least come up with something I'm proud to put my (pen) name to and enjoyed creating!

Behind the Scenes: Roommate's Revenge

(My latest story, Roommate's Revenge, has just been made available on literotica.com.  You can read it at the link below.  I thought I would use this post to talk a little about the story, I hope to do the same with all my stories here in future).

Fed up with her nudist roommate ruining her dates, a scheming young woman carries out a revenge prank – but her roommate won’t be beaten so easily.

Roommate's Revenge

This was a story that grew out of one of the short caption tales I was putting onto Tumblr.  The original photo showed two young women cooking in an apartment – one clothed, one nude.  I saw this and and I spun something about having a roommate who is a nudist, and the difficulty the clothed roommate had with bringing home dates.

That spiralled into a tale of one-upmanship between the two girls – the (initially) sweet and naïve nudist and the more confident and aggressive narrator – that ends with the two giving in to passions that neither of them had previously realised they had.

It’s a bit of light fun, and was the last short story I wrote before beginning work on my novel-length tales.  It languished on my hard drive for a while but I recently found it and realised I had never shared it, so I decided to do so even as I am gearing up to ready my new novel for publication.