Naked Pool Party Protocols

Note to my family members who read my blog-you may want to skip this one.

(That made the rest of you sit up, didn’t it!)

Today we went to the our Bear club’s 4^th of July pool party. It was a splendid time with food, drink, and swimming, followed by an outdoor viewing of “Sordid Lives’.

The swimming was clothing optional, and many did just that. The potential eroticism was balanced by the rules of ‘no romance’ allowed. Which gets me to topic de jour; the puzzles and paradoxes of nude public swimming.

In my lifetime I have spent a lot of idle time speculating on what may be under this or that man’s clothing. It is somewhat disconcerting to say the least to have this harmless past time made totally redundant at a pool where the swimmers are nude.
For there is a protocol - to stare or rest your eyes too long on some body (or part) violates the principle that there is nothing noteworthy about it, that is it the most natural, neutral thing in the world. Yet, people cover themselves up if they leave the poolside area.

Do bare bums gain and loose erotic value based on arbitrary territorial zones? To consider something thought of or touched in private with pleasure is now no more arousing than an exposed elbow? The notion is absurd.

Having sunglasses, dark as possible, is basic equipment for discrete watching. So is having a book – something to peer over or glance around just as that somebody is getting into or out of the pool.

“You aren’t making much progress with it” Someone said sarcastically. “You might want to move the bookmark from time to time for appearance’s sake”.

Perhaps the naked ones get a kick out the knowing that their viewers can not show any signs of arousal. Perhaps their partners share in the excitement in a vicarious way - especially if one’s lover is better endowed than the others. To intercept the enviable glance of another man at your boyfriend's backside, to think “that’s right buster, you can look, so long as it’s not too obvious, but only I’m allowed to touch him, see?” is exciting.

It all takes the notion of the Emperor’s new clothes to another plane.