Public Nudity on the Big Screen

Regular readers of this blog and my fiction will note that I tend to stick to a few particular themes, and probably the dominant one of these is public nudity (especially where my female characters are involved). Whether they are naked in public accidentally or on purpose, whether they are embarrassed by it or love it, it happens a lot in my stories and (suffice to say) if you aren’t a fan of this trope, you’re probably not going to like my work.

I’m certainly not the only person to make use of these sort of scenes in fiction though. There’s a lot of erotica out there which has characters indulging their exhibitionist sides, some of which I have written about before.

Away from erotica, though, the trope also turns up in more mainstream works, and is perhaps most memorable when it is used in films, as the strong visual image of a person (usually an attractive actress) naked in a public place where nudity would not be expected can be very striking. In this blog I’ll talk about a few scenes of public nudity in films that I’m familiar with, a lot of which have been an influence on my own work.

(There are links to these scenes in my posts below, please be aware some of them link to adult sites as it was not possible to find the correct clips on Youtube).

Splash (1984) 

For me, my first encounter with the “beautiful woman nude in public” trope in film was the movie Splash, a romantic fantasy comedy starring Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah. In the film Hannah plays a mermaid who saves a young boy from drowning during her own childhood, and forms a permanent connection with him. When he has another accident at sea as an adult, she saves him again and, recovering his wallet, realises she can find him and make good on their connection. In this particular film, if a mermaid leaves the water, her tail transforms into legs, so this means Hannah is able to come out of the ocean and walk on dry land as a human woman; which she does, coming ashore to New York in spectacular and memorable fashion. Because she’s spent her whole life living in the ocean as a mermaid, Hannah’s character has no concept of clothes or modesty, and her transformation between mermaid and human doesn’t magic up clothes from anywhere, so she simply gets out of the water and begins her search for Hanks’ character at the Statue of Liberty, walking around completely naked in front of dozens of tourists and other onlookers. As she’s also a mute who is unable to explain herself, she winds up arrested (for “indecent exposure”) and it’s this that leads her to finally meet up with Hanks’ character when the cops discover she has his wallet in her possession and hope he might be able to help identify her and explain why she was walking around Liberty Island in the altogether.

The film doesn’t rely on just clever photography and the reactions of the extras to convey Hannah’s nakedness either; although her breasts are covered by her long blonde hair in true “Lady Godiva” style, we see her (or her body double?) from the back as she climbs over a railing approaching the statue, and she is definitely 100% naked in that shot!

It’s particularly memorable because of Hannah’s clever portrayal of complete innocence; her character has no idea there is anything inappropriate about walking around in public with nothing on,. I think “characters with no nudity taboo” are something I’ve had a liking for ever since seeing this film and while I've not explored that particular archetype in my fiction yet, I'd love to someday.

Watch the scene here.

Roxanne (1987)

Poor Daryl Hannah!  Not only was she walking around naked in public in Splash, a few years later she had her clothes off outside again in this modern-day retelling of the play Cyrano de Bergerac, co-starring her with Steve Martin and his giant nose.

But while in Splash Hannah’s character was innocent in her lack of modesty, here Hannah’s Roxanne is embarrassingly locked out of her house naked when her robe gets irretrievably caught in the closing door. She’s forced to venture out to neighbours' in search of clothing and assistance, doing her best to cover and conceal herself, arriving at the house of Martin’s character C.D. (the local fire chief). It’s their first meeting and sets up the romantic relationship they will eventually have in a typically cute and funny way.

This is probably a more realistic depiction of a character finding themselves naked in public than the fantasy of Splash – Roxanne is a normal woman and she just finds the experience embarrassing and frustrating, and does her best to make sure that she doesn’t lose all her dignity along with her clothes by sneaking around, covering herself with her hands and hiding from view when Martin’s character answers his door, all the while impatient to get herself back into her house. But it’s pretty much the classic “locked outside naked” scene for me.

Watch the scene here.

Not Another Teen Movie (2001)

It’s safe to say the majority of scenes of public nudity that I remember seeing have come from comedies; after all, naked people are funny. While we find nudity sexy, when it’s removed from a sexy situation it often just seems absurd and comedic; never more so than in this spoof of movies like American Pie and She’s All That.

In NATM, a recurring character is Areola, the Foreign Exchange Student, played by Cerina Vincent, who is a spoof of the character Nadia from American Pie. In American Pie, Nadia was a sex object fantasy character for the main male leads, with her nonspecific ‘European-ness’ suggesting she was much more liberated in terms of sex and nudity than her American counterparts. In NATM, the film exaggerates this foreign liberated sex fantasy character to an extreme degree; Areola is completely naked in every scene of the film, walking around the corridors of the generic movie high school in nothing but shoes and a backpack.

While this is titillating to the viewer, it’s also obviously played for laughs. Nobody finds anything much amiss in the fact that Aereola is completely nude; presumably because she is the sexy foreign student stereotype in a school full of deliberate stereotypes, so of course she’s going to be naked. She seems fully self-aware of what she represents, identifying herself (in an accent which is constantly changing) as “lust object for nerd boys who cannot get American pussy” – she gets subtitles even though she is speaking English and these subtitles conveniently leave gaps between the words so they don’t cover her nipples!

It’s all very silly but the actress (Cerina Vincent, who had never done a nude scene before and found portraying a constantly naked character to be a challenge, although she ultimately enjoyed the experience) is very beautiful and the joke works.

Of course, take away the humorous context from these scenes and you have basically every ‘nude in school’ story! I also enjoy the notion of a scenario in which a character’s nakedness (which would in real life likely prompt a lot of shocked reactions) is treated by other characters as perfectly ordinary and normal.

I tried to pay ‘tribute’ to Aereola with the character of Anna in my story Nikki’s Naked Weekend – Nikki’s vaguely Eastern European neighbour (I made her Russian in the final version but I’m told she isn’t realistic a depiction of a Russian girl at all – sorry Russian readers!) who has few qualms about stripping off when hanging out with Nikki during the titular weekend.

Watch the scene here.

The Names of Love (2010)

I’ve left this satirical French sex comedy until last purely because it contains I think probably a personal favourite scene of female public nudity for me.

It’s not a well-known film and much of the humour is apparently derived from the way it plays with the mores of French political alignments and activism in a way that might not really seem as funny to someone not well-versed in these (i.e. me). Sara Forestier plays Baya, a young far-left wing activist who believes she has the perfect weapon to convert right-wingers and conservatives to her point of view; she sleeps with them and once they have enjoyed a left-wing woman sexually, they usually find themselves agreeing with her politics too.

As this is a French sex comedy we see an awful lot of Baya but amusingly this isn’t always intentional on her part (although she does have the hippyish quasi-nudist habits a lot of films give to young European lefty characters as a shorthand for their liberated, anti-bourgeois beliefs). Baya is depicted as adorably clumsy and lacking in self-awareness, her top occasionally falling open or falling down to reveal her bare breasts at inopportune moments.

This is taken to extremes in one scene in which Baya is in the middle of towelling off after a shower when she receives an urgent phone call reminding her she needs to buy someone a birthday present. Distracted and in a hurry to get on her way, she grabs her bag spectacles and slips on her shoes and leaves her apartment, bound for the Paris Metro – apparently utterly unaware that she is stark naked. She remains sufficiently distracted by her phone conversation to make it to the Metro and on to the train, before the disapproving reaction of a Muslim couple sitting opposite her finally clue her in to the fact that she’s forgotten to get dressed; she is of course then enormously embarrassed.

(Fortunately her romantic interest - amusingly already waiting for her to return to the supermarket where she had left him buying groceries for them to have a meal together - spots her walking naked through the street to the Metro station and catches up with her as she disembarks the train, loaning her his suit jacket to cover up with and end the adventure).

I legitimately love this scene because it’s so improbable. The idea that a real woman would be so scatterbrained (Baya herself exclaims "I'm so muddle-headed!") that she would actually walk out of her apartment, into the street and even wait for and board a train, all without realising she had no clothes on, is absurd; even if you were so used to nudity that you could forget to cover up before stepping outside your front door, surely the sensation of things like a breeze on rather more of your skin than you usually would alert you before you got much further? But Baya (who is very lovely) strides confidently down the street in her birthday suit completely oblivious – she even initially mistakes the reaction of the Muslim couple to the sort of disapproval she (as a liberal) expects to receive from more conservative religious types, and it’s only after a few seconds that she glances down and realises, yep, I’m naked. At which point her facial expression is perfect.

I liked this scene so much I borrowed a still from it to show my cover artist what I wanted to have on the cover of Brave Nude World:

Watch the scene here.

There are probably many more scenes from films I have forgotten, so perhaps I'll revisit this topic in another post. Feel free to recommend any of your own favourites too.

New Story! NIP - Nina In Public

After a long break (I was working on my next novel, and then I was laid low with seasonal allergies that left me with little energy for writing), I've returned to where I started, and posted a new short story on Literotica.com, where anyone can read it for free.

This time I've actually done so to enter a contest the site is running in honour of National Nude Day, which is apparently a real thing and takes place on July 14th.  The contest requires authors to submit a story which is themed around nudity - suffice to say I had no difficulty there!

My latest story is called NIP - Nina In Public.  The title is a little pun - NIP usually stands for Naked/Nude In Public, which is certainly the premise of the story; but I called the main character Nina, so that works too. 

Nina is a camgirl/self-employed erotic model and she finds herself going off to fulfill the video request of a particular client with a fetish for public nudity; needless to say, things don't go according to plan, and when she has her bag with her clothes in stolen, Nina's left with no choice but to go out in public naked, no matter how embarrassing it gets.

You can read the story here.

Here's a few additional bits of information about the story, if you're interested (you may want to wait until after reading it in case these count as spoilers):

• Nina isn't based on anyone in particular but her perspective on sex work and the way she got into it are inspired by an old friend of mine who is an online sex worker and has been for several years now.  Girls who make porn are people and sex work is real work, I have nothing but respect and support for women who do that work through their own choice.  Be nice to camgirls, don't steal their vids or abuse them.  And don't look down on your friend who does it.
  
• This is the first time I have written a classic ENF (Embarrassed Nude Female) / forced public nudity story (the typical 'person gets naked outdoors, loses or is cut off from their clothes and ends up having to go naked in public view' tale).  I haven't done one of these before because it's hard to come up with interesting and original ways to have a person be naked and lose track of their clothes outdoors.  The all-time classic is the person whose clothes are stolen while skinnydipping, or the "locked out naked" scenario.  I have read some very good stories where the central character experiments with a little impromptu nudism or nude sunbathing and their clothes are taken then.  Or, a couple who get amorous and their clothes are taken while they're making love.  And that's about it.  So, Nina doing a sort of "dare" (for money) and filming it is a slightly different take on the scenario, which I haven't read elsewhere before.
  
• Often in these stories, exposure/humiliation seems to be a sort of karmic punishment for the woman as a result of them transgressing sexually (exploring nudity or sexuality).  I was trying to avoid that here, so of course Nina ends up having quite a good time and getting hella laid despite her initial embarrassment.  I wanted good things to happen to her, not bad.
  
• Originally the story was going to be a tale with a twist, I abandoned that as I couldn't make it work.  I figured in the end a more light-hearted story was better so I introduced Ryan and had him and Nina getting it on (because it is porn, at the end of the day!).  See if you can guess what the twist was going to be though!
  
• Although I don't say, the story takes place in July.  That's why Ryan is home, he's actually finished college for the summer, but Nina forgets this.
  
• Nobody has two computer chairs in their bedroom but I wanted the two of them sitting next to each other so that's what we ended up with.
  
• I've no plans for further stories with these characters, sorry!  Like most of my short stories this is a one-off.

'Brave Nude World' and the World Naked Bike Ride

As someone who recently published a novel about a world in which public nudity is permitted under law, I thought I would write a short post here about an event, which takes place in cities all over the world, in which public nudity isn't just permitted, but is largely the norm - the World Naked Bike Ride (WNBR).

I've participated in the WNBR once, in London a few years ago, and I found it a mostly positive experience.  I'd do it again except my calendar never seems to align with the event, but maybe next year or after I will be back there.

The book Brave Nude World, and the social change that it depicts, was in part inspired by things like the WNBR. At the WNBR, you see people who might well balk at the prospect of being naked in public at any other time seeing the event and thinking, why not?  Either because they want to help support the ride's message, or simply because it would be a new experience to ride a bike naked through the streets of one of the world's major cities; the participants go outside the social norms and (hopefully) find something positive in that.

That concept inspired my writing because I wondered about the experiences of those who took part in the WNBR and went fully naked (not everyone does), having never done anything like that before. Were they inspired by others to join?  Were they fearful or uncomfortable?  And did that fear pass?  Did the experience prove enjoyable, and did it lead to them re-evaluating how they felt about being naked in front of others?

These ideas, in part, led to the character of Rachel in Brave Nude World, someone who has previously not ever considered behaviour as radical as going naked in public but, now in an environment where this is more acceptable and where others are doing it and enjoying it, opts to not be a bystander but a participant, and as a result changes her worldview.

That said, however, the fictional world of Brave Nude World would, perhaps, not be compatible with the message of the WNBR.

In Brave Nude World, the nudists want public nudity to be not just legal (which it becomes) but unremarkable.  "As normal as putting on a sweater on a cold day" is a phrase which the book uses often.  The normalisation of public nudity is a key theme of the book.

But an event such as the WNBR demands resistance to the idea of public nudity as "normal". In order for its message (calling for a world in which cyclists are more numerous and, crucially, safer, as a means to encourage an end to dependence on fossil fuels) to be heard, it must stand out from the norm.  That is why the cyclists ride nude.  Because naked people are not the norm, and it makes them difficult to ignore.

That's why I've always disputed the idea that the WNBR is a "naturist" event, an annexation some naturists attempt because, well, naked people are naked people (ignoring the reason why the WNBR riders are naked).  But just like the "nudies" in my novel, naturists promote the idea that being naked is completely normal. The WNBR relies on it not being.

Perhaps, then, the WNBR would be a better fit for one of my other characters: Becky in Best Friends With a Naked Girl? 

Becky would love the WNBR, because she could be naked in public with maximum enjoyment and zero negative repercussions.  In fact (spoiler for Best Friends With a Naked Girl ahead) I almost considered using the WNBR as the setting for the finale of Best Friends..., but ultimately decided it would be more fitting for the girls to take part in an event where the number of naked people was a lot fewer and they were therefore much more individually noticeable.

In the fictional world of the novel, I like to imagine Becky as one of those people who lines up every year, naked on her bike, having a great time. 

Perhaps she even takes part in multiple events around the country where she can? And why not? Just as long as she doesn't drive to them - I genuinely have a huge objection to "naturists" driving in cars to London or Brighton in order to participate in a protest against reliance on cars, just so they can be nude in a public place. Take the train guys!

Brave Nude World and Best Friends With a Naked Girl are available on Amazon Kindle now.

'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.

Forced Nudity in The "Volunteer" and the Tami Smither series

It's probably become apparent now, but a central theme of my writing is scenarios in which a person (usually a young woman) is without clothing in a place where their nudity is the exception, rather than the norm.  Whether it's Becky in Best Friends With a Naked Girl streaking around the library at Lisa's university, or Rachel in my forthcoming novel Brave Nude World riding the subway naked, I seem to have a real weakness for putting naked people up against clothed people, often in public places.

In the majority of my stories, the people are naked because they want to be, because it's fun and enjoyable for them.  But imagine you weren't naked in public through your own choice but because you were somehow required to be - and for a very long time!  In other words, forced public nudity.

The concept of forcing a character to go naked in public concept relates broadly to the BDSM side of  the public nudity theme in erotic fiction.  To make a character be naked in front of other people is often to make them vulnerable, embarrassed, humiliated.  It's therefore the perfect action for a dominant character to do to a submissive one.  Much of this type of fiction is written in that mould.  A character does something they shouldn't, and is forced therefore to submit to the whim of an authority figure who, out of their own sadism, decides that the character should be forced to be naked in public.  It might be a mean boss making a secretary strip while at work to keep her job after a bad mistake, or a pervy college professor forcing a co-ed to attend class naked after they are caught cheating on a test. But the point is the humiliation and degradation of the naked submissive, who is robbed of free will and subjected to embarrassing exposure to teach them a lesson.

I was thinking about this concept in relation to what is one of my favourite public-nudity themed stories; The "Volunteer" by D H Jonathan.

On the surface, The "Volunteer" seems to be in keeping with that dom/sub, forced-public-nudity-as-humiliation power dynamic.  Pretty college student Dani screws up and cheats to get ahead, and is caught out by an influential sociology professor, Dr Slater.  Dr Slater uses the information about Dani's transgression to essentially blackmail her into taking part in a unique sociological experiment - she will test her fellow students attitude to nudity by attending class, social events and anything else on campus completely naked for the remainder of the semester - and pretend it is all her own idea.  The effect of her behaviour on others will be observed via a microphone and earpiece.  At the end of it, she'll not only have avoided academic punishment for her crime, she'll also be rewarded, enabling her to graduate debt-free and with the highest faculty recommendations to carry her to her future career.

It would seem, then, that we're about to have a classic dom/sub relationship between the professor and the student.  Dr Slater will force Dani to be naked, Dani will hate it, and the Doc will get off on the subsequent humiliation and degradation of the pretty girl while all the while sternly forcing her to do her bidding.

Except that isn't the book at all.  In fact, rather than desiring Dani's humiliation, the sociologists genuinely believe in their research (for some very personal reasons for Dr Slater, we later learn) and don't view what Dani is doing as any sort of punishment at all.

The only reason they blackmail Dani into "volunteering" is because they have been unable to find a genuine volunteer to take part and carry the study to a viable conclusion.  Desperation (remember, the Doc has some particularly personal reasons for wanting her research to succeed) pushes them down this dubious path, not a desire to assert authority or sadistically punish pretty girls.  True, they behave unscrupulously at times, and are ultimately no heroes.  But their motives remain somewhat higher than simply desiring Dani's sexual humiliation.

In the key scenes where Dani is persuaded to take part, or continue her participation, she always has a choice - she isn't going to be stripped against her will.  She can accept the consequences of her actions in cheating, and take the academic punishment that might well mess up her future dreams.  Or, she can undertake participation in an experiment where she will be naked in public for two months, in front of all her friends, peers and teachers, without even being able to offer the excuse that she's taking part in an experiment - but which will be over after that and, coming out of the other side of it, she will have financial security and a strong chance of getting the future she has always wanted.

Dani agonises over this choice - after all, wouldn't you? - but in the end she agrees to volunteer.  It might not have been a great choice, but she starts the experiment with the view that going around campus naked is the lesser of two evils compared to owning up to her misconduct.

Of course that lasts about two minutes before she realises what she's let herself in for - but rather than assert their authority and force her to stay naked against her will, the sociologists are supportive and even kind, constantly monitoring her safety as well as gathering their data.  Their role in the narrative, like many of the supporting characters, is to enable Dani's nakedness to continue even at points where she finds it unbearable - so, for example, a lecherous teacher who tries to assault her is quickly found out and dismissed - and they do so by making it more possible for Dani to cope, rather than by simply asserting their authority and threatening her with expulsion.

I'm inclined to compare The "Volunteer" to an earlier "naked in college" story - the Tami Smithers series, which begins with The Unintentional Nudist.  In this series, a college freshman panics when she is caught streaking on campus - an activity for which she fears she will be expelled - and explains her nakedness by stating that she has taken a religious vow to never wear clothing again.

Of course, Tami is then forced to make good on this hasty declaration and begin attending classes and everything else in the nude, not because she wants to, but because if she doesn't, the administration will know she lied (and is using the religious aspect of her story to claim protection from punishment on the grounds that it would be discrimination).

Where Tami's story and The "Volunteer" differ (aside from the fact that D H Jonathan has obviously put a lot more thought into shoring up his premise than the author of The Reluctant Nudist did: both require suspension of disbelief but Tami's story demands several crane-loads of suspension) is that Tami is from the start at odds with the authority figures in her college.  They seem to know - or outright know - that her story is a pack of lies - but as long as she walks the walk, they can't question her talking the talk.  As long as she continues to go everywhere naked, they can't prove she has lied - after all, who would ever pretend to be a person whose religion obligated permanent nudity if they didn't have to?  As her nudism is some sort of protected religious activity, to avoid a potentially costly discrimination suit, they have to force a confession from Tami that she made up her "religious nudist" status to cover up campus misbehaviour.

So they endeavour to either catch her out, or make her experience of being nude on campus so horrible and sexually humiliating that she gives up and confesses her lie.  They take sadistic delight in placing this naked girl in scenarios deliberately intended to maximise her exposure and embarrassment (for example, forcing her to do work placements in customarily male-only environments, or act as a life model in a series of ever-more-explicit poses) while constantly monitoring her behaviour for any sign of inconsistency in her religious nudism.  Even when, in later stories she leaves campus to visit home or travel, Tami finds the fear that the administration are still monitoring her means that she has no choice but to continue to be naked everywhere she goes, on the off-chance that some spy for the college might see her if she put her clothes on.  And of course, the more she does it, the worse consequences she will face if she ever cracks and confesses - her crime escalating from 'streaking on campus one time' to 'spending four years walking around in public completely naked' - so the more incentive she has to keep going.

The contrasts and commonalities between the two stories show two approaches to writing a "forced nudity" narrative.  Both are stories of young female college students pretending to be some sort of devoted nudist by going everywhere in public.  Tami has to pretend to be undertaking a religious vow, and Dani has to pretend she's a body freedom activist so that the integrity of the social experiment remains uncorrupted.  Both stories have to construct their narrative in ways that mean the protagonists continue to be naked in public long past the point where a real life woman would have said "screw it, I'll take the punishment for my original crime" and put her clothes back on.  And both use a young college student's natural obedience to authority figures to make that happen.

In the Tami stories, the authority figures are there simply to make Tami be naked 24/7 - they force her to endure the endless parade of humiliations they dream up in the hope of breaking her spirit.  But in The "Volunteer", the authority characters are, for the most part, on Dani's side. They want her to be able to continue her public nakedness even though they know it is difficult for her, and their primary concern is with keeping her safe.  They may have selfish reasons for doing so - they want their experiment to succeed - but from that selfishness comes a supportive factor that leaves Dani much less alone in her endeavour than Tami is.

It's one of the things that makes The "Volunteer" the better story, in my opinion.  In Tami's tale, humiliation upon humiliation is piled upon her while all the time she longs tearfully to be able to clothe herself and end this trial by endurance; as a reader, we start to become weary of her persistence.  Just take the punishment, you find yourself exclaiming as Tami once again laments her naked life and stares with longing at some clothes in a shop window.  No matter how much her college education means to her, her endless suffering seems somehow a disproportionate endurance.

But The "Volunteer" isn't about Dani enduring suffering.  It does a much more successful job of making her an agent in her own continued nakedness, as she gradually adjusts to each new experience and finds that, actually, this is something she can manage to pull off.  Of course, then events begin to escalate beyond the wildest imaginings of the sociologists - and beyond Dani's control - but by then she is in too deep and, again, manages to not just endure but adjust to and even enjoy her experiences.  The ending (which I will try not to spoil) leaves you in no doubt that Dani's experience of public nakedness has been a defining and ultimately positive one, no matter how difficult it was along the way.

Tami Smithers never gets a definitive conclusion.  Her stories are written by a multitude of individuals whose intent is to give the reader as much time to play in her universe as possible; and here status quo is the enemy, as instead of evolving and growing as a person, Tami starts and ends each new story the same utterly humiliated young woman, ever the victim of determinedly sadistic authority.  The stories about her aren't bad, although the original is kind of flat some of the later ones are written well and enjoyable to read up to a point, but I much prefer The "Volunteer" for Dani's spirit and agency than I do Tami's gritted-teeth endurance of her various authors' whims.

Read for yourself 
The "Volunteer" by D H Jonathan can be bought as an e-book or paperback from Amazon.
The Tami Smithers stories have various authors and can be found all over the internet.  The original story, The Unintentional Nudist, can be read here.

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: A Quiet Neighbourhood

A young college dropout develops a habit of streaking her sleepy suburban neighbourhood during the day.  When she meets a kindred spirit, adventure ensues.

A Quiet Neighbourhood

This is in many respects your typical exhibitionist tale.  A lone female protagonist develops a kinky liking for public exposure.  She meets someone who shares her kink and in meeting, the two find themselves pushing each other further in the boldness of their exhibitionism, and of course along the way find themselves in some sort of sexual encounter also.

As such, it’s probably not my best but everyone has to do one of these, and it was certainly a way of condensing a lot of the influencing stories I have read so as to start crafting my own, hopefully more original, works.

When I published this, some reader feedback involved complaints that it was contrived and unrealistic.  I would not disagree, but I would add that the scenario demands contrivance, and that ultimately the purpose of erotica is not social realism but stimulation, which sometimes requires a certain suspension of disbelief.  Is a young woman out jogging naked and meeting a similarly naked, attractive female motorist who just happens to be a neighbour, something that could ever actually happen?  Probably not, but it’s more fun than the alternative.

In the end, it’s fantasy.